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Her mind couldn’t wrap around the idea or formulate a reality where something wiped out most of the country. It wasn’t possible. The only hope in the district was that the government would expand beyond the wall and rebuild.

“Between all the natural disasters and the global nuclear wars, they both caused chain reactions that reverberated for more than ten years. Years where the planet changed permanently.”

“No. The government would have—”

Aodh let out a growl. He forced her to face the map again.

“Your government,” he bit out, “and all the other superpower countries on the Earth buried themselves in the ground while devastation happened. The Great Catastrophe.” He jabbed a finger into the map.

He called out the states now that were coastal borders, but less than half of each remained.

“Everything below this east corner of Arizona, the upper north half of Texas, Mississippi, and the northwest corner of Tennessee down to Brazil is under water. Anything outside or above Alberta to western Ontario no longer exists above water.”

“The oceans spread?” Stunned, she looked at all the blue areas covering what he called North America.

“A vast amount came inland from earthquakes and large-scale tsunamis. The seas parted, and the heavy nuclear fallout smothering the atmosphere for so long caused the Earth to lose the lunar pull, controlling the tides and water distribution. Once that was gone, nothing stopped the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans from division.” He pointed to the map area, which went from blue to brown.

“There were ten years of intense heat where thirty percent of the Earth’s seas evaporated, creating deep salt bed chasms separating the remaining continents.

In the last seven years, those cavernous spaces have transformed, and host a new type of vegetation, and are called The Great Heaths. ”

Something else dawned on her. “Wait. What happened to all the people in states and countries submerged? There had to be some still underground cities, right?” A bit of hope flashed.

“If it is underwater, unlike our area behind the wall. They can’t come out yet.

” If things didn’t work out for her and Aodh, there might be other places they could go.

Aodh released her and dragged a hand through his short hair. “They’re gone.”

“That can’t be.” She shook her head. “There has to be more.” Her voice sounded high-pitched to her ears.

“It became apparent to the preternatural community the Group of Seven realized a long time ago a global natural disaster was coming sooner than man ever predicted, and during all those meetings, they built and planned. They funded it through luxury doomsday space auctions to the rich and by buying cheap underground land in economically weakened countries. So many of the human confrontations had little to do with what they reported. It was easier to get humans in an uproar on social media over surface-level issues and pushed to champion causes to detract from what was really going on. They never anticipated that global warming issues would set off underground missiles and start a war.” He exhaled.

“What the shifters discovered too late, like everyone else when the announcement went out, was there were only three underground locations. We assumed there would be more. One or two built on every continent. The shifters helped as many people get to them as we could.”

“Where are they?” Kai moved along the wall and stared at what she assumed was a current world map. “Where?” she yelled.

“G7 members agreed to place the underground cities within the heart of the continents of Africa, Russia, North America, and a small one in Greenland. Greenland only housed the leaders from Canada, Italy, and France and their families, no other survivors were admitted. Germany and Japan controlled Russia’s underground, while the UK and some of the leaders of the European Union ruled Africa.

North America refused to share with any other leader. ”

Her body shook with anger. She could not fathom all Aodh told her. There wasn’t space in her mind to process the information. Her head was beginning to ache. She realized she needed to focus on what was relevant for her now.

“What are the new lines cutting through the area of the remaining states?” Her voice sounded weak to her ears.

He glided the back of his hand over her cheek and into her hair. He fingered a thick coil before he tugged it out of her face then tucked it behind her ear.

His touch calmed her. He helped her remember that the things that happened to the world were not her burden. She leaned back and glanced up into breath-stealing, amazing, turquoise-opal eyes. Aodh’s gaze helped her center herself.

Since some intensity had left his body, she hoped it was because she had done the same for him.

“They’re the North American territories.” He ran his thumb over her ear. “I’m not sure if you’re ready to hear this.”

She frowned but nodded. Chances were that she wasn’t ready but refused to shy away from knowledge and was tired of lies.

“When the human world went underground, the preternatural world claimed it. We’ve always been here. Living among humans, world leaders knew it.”

So many lies.

He continued as he pointed out each place.

“The birmyrl , bear-shifters, own the new west coast Idaho, Utah, the eastern half of Nevada, and the northern tip of Arizona. The vreyrioo , vampires are North and ulfreki , wolf-shifters the territory to the east of them.” He drew his finger down the center of the map consisting of a big swath of states.

“This is us here...our dragons require more space.”

Kai recognized the Manitoba region of Canada, and followed down through the upper half of Arkansas, covering seven and a half states—the Drahk territory.

“On our other side are the fjodengil , Fae taking Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and the remaining half of Tennessee.”

She swallowed and fisted her hands, trying to calm the quivers running through her body. Bears, wolves, Fae, and vampires ? What has the world become? What has my life become?

In an instant, she found herself in Aodh’s arms. He crossed the room and sat with her in his lap behind his desk. “Breathe, Kai.”

Closing her eyes, she tried to stop the swirling of her mind and the queasiness in her stomach. She must have looked bad for Aodh to scoop her up. Kai was thankful because she wasn’t sure how long her knees would hold her.

“Deep breaths, little flame.” One of his large hands rubbed up and down her arm. “Nice and easy.”

She followed his instructions even though she was starting to feel better by being in his arms. Aodh had become a stabilizing force for her.

Filling her lungs one last time, she opened her eyes.

“You, okay?”

“Yes.” She nodded and forced herself to offer him a smile. She felt it wobble on her lips. “I’m good.”

He shook his head. “I should not have told you all of it. It was too much. Adjusting to my people has been enough for you to handle.”

“No.” She gripped his forearm. “I needed to know. I’ve been ignorant far too long.”

“You’re sure?” He pressed his forehead to hers.

She inhaled to draw in his roasted-cinnamon smell. “Very.”

Yeongi entered. “McKenna. Kai. Tana is here.”