Page 78 of Solar Shadows

I’m Isaac Aurora…

His lips were almost on mine. “I really want to kiss you, babe. Please let me kiss you.”

Any second now, we’d reconnect. I’d taste him, he’d taste me. There was always power in a kiss. This would open floodgates I wasn’t sure I should allow to open. We were done, right? No matter this temptation, this darn weakness, we were done.

There were better men out there to be wanted by. Only, they weren’t exactly lining up at my door.

What if things did work out? What if we became something special? Engaged? Married? Together until the end? Destined to find each other again and make it right and eternal.

The moment I thought those things, I saw Ollie flash in my mind.

Pfft! Ollie wasn’t in any line to win my heart.

“Isaac,” Tony breathed, those foundations of mine about to crumble to dust. “My beautiful sunshine. My one and only guy.”

It was about to happen.

By Hecate, this kiss was about to happen.

Chapter 24

OLLIE

Ibolted upright, letting out a grunt.

The room around me lurched, my guts roiling from the sudden jump from darkness to…where was I?

“You’re awake,” Mum said from a chair on the other side of this gray-and-white room.

My brain registered the location. A private hospital room, rain beating at the window, the lights turned down to the dimmest setting. There were drips attached to me, along with a heart monitor beeping steadily.

I touched my skull, feeling a bandage there. A dull throb lurked behind a wall of painkillers.

“You have a mild concussion and minor laceration to the back of your head,” Mum responded. “Jake and Dean got you to the hospital while High Coven agents took control of the situation. Every shadow witch was killed, bar one who is now with Stefan.”

Unable to stay upright, I lay back on the pillow. “How many civilians were hurt?”

“We don’t have any figures yet.”

Trust me to get knocked out during a major fight and stay unconscious until just before midnight, according to the clock on the wall.

Mum left her chair and came over, sitting in the one beside my bed.

She looked exhausted. “Oh, Ollie. Things are bad.”

I recoiled from a sharp pain in my forehead breaking through the painkiller barrier and adjusted my position slightly. “What happened? Where’s Isaac?”

He’d been poisoned and I’d failed to get him out of danger.

Defeat bore down on me, making my chest constrict.

Useless dickhead failed The Sun…

I found the button thing to adjust the bed, elevating myself a little.

Mum released a shaky breath, touching the base of her throat with a trembling hand. “He’s missing.”

A cold breeze seemed to lick up and down my whole body. “What do you mean?”