Page 15

“She’s not alone,” I tell them, voice cool but sharp enough to slice through the rising panic in the group. “Something’s following her.”

For one heartbeat, the air feels like it might split open.

“Is she leading them?” asks quietly, but it’s not judgment. It’s worry.

I shake my head once. “No. She’s not leading anyone. She’s running blind.”

And that’s the part that terrifies me the most. Because she’s smart. Smarter than most people I’ve met. But grief makes you stupid. Fear makes you desperate. And nothing out here—none of us—can save her from what’s coming if she keeps moving like this.

Lucien’s voice slices into the space between us, low and sharp. “We move faster.”

It’s not an order. It’s something darker, something ugly under the surface, but none of us argue.

I shoot one last look down at the trail, at the fragile ghost of her footprints vanishing into the dark.

And I move.

Because if she dies out here—it won’t be the Hollow that did it.

It’ll be us.

The trees thin, branches clawing back like bony fingers as we break into a clearing. My pulse spikes the second my eyes land on the churned-up ground ahead. The dirt is scuffed, uneven. A heel mark, half-mooned in the mud like she slipped here, fell hard. I crouch, pressing two fingers to the disturbed earth, feeling the story of her desperation sink into my skin.

“She hit the ground here,” I say over my shoulder, voice clipped, breath sharp. “Didn’t stay down long.”

I rise and shift my eyes south. Her footprints drag, then right themselves, cutting toward the dense spiral of trees ahead. My jaw tightens.

“She’s headed for the Spiral,” I murmur, voice low, knowing will understand what that means.

Elias whistles under his breath, dark and low. “That’s a hellhole.”

“It’s worse than that,” replies quietly beside me. “The Spiral’s old. Older than this realm. The Hollow grew around it.”

Silas perks up like the idiot he is, grinning because he doesn’t know how to shut up when things are ugly. “Maybe she’s going for a stroll. Nice scenic route to get murdered.”

Lucien’s glare slices across him. One look and Silas’s grin slips, but not fast enough to erase how tight the corners of his mouth pull when he’s nervous.

I move forward, faster now. “She wouldn’t know what’s in there.”

She wouldn’t care.

The Spiral is a sinkhole in this realm. Magic distorts inside it, bends in on itself, devours anything that lingers too long. And she’s running right toward it, too desperate, too hollowed out by everything he said to see she’s not running from us—she’s running straight into something worse.

And the prints… they’re too clean now. No stumbles, no hesitation. She’s focused, running hard, hellbent on whatever she’s telling herself in that frantic, shattered little head of hers.

I glance back at the others. is moving beside me already, matching pace. Caspian has that shattered look again, the one he tries to hide when anyone mentions Branwen’s name. Elias and Silas are keeping up, but even they’ve stopped bickering, which is how I know how bad this is.

Lucien lags just a step, slower, quieter. He hasn’t said a word since he admitted he may’ve pushed her too far.

I know how sharp his tongue can be. I’ve had it turned on me often enough.

But Luna… she wasn’t built to weather him. Not like that.

The trees press closer the deeper we run, until the canopy above strangles out what little light is left. I can feel it before I see it—that shift in the air, that wrongness slithering up my spine. I slow, a hand slicing up to stop the others, because something is moving ahead, fast, too fast. The sound comes first.

A thousand fluttering wings.

And then they pour from the trees.

A wall of black, undulating, rippling—the night itself tearing open and screaming through the sky. Bats, but not just bats—too large, too jagged, teeth flashing in the dark like tiny blades. Their bodies shimmer with Hollow magic, twisted and rabid, jaws snapping like they’re tearing apart the seams of the realm itself.

I bare my teeth and say flatly, “Well, fuck.”

They descend like a curtain falling, and before I can bark a command, Riven’s already stepping in front of the others, rage snapping off him in sparks.

The swarm crashes down, and the sky disappears.

Riven’s Wrath unfurls like a living thing—the ground around him fractures, crimson lightning veins through the roots, and when he lifts his hands, the vines explode upward, sharp, wrapping around the first wave of bats mid-flight, crushing them into splinters of bone and ash.

