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“It’s okay,” Naia assured Ronin in a smooth voice. “I can handle it from here.”

She spun around and a fist struck her sternum.

Naia sputtered out a gasp. Her chest muscles tensed, depriving her lungs of oxygen. The impact was so strong that it sent her stumbling backwards. She scraped her heels against the floor to stunt her landing. Her spine collided with the wall. Pain sprinted down her tailbone and into her ankles.

She gritted her teeth, fisting her hands.

A ghoul, once a man with a solid build, swung his arm out to strike Ronin. Naia screamed to warn him, but he was already swiftly dodging the attack.

The other ghoul was larger, its size comparable to a stout whale. His enormous fist sailed through the air, straight for Naia once again. Ducking, she felt the rush of wind as the ghoul’s knuckles missed her nose by mere inches.

Her mind quickly became preoccupied with Ronin’s safety, acutely aware of his fragility as a mortal. A single strike could cause severe bleeding or damage to a vital organ, risking his life.

The next swing the ghoul made, Naia caught his baseball sized fist and squeezed, feeling the bones in his hand shatter like plastic playthings. The ghoul yelped out in pain, and she reared her foot up, pushing the sole of her high heel into his gut. Its hefty body tumbled and crashed on the opposite side of the hallway.

Naia huffed out a breath.

Finnian could expect an earful from her the moment they came face to face. How dare his ghouls attack her.

She spun around to deal with the other one currently ambushing Ronin, to find it already on the floor, completely immobile and disoriented.

Ronin’s boot rested on the center of its chest. With his elbow propped on his knee, he intently observed Naia, brimming with a mixture of fascination and pompous inquisition.

She glared at him, sensing the wit of his unspoken words, daring her to ask how he did such a thing.

With the slight cock of his head and an arrogant raise of his brow, his gaze jumped to the unconscious ghoul across the hallway. It occurred to her then that it wasn’t what she thought. No, he waited to hear her explain how she could’ve possibly knocked a man twice her size onto his ass so easily.

There was nothing she could say. Therefore, instead, she mirrored the same cocky expression right back at him, awfully curious to know how he’d secured the ghoul at his feet. Had he bound it by a charm of some kind?

Ronin’s eyes grew cold. He straightened and removed his boot from its chest. His resolve to remain silent convinced Naia to do the same.

Who he was—what he was—did not matter. Come a few minutes, Ronin would leave her behind to continue with his life, and she would be only a distant memory in years to come with his old age. When his mortal body turned to dust and his soul entered the Land of the Dead, Naia would be nothing but a leaf flitting in the tailspin of his gust.

She stepped over the ghoul’s sprawled legs to the door.

Ronin followed silently.

Naia paused at the room’s entrance. Ronin stood beside her.

The box was, in fact, at the highest point of the hall. Across the room, Naia could see the ghouls wrestling on stage. They were ant-sized, slipping in blood puddles to gouge each other’s eyes out.

A majestic wingback chair overlooked the balcony of the box. She could make out an elbow resting on the arm, a hand clutching a champagne flute, and several figures stationed along the shadows of the room. Their eyes reflecting in the stream of light filtering through from the arena, like predators lurking in darkness. More ghouls.

“Finny?” Naia called out, hope flourishing in her gut.

Ronin’s arm tensed against hers.

She glanced over at him, surprised he had followed her this far.

Naia pulled her gaze away from him onto the silhouette of the arm, placing the glass on a nearby table.

The figure stood up from the chair and sauntered into the light, sneaking past the velvet drapery framing the opening of the box.

Naia’s eyes filled with tears.

I found him.

She sprang forward. “Finny!”