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“Yeah.” I swallowed. “They are.”

She waited after my confirmation, giving me the space to share more without pressure.

“They’re better when you’re here,” I whispered, running a hand down her hair. When I reached the gap between her silk top and shorts, I absentmindedly ran my thumb across her spine, and she shuddered. I kept doing it. “You get through to me, Alabath.” I sighed, pressing a kiss to her head. “You save me.”

A small smile cracked her lips, though I wasn’t sure why. It was only the truth.

Pushing out of my lap and laughing at my disgruntled groan, Ophelia pulled me to my feet.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I have an idea.”

As Ophelia led me from the room, I swiped up a special book, having an idea of my own.

I followed her blindly—would follow her anywhere—down to a black-sand crescent of beach tucked beneath the bluffs. The waves roared in the distance, but in this secluded spot, the tide washed up gently.

“I noticed it earlier,” she explained, shrugging. Moonlight dripped over her long hair and all that exposed skin—sweetest temptation I’d ever seen and so damn hard to look away from.

I dropped the book to the sand.

“And what did you bring me here for?” I gripped her hips and walked her backward—toward the water.

Her eyes widened, lips parting on a smile.

I didn’t wait for her to answer. I tightened my hold on her, and threw her over my shoulder, taking off for the waves, my injuries feeling good as new with Ophelia so close. Her threats and my laughter echoed around us.

We plunged into that icy water and came up gasping. It stung the bones in my right knee, but I shoved it away. Ophelia’s eyes locked on mine, revenge burning beautifully in her gaze, and it took every shred of self-control not to stare at where silk clung to her peaked nipples.

“You’ll regret that, Vincienzo,” she promised, beaming as she leaped at me.

I ran, but her arms wrapped around my neck, legs around my waist as she stuck to my back.

For a while, we stayed in the waves, chasing each other as we had as children, like our lives weren’t now shredded by warfare and vindictive Angels. Stealing kisses when she talked back to me, running my hands over her body beneath the water, and allowing the ocean’s melody to steal our worries.

When we finally collapsed on our backs in the sand, both panting, Ophelia rolled her head to look at me. “Do you remember your fourteenth birthday?”

Reaching over, I brushed away the wet strands of hair sticking to her face, tangled with grains of sand. The soft smile it elicited from her was one of my favorites. I tucked it in my memory. “Our summer exchange in Gaveral,” I said. “You convinced me we should sneak out to celebrate.”

“Malakai and Cypherion thought we’d get in trouble so they didn’t come.”

“We raced through the waves for hours, and you got mad at me every time I won.”

“Your legs were longer!” she argued. Even now, so many years later, she argued.

I laughed, pushing onto my elbow. “That’s one of my most cherished memories, Alabath.”

“Mine, too, Vincienzo.” She fell silent for a moment, eyes searching mine. “Do you want to talk about it?”

No.

But I did want her to know. One piece at a time.

“You know that I nearly didn’t finish the Undertaking.” I’d admitted that to her the first time she heard my nightmares, in a cave hidden in the mountains where we were completely alone. Safe. “And the Mindshapers dragged up those feelings. All of those things—I think it stems from my father.”

“Your father?”

“Because of how he treated me growing up.” I’d always hid how my father felt toward me. Hid the scars it caused within me—and a few without—until we’d first traveled to the Undertaking. Leaving Palerman had given me perspective.