To my left, Caspian’s eyes glow molten gold. The air pulses when he moves. Lust’s magic isn’t pretty—it’s brutal. Whips unfurl from his palms, living things that snap and writhe, slicing through the swarm in elegant, savage arcs. Every strike draws a shriek from the creatures, their bodies combusting midair.

Silas, the idiot, laughs as he spins beneath the chaos, his power weaving green like a sickly shimmer around his hands. He doesn’t even bother dodging—he pulls. His magic sinks its claws into the envy thick in the air, the envy these creatures feed off, and he twists it back on them. The bats turn on each other mid-flight, claws ripping into wings.

“Jealous little bastards,” he calls out, grin sharp.

Elias is quieter—no flourish, no grand gestures. But Sloth’s magic curls around him like smoke, lazy, deadly. He yawns as a bat lunges toward him, and the thing folds mid-air like its bones liquefied, crashing to the ground with a wet snap. His lethargy bleeds out of him and into the creatures, slowing them, dulling their senses, until they hit the ground in heaps.

Lucien doesn’t move.

He just stands there, spine straight, face blank.

And when he finally lifts his chin, power radiates off him in waves. His Dominion ripples through the clearing, a blast of pressure that cracks the branches overhead. And the bats—what’s left of them—stop. Their bodies shudder, folding in on themselves like paper. They drop from the sky as if the very weight of him has crushed them.

I move last.

Greed isn’t messy. It’s not explosive. It’s precise. I stretch a hand out, and the shimmer of my power pours through the clearing like liquid gold, snaking through the shadows. My magic latches onto the last few stragglers, coils around their bodies like a vice.

And then I take.

I strip them down—not flesh, not bone, but magic. Their Hollow-rot energy rips away from them and into me, folding into the void inside my chest like another coin added to my vault. They crumple, hollowed out, useless.

The clearing is silent again except for the harsh sound of breathing.

I dust ash off my shoulder, glancing over at Lucien. His jaw is tight, his posture rigid—but not from the fight. From what he knows is still ahead.

“What now?” Silas says, brushing bat guts off his shirt.

I don’t look back at him. My eyes are fixed south, toward the Spiral.

“She’s still running,” I murmur, voice low. “And if she sees that, she’ll think we’re the monsters.”

And maybe… maybe we are.

The farther south we move, the quieter it gets. Even the Hollow’s usual pulse—the hum of something ancient and starving in the dirt beneath us—has dimmed like it’s holding its breath. And that terrifies me more than anything.

Silas breaks away first.

It’s not graceful. It’s not careful. It’s chaos, as usual, but this time… it’s not performative. His limbs are wild, reckless, tearing through the undergrowth, calling her name without shame, without pretense.

“Luna!” he yells, voice cracking on her name like it’s the first time he’s ever used it without teasing. “Luna, please—just answer me, love.”

His magic whips green around him like smoke on the wind, unrestrained, desperate. He’s not even hiding it now—the way he’d burn this entire world to find her. He’s tearing at the fabric of this place and doesn’t give a damn who sees him unraveling.

It should annoy me.

But it doesn’t.

Because I understand it in a way I didn’t before. Not the chaos, but the compulsion. That once something belongs to you—even when they don’t know it—you’d shatter the sky to put them back where they belong. And she belongs with us. With him.

We clear the tree line, and I watch Silas practically stumble over himself, voice wrecked and raw as he keeps calling her name, breathless.

“Luna! I swear to the fucking Hollow, if you don’t answer me—”

His voice cracks again, and it’s not funny.

It’s not cringey. It’s a man begging. And maybe I finally understand why she lets him close when she keeps the rest of us at arm’s length.

Her tracks scatter around the edge, and I slow, scanning the ground, noting the way her boot prints slip and drag like she’s running without looking, like she doesn’t care if she falls.

I glance sideways at Silas, who’s already shouting again, tearing into the clearing like he’ll scream the entire world down until she hears him.

