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Eve

Cain's voice filtered through my phone's speaker. "There has been no sign of Ellen still," He informed.

But I was not surprised. "It's to be expected." If she were that easy to find Hades would have found her by now. Even a glimpse but there had been none in or around Lunar Heights. The Valmonts were thorough like that.

An eerie dread filled the pit in my stomach as reluctant worry seeped in. Where had they kept her? It seemed for now thar only time would tell.

"You don't seem in the least bit surprised." He observed.

"I am not," I told him honestly. Just like I was supposed to be Hades' weapon, she would be Darius'.

According to the second portion of the prophecy, we were both immune to the effects of the bloodmoon, Lunar Cataclysm as it was called so she would as well be extracted. At least that was what seemed was likely to happen. But them again, it was Darius Valmont we were dealing with her.

There was another story beneath the surface, one more complicated.

The empty look in Ellen's eyes, my mother's outburst when it seemed like I was closet to the truth that they thought possible.

It was time to face the true foe. But we could defeat them unless all their deceptions, plans and

sins. Maybe a part of me wanted revenge but wouldn't...

"So we keep looking?" He asked.

"We keep looking." I affirmed. I had a big lunch that she was the one of bigger parts of this puzzle. She would know what we wanted to know.

"Thank you," I said out of habit. "For showing me..."

There was silence on the other that I had began to think he had disconnected the call. "I showed you so you would see more parts of bigger picture here." I told me, voice smooth and a bit cocky.

I still had questions. "How did you get your hands on it? How did you intercept it?" Even my parents had cut off the poignant parts of the footage. If not for him... again I would be left in the dark.

A chuckle bled through the line—low, dark, and infuriatingly smug.

"The same way I knew Hades planned to have you captured," Cain said. "Quick enough to warn you before the injection found its mark in your thigh."

I stilled.

My heart didn't skip a beat—it flatlined.

"How?" I asked, carefully.

There was a pause.

Then, with a voice slick as oil, he replied, "Eve, darling... you forget I've always been where the shadows bleed and the secrets rot. Whispers come to me like moths to flame."

I hated when he spoke in riddles. But something about it felt too close to the truth.

Still, before I could demand more, his tone changed—low, dangerous, intimate.

"But let's not forget," he continued, "we made a deal. A very specific deal."

I frowned, already bracing.

"And I will hold my end. You have a name and army behind you in this pack."

The air felt colder now.

"So you will hold up yours, Eve. Or the consequences will be... character building."

He didn't elaborate. He didn't need to.

The silence that followed said enough.

This was no casual alliance.

We both had things to gain. "Understood," I replied, just as I cut the call.

For the first time in days, the pressure eased.

The guilt that had gnawed at me, whispered that I was the monster in the woods, that I was the reason a child had no mother—it had cracked.

I wasn't innocent.

But I wasn't Danielle's killer either.

That weight... it didn't vanish. But it shifted. Became something I could carry without collapsing beneath it.

And with it came a kind of stillness I hadn't felt in weeks.

Then there was Elliot...

But he had his father now, the one parent he had left.

But the aching need for the child did not relent. We were becoming too attached, especially when my position here was not guaranteed after all this was over. Giving him false hope would be too cruel, but could I truly keep my distance.

Sleep found me fast despite my worry, wrapping around my limbs before I even realized I'd sunk into bed.

----

I stood beneath a sky the color of dusk-drenched lavender.

Soft petals fell around us like rain—slow, floating, unhurried.

In front of me stood Hades.

No horn. No shadows under his eyes. Just the man I remembered before the war, before the Flux had sunk its claws into him.

His hand reached for mine.

I let it.

The air between us shimmered with something sacred. Warmth. Forgiveness. A love too tired to hide anymore.

A small group of people stood around us, distant and faceless, dressed in white. Witnesses to a vow neither of us had planned to renew. And yet, the words were on my lips like they'd always been there, waiting.

We weren't crying.

We were smiling. Like it should have been

And then—

A flash of color.

A blur of motion.

Tiny, sure footsteps across the grass.

"Elliot," I breathed, my voice catching on the edge of joy and disbelief.

He ran toward us, arms out, hair curling at the edges, a flower crown lopsided on his head. His dimples showing as he smiled, like his father's.

I dropped to my knees, arms wide.

He threw himself into them with a giggle, warm and solid and real.

And then he turned up to face us, Hades crouched beside me now, his expression caught between awe and helpless wonder.

Elliot's mouth opened.

We both stilled—breathless.

In this place anything felt possible.

His lips moved. Soundless. Hope bloomed in my chest, wild and desperate.

Then—

A voice.

But not his.

Not a child's.

"You dream so well."

The words were wrong. Slippery. Oily. Too deep. Too old.

My body went cold.

"You hope so beautifully."

The grass withered beneath me.

The sky dimmed. My dress turned to a dreary grey.

Elliot's hands turned to ash in mine.

"But we both know joy is borrowed, Eve. And your debt is coming due."

Hades vanished. The crowd blurred into smoke.

Only the voice remained.

"We will have back.

The dream fractured—petal by petal, moment by moment—until there was nothing but a single, echoing sound.

Laughter.

Dark.

Mine?

No.

The Flux's.

"Vassir," I whispered with a voice that was not mine but sounded familiar all the same. It was not Rhea's either. "You promised..."

---

My eyes snapped open in an instant but the nightmare was nowhere from over as my body weighed a ton and above me, a breath away from my face where eyes.

The white were black, the iris, a bloody red that made my blood run cold.

The thing spoke, it's voice as deep, oily and as disembodied as the one in my dream. "You cannot escape me."

My head was cracked open with a white hot pain, the mate bond mark on my neck beginning to burn.