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Sylvi a

I wondered if he was coming.

The spectral plane had not felt so cavernous and lonely in a long time. Jon’s absence carved out a crucial part of this place. The cape-like sleeves of my ivy-colored top fluttered as I wrapped my arms around myself tightly—as though that might appease the ache in my chest.

I imagined Jon balking out there in the motel room, perhaps even refusing to join me. He could have no misunderstanding. I had made my sentiments clear when I snapped at him, laying down beside the spectral rune on the bedspread. I had whispered the spell without waiting on his hesitation.

Cliff’s expression in that moment was cemented in my mind, too, though I wished I could forget how his eyes had lowered, realization clicking uncomfortably between us. Without words, he chose to be an ally to us both. Pissed at Jon, but not nearly as much as he should have been. A selfish part of me wanted Cliff to be furious, wanted him to be on my side and mine alone.

I took a tentative, restless step across the horizonless void of the plane, periwinkle mist swirling in my midst. Time was different here, I reminded myself. Hours could be only a few minutes in the real world.

I ground my back teeth. He didn’t deserve those minutes—not when his betrayal had come to fruition in a matter of seconds. He owed me this.

Just then, something shifted in the air. It was subtle—not even a sound to mark the change. Perhaps entirely imperceptible to anyone else. I felt him , and I couldn’t decide if it was romantic or pathetic that I knew the instant when he occupied space near me.

I bolstered my courage before I turned. Jon looked like himself again. The damage from the morning’s bloodbath was cleaned and healed—the ice slash, bullet wound, and all. He was in clean clothes that only accentuated how achingly handsome he was. His dark hair was tousled, but it looked like he had combed his fingers through it to push it off his face. The vine restraints in Veloria had left angry bruises along his ribs and neck—but here, his skin was wiped clean, an even olive tone that almost glowed.

“Sylvia,” Jon breathed, his stare catching mine.

I craned my neck to hold his stare as he closed the space between us—though there was a primal part of me that wanted to look away, to look anywhere else. He was only a head taller than me here, but this time, it felt like more. My composure was like a thread stretched past its limit.

When Jon reached to pull me into his arms, that thread snapped. Red flashed in my vision, and I tore from his grasp. My hand cracked across his face. He flinched like it hurt, but I roiled at the knowledge that he couldn’t feel the physical sting of the contact.

“Fuck you,” I said.

He didn’t seem at all shocked, but the words stung where the slap could not. The longer I looked up into his face, the more my grief seeped into the anger. Around us, the spectral plane blossomed with deeper hues of pink—scarlet mist that swept in like a heavy fog from my fractured heart.

My voice dwindled into a soft croak. “Jon, how could you do that to me?”

His expression twisted with shame. His eyes swept over me and shuttered. “I’m so sorry, Sylv.”

“You trapped me,” I said, each word gritted out like poison.

“I know.”

“I thought we were in this together—a team . No matter our differences.”

“We are!”

“But you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you with my life,” Jon said. “I’m not so sure I trust you with yours .”

He eased closer. I stepped out of reach from his arms—those arms I craved so dearly. “What am I to you, if I’m not an equal?”

Jon’s jaw squared. His gaze flicked briefly to the charged mist around us, the luminous colors casting a glow across his skin. “Don’t talk like that, Sylv. That’s not—”

“Would you have caged Cliff?” I interjected. “Would you have done something like that to him ?”

“Maybe!” Jon fired back, waving a hand. “If the situation called for it. You were hurt . Flightless, wounded… You could barely fucking stand on your own two legs. You were in no shape to fight.”

I flinched at the force behind each word—at the truth there. But fire still roared in my chest, aching to burn him. “If the situation called for it,” I echoed snidely. “Years ago, did the situation call for getting Luke killed? Tell me, did he know he was bait, or did he figure it out when he was being ripped apart?”

“How did you…” He paled, shuddering out a breath that let me know I’d hit my mark. His lips pressed into a thin, bitter line. “Gwen.” But instead of anger, regret, and sorrow flooded his expression. “It was a job gone wrong, Sylv. I was younger, stupider. I thought I knew more than everyone around me.”

“That hasn’t changed one bit,” I muttered.

“Maybe,” he said softly. “But Luke was a hunter, and hunters go into every job knowing it could be their last. You… you didn’t sign up for this life. You’ve nearly died because of me—because of us —too many times. Out there, I saw it was about to happen again.”