And even though I don’t shout—won’t—I understand it. I understand him. Because this girl… this stubborn, maddening, terrifying girl… she made me softer without asking permission. And I hate that.

But not enough to stop looking. Not enough to stop chasing. Not enough to stop feeling like I’ll rip apart the entire Hollow if it means I can find her.

And I can’t stop thinking—if she doesn’t want to be found, it’s because we failed her first.

“Come on, little star,” I murmur under my breath, scanning the wild beyond the Spiral. “Let us catch you.” Because I’m done pretending I’m not hunting her for myself, too.

Elias

Silas whirls around like a man possessed, his eyes wild, his mouth moving faster than his head. “!” he shouts, his voice slicing through the trees like a whip, sharp and frantic.

—stoic, sage, unbothered —lifts a brow, slowing just slightly as Silas practically barrels toward him.

“We need bait,” Silas continues, breathless, disheveled, manic in a way that only Silas can be. “And you, old man, you’re it.”

I groan from behind them, pinching the bridge of my nose because I know what’s about to come out of his mouth and it’s going to be catastrophic.

Silas grins like he’s cracked the fucking code. “Take your shirt off.”

halts, utterly unamused. “Excuse me?”

Silas waves his arms like it’s the most obvious, reasonable request in existence. “Your abs, . The girl’s got a thing for them. You show up half-naked, glistening in the Hollow’s moonlight like a fucking forbidden snack, and she’ll come crawling out of whatever cave she’s hiding in.”

just stares at him. Cold. Blank. The kind of stare that could end wars, could crush kingdoms, and Silas doesn’t even flinch.

“She’s not a raccoon, Silas,” deadpans. “You can’t lure her out with shiny things.”

Silas nods seriously. “You say that, but have you tried?”

I can't help it—I laugh. Sharp, bitter, because we’re losing her, and this is how Silas handles it: ridiculous, reckless, but gods, if he isn’t trying. If he isn’t fighting like hell in the only way he knows how.

“She’s not gonna sniff out ’s abs like a trail of breadcrumbs,” I mutter, but my chest aches in a way I can’t name because I wish—fuck, I wish—it was that simple.

scowls, his hands crossing over his chest like he’s physically warding Silas off. “We’re wasting time.”

“She’s not answering the bond,” Silas snaps, voice cracking under the weight of it. “And every second she’s out here alone, she thinks we hate her. She thinks we don’t want her.”

His voice catches, and my smile dies in my throat.

Because that’s it. That’s what’s killing him.

It’s what’s killing all of us.

And I hate him for saying it out loud because now I can’t unhear it, can’t unsee the look on her face when she thinks none of us will come.

“We’ll find her,” I say, softer, quieter, like it’s a fucking promise I have no right to make.

Silas shakes his head once, then turns back to , undeterred. “You’re still taking the shirt off.”

huffs, mutters something that sounds suspiciously like idiots, but finally pulls the damn thing over his head.

Silas claps like he’s summoned the gods themselves. “See? Now we’re serious.”

The others catch up—Riven, Caspian, Lucien brooding and silent like a storm about to crack—and they all slow, eyeing like the world’s shifted.

“Why is he half-naked?” Riven asks flatly.

“To trap Luna,” Silas answers without missing a beat.

Lucien doesn’t even react. Just turns and keeps moving like he can’t believe he’s still breathing the same air as us. I fall in beside him, glancing at the trail ahead, my pulse in my throat.

Because the humor is dying fast. Because I know we’re laughing now—but if we don’t find her soon, none of us will be.

Silas is losing it.

I mean, he’s always losing it, but this? This is another level entirely.

We’re cutting through the trees like hounds chasing a ghost, and I can feel it—the edge creeping into all of us. Caspian’s lips are pressed tight, Riven’s jaw flexes every time a branch snaps underfoot, Lucien is strung tighter than I’ve ever seen him, and Ambrose, well, he looks like he’s calculating how to burn the entire forest down if it gets her back.

But Silas… Silas is flailing wildly between