Page 107

The impact hits like a war drum. Metal crumpling, glass spider-webbing outward, the air forced out of my lungs as the world caves in around us. The force of it rattles through me, cracking bones that will heal, bruising flesh that will mend.

But her?

I keep her wrapped against me like I can smother death itself.

I don’t let go.

Even when we stop moving. Even when the others groan somewhere beyond the haze of impact, when the car groans on its broken axis like it's trying to breathe.

I don't let go.

Luna shifts under me, her fingers curling weakly into my shirt, her breath sharp and fast against my throat.

The world is still spinning sideways when I realize I can’t breathe.

Not from the impact. Not from the rain pounding against the crumpled metal like a war drum. But because there’s a sharp, unnatural weight in my chest—a foreign heat sliding down my ribs, warm and wet and pulling me under like a tide I didn’t see coming.

For a moment, I think it’s mine. It would make sense—my death’s been promised since before I had a name. I’ve wornthat prophecy like shackles, heavy and inevitable, waiting for the blow that would finally stick. But then her breath catches against my throat, small and shaking, and I know before I even look that something’s wrong.

Wrong in the way her body is too still beneath mine. Wrong in the way my stomach feels cold and hollow even though I’m burning everywhere else.

I force my eyes downward, and the air leaves my lungs like a knife twisting.

The steering shaft—jagged metal and unforgiving—has gone clean through me. The blood pooling under us is no surprise; I’ve felt worse and survived. But what’s lodged in my chest isn’t the problem.

It’s the smear of crimson on her skin. The delicate spill of it down her chest where the metal clipped her too. The sharp line of injury that might be shallow but feels like a fucking death sentence anyway because it’s hers.

The crack in me widens.

"Luna," I breathe her name like a curse, like a prayer, like the last thing I’ll ever say. She’s conscious, barely. Her lashes flutter when I shift my weight, and her mouth parts like she wants to speak, but she’s losing color fast.

I don’t move. I don’t dare.

My hand comes up, trembling, and I press it to her cheek with a gentleness that costs me everything because my hands were never made to be gentle. "Don’t move," I murmur, voice frayed at the edges, unraveling thread by thread.

She blinks at me, dazed and confused, trying to process why I’m pinned over her like I could hold back death itself.

And maybe I am.

Maybe I would.

I shift the smallest amount—enough to see the way her blood soaks through her shirt, slick and shining and too fucking red. Ican taste the copper in my throat, feel the way the universe tilts around her heartbeat.

"Stay still," I bite out again, firmer, even as something inside me fractures so deeply I’m not sure it can be stitched back together.

The others are groaning in the background. Metal creaks. Tires scream against the rocks below. I hear Silas curse low, hear Caspian’s sharp breath like he’s trying to force air back into his lungs, but it all fades beneath the roaring in my ears.

I tear my eyes from her for the first time.

Because I need him.

The only one who can slow time itself. The only one who might be able to fix what I can’t.

"Elias," I snarl, voice sharp enough to draw blood. "Get the fuck over here."

It rips out of me like a demand, like a scream, like a man who’s already lost everything but refuses to let this be the end.

Because if she dies here, under me, because of me—