Jon’s gaze softened. He studied me, then took a calculated risk and drew closer again. He cupped my face in one of his large hands, fingertips pushing through my chin-length locks. The slight tremble to his grip made me falter, made me seek his gaze again.

“I know you’re as selfless as you are stubborn.” His deep voice quavered. “Nothing I or anyone said would’ve stopped you. I didn’t want to grab that iron, but I had to make a choice. An awful choice—to protect you. ”

He made to take my hand, desperate to further the physical bond between us. I was suddenly and acutely aware that he was human and I was not.

But was he still fully human, if he could do such inhuman things?

“That’s not your job,” I hissed, shoving his chest. Jon’s hand fell away from my cheek as he let the blow push him back. “You’re not indebted to me! Don’t act like a caretaker, like I’m some damn child for you to worry over. What’s next, a collar?”

Jon’s eyes flashed angrily, sending a chill down my spine. He never looked at me like that. Not since he hunted me down in the old Dottage house, suspecting me of bloodshed. The sky around us darkened with plumes of silver and shadow. His colors.

“Fuck, it’s not that! You really think that’s how I see you?” Jon asked roughly.

“You tell me.”

His jaw set. “You’re insane if you think—”

“What the hell would you call that?” I all but shrieked, acid in my blood.

He snapped forward, seizing me by the shoulders. Shaking me. Shouting, “I can’t lose you!”

My voice was gone. I gaped up into the storm of emotion in his face—still beautiful even when frightening. As his raised voice hit me, the pink-crimson sky of the spectral realm vanished entirely behind the shadows like swirling black clouds had rolled over the sun. Wind gusted around us. I’d never conjured wind here before—it was him. My heart raced at the notion of what Jon was doing without so much as a whispered intention.

I felt limp in his grasp. His expression crumpled like he was grieving me right then, like he had grieved me a dozen times already. Though the plane dulled the heat between our bodies, Jon’s grip was bruisingly possessive, even as his hands moved from my shoulders to cradle my face.

“I can’t make the right call anymore,” he said, voice lower. “I would do terrible things to keep you safe. Because I—” He faltered, Adam’s apple bobbing in the strong curve of his neck. “Because I love you, Sylv.”

My mouth dropped open, but I couldn’t form a single word. Had he said this to me any other day, I would have been dizzy with joy. My heart clenched around his words, holding fast. But here, after what had happened—I was terrified.

You can’t love me, too .

We can’t be together.

Jon’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I know it’d be easier if I didn’t. I know that you deserve someone better than me.” His eyes shuttered like he couldn’t stand my stunned expression any longer. “Something’s changed in me since we met. I can’t ignore it anymore. When I’m with you, I—I’m not drowning.”

We can’t, we can’t, we can’t— but the reasons why were harder to remember when Jon held me like this. Like I was the only real thing in a fucked-up world.

There was no regret in his gaze when he dared to look at me again, but a certain resignation surfaced. I had no doubt then that he’d been harboring the same insecurities that burned through me like poison. Perhaps he thought I was coming up with the gentlest way to reject him.

Yes —that’s what I had to do. This was my moment, my chance to make the difficult choice to save us both. I would turn him away, tell him to find someone else. Anyone else.

My hand balled into a fist against his shirt. The firm wall of muscle pressed against my body had me magnetized.

I couldn’t stop myself.

“I love you, too,” I whispered. “A lot. Too much.” The words left me in a freefall—weightless and terrified. I swallowed hard, peering up into his face. I was broken for him, and he would break himself for me. “Why can’t you go find another girl who won’t hurt you?”

“I don’t want anyone else,” Jon said, unwavering.

I swore he could see right through me. It pulled tears into my eyes—happy, terrified tears.

“You’re crazy,” I scoffed.

His lips curved. “No more than you,” he said softly. His eyes kept flicking to my mouth. His grip was no longer desperate but tender.

Still, as my chest roiled with emotions, I resisted. “You can’t ignore how doomed we are,” I insisted. “Without a gemstone, you know we’re only a momentary dream. But you won’t admit it, will you?”

“The world is wider than Louisiana. There have to be other gems out there, waiting for you to get your hands on them.” Jon pulled a face, grimacing if only to pull a smile out of me. “Maybe a few of them aren’t surrounded by psycho warrior-fairies with a power fetish.”

Our faces were so close, I felt his breath against mine. “People look at us like we’re freaks. Even Cliff. My own mother would be disgusted. She would kill you if she knew—maybe me, too, while she’s at it.”

Finally, the smallest trickle of uncertainty lined his face. I saw it in the shadows that flickered in his eyes— yes , he knew. The way those villagers assumed I was his captive on sight. The way that killing me at the hunters’ outpost was the only way those bastards could understand why we’d exist within reach of each other.

“And what if they’re right?” I plunged on. I gestured up, though the real stars were a universe away. “What if this is wrong? Like cosmically wrong, us being together?”

The wind Jon had conjured became a gentle breeze around us, playfully tousling his hair to frame his dark, tender expression. Jon cupped my cheek in his palm, eyes electric. He brushed a thumb over my lips, delicately tracing. I suppressed a shiver. Where he had once been resistant and cautious, a new steadiness had taken over.

“Then I will gladly spend ages being horrible and wicked with you,” he said.

He ducked and kissed me hard, and I lost all resistance because I knew his promises were not made lightly. Just before my eyes fell shut, I saw the spectral plane surge with fresh color— our colors—mixing and flourishing into new ones. Radiance with the power to blossom and annihilate all at once. His mouth moved against mine, perfect and drugging. Jon’s hands moved slowly from my shoulders to my waist.

Hands that had slammed that fucking cage over me.

I broke the kiss, gripping his square jaw in my hand. I surfaced from my daze to fix him with a blazing look. Tension radiated through my palm as he froze obediently.

“All my life, I’ve felt trapped. You can’t be another person confining me. Not you . If you ever turn iron or cages against me again,” I said, low and ground-out, “you will never see me again. I won’t forgive you a second time.”

Wavering pain filled his stare. I was suddenly reminded of the pieces of his past I didn’t know. The six years between us felt gaping—years he had spent becoming more lethal while I was cloistered under the willow. I gripped him tighter, fingernails digging into skin as my pleading gaze bore into his.

“Swear you won’t ever do that again.” I had never heard the commanding growl come out of my own lips, like a vengeful noble.

Finally, Jon nodded in resolute understanding. “On my father’s grave.”

It was the heaviest whisper I had ever heard. Breaking this promise would shatter the very foundation of who he was—and part of me still wondered if that was enough. I exhaled, uncertain if there was any point in us trying to resist our true natures—a fairy who didn’t know when to stop, and a hunter who would do unspeakable things to protect her.

The inches between us suddenly burned, unbearable. I slid my hand down to his chest, savoring the way his eyes hooded. How touch-starved he looked, lips parted and waiting as I lifted onto my tiptoes to crush my mouth to his once more.

Jon’s kiss was bruising—like the world was ending and the taste of my lips would be the one thing he could take with him to the afterlife. The weightless feeling was replaced with a sensation of soaring that even my fastest flights couldn’t grant me. All our visits to this private sanctuary, and he had never kissed me like this . So absolutely. So fiercely.

There was no room for doubt— he loved me .

He felt like a storm learning to be still, maybe just so he could better hold onto me.

And I was not alone.

I took hold of his button-up shirt and urged it off, peeling it down his broad shoulders and letting it fall over his toned arms. Closer . I needed to be closer .

I felt the bare skin of his arms as they crushed around me again, circling beneath my fanning wings. My fingers slipped over his right shoulder beneath the short sleeve of his tee, seeking the rune-shaped scar I had put there . My mark. It did not exist in this realm, my fingers ghosting over smooth skin. Jon knew what I was looking for, lust building behind his soft smirk as he watched me.

He glanced around us contemplatively as though finally noticing the conjured breeze—noticing how it bowed to his emotions. As he breathed me in, his racing pulse slowed—though mine quickened as Jon lifted a cautious hand. He flexed his fingers—cautiously at first, then turning his palm up like he was ruddering an invisible force.The gusts slowed even more, until they were mere whispers of movement circling us.

Tenderness glittered in his gaze as he turned back to me, looking as breathless as I felt. He moved his open palm between us. After a moment of concentration, sparks of light flickered to life at his fingertips—golden, like soft embers.

It was so close to magic, I nearly stopped breathing. My vicious hunter, holding magic in his hand.

My awestruck gasp caught in my throat as Jon pressed his hand to my chest, his strong fingers purposefully tracing a pattern over my exposed collarbone.Golden lines were left like scrolling vinework all over the delicate base of my neck, my shoulders. It was a crude recreation of the Fae runes I had left on him so many times during our trysts here. Although the mark held no translation, he took evident care to match my style. I let my head tip back as Jon bent down to kiss the places he had marked, leaving golden streaks everywhere his hand roamed.

He roughly spun me around to face the vastness of the special realm before us.

“I want to try something,” came his coarse voice in my ear .

One arm wrapped around me from behind, pinning me against his front. The other stretched out, his palm turning upward, beckoning. The whirls of slate-gray and crimson that painted every direction began to brighten and blur. Slowly, shapes took form—walls, windows, and lush fir trees.

“Jon…” I whispered.

Dizziness swept over me as a dwelling slowly took shape before us. It was strikingly similar to how I had created my childhood home from my mind’s eye, everything moving and shaping into place without regard for gravity.

Astonished, I observed Jon. The slight furrow between his brows. The determined gleam in his eyes. The set to his perfect jaw. So human. He was as intimidating as he was angelic in that moment, with the light of the building shapes and light dancing over us.

Finally, a room paneled in dark wood faced us, sunlight spilling in from a vast floor-to-ceiling window behind a living room. Candles were still lit, like someone had only just left this cozy space. Jon’s grip on me slackened when his creation fully solidified before us— spent from the effort. I broke free of him, stepping into the illusion. Though the wall wavered into smoke, the view set in front of us was as crisp as the memory I had conjured of Elysia days before.

Soft carpet sank under my feet. Shelves of books lined a towering wall, with framed photos and personal items littering the spaces in between. I drifted toward the shelves, aware of Jon trailing behind me with soft steps, a matching expression of awe on his face. One of the framed photos bore an image of a family in the snow—smiling parents holding the hands of a scrawny boy with wavy locks and dark eyes. I drifted toward the vast window next, transfixed by the view framed outside.

“Is this a memory?” I asked, reaching out to touch the pane of glass.

Jon came to stand behind me, gazing out at the mountains— actual mountains— alongside ribboning rivers and churning waterfalls that cut through glittering quartz. Endless blankets of fir trees stretched out to the horizon. I could practically smell the sharp tinge to the air when I breathed in.

“No. This is where I’m going to take you someday,” he said. “A place we can call our own.”

He conjured this from nothing? I thought, reeling at the notion.

“You can’t keep that promise,” I murmured.

“I can make a choice,” he said. “I choose you . I will not be a victim anymore. Neither of us have to.”

My heart lodged in my throat. I knew enough to treasure how a man who only knew violence would lay down his weapons to become something softer. He was choosing me, choosing this life, over a hunter’s end.

Even if I was the biggest gamble he’d ever taken. Even if—

“We’ll find another gemstone,” Jon pressed, as though he could read the crushing emotion on my face.

My throat closed. That gemstone. I could still feel the fervent ghost of it, calling to me, making my blood turn electric. It had been full and perfect—raw power cradled in my arms. Lost forever to the hostile forest.

My stomach turned further as I remembered what I had done to have it in reach at all.

“I almost lost you both,” I croaked, running a hand over my face.

“They tricked you,” Jon cut in firmly.

I shook my head even as I indulged his comforting kiss to the crown of my head. He didn’t fully understand how in those moments, nothing else had mattered but that beckoning power. Nothing. And that wasn’t anything Marcellus had forced on me. That desire was all me.

“I can’t be so careless next time. I won’t have you spill more blood for me.” I sniffed, peering at the room around us. A place Jon had built for us. A place I may only ever carry here, where things were only halfway real.

“I might keep you waiting a while,” I said, shooting him a doleful expression.

Jon swept a lock of my hair behind my ear and gently thumbed my traitor mark. “It’ll always be you. Wherever I am. Together or apart. So I’ll take whatever time I get with you, no matter how it ends.”

The thread between us seemed to shiver at his words. I no longer wondered if he felt it, too.

“That’s a terribly tragic thing to say, you know that?” I said.

Jon’s smile widened. “I’ve had more than my share of tragedy, and trust me, it’s never felt this good.”

His kiss was softer when he tugged me back into his embrace. I leaned into him, sinking into the safety of his arms. Here, where we ruled over our own little world, where time stretched and we felt like we could live on forever. We could exist precisely as we wanted with no prying eyes to make us doubt ourselves. Injuries were outlawed, and hope overshadowed dread.

But as I blinked my eyes open and saw blood trickling from Jon’s nose, I couldn’t help but feel that the two of us were barreling toward heartbreak with our eyes wide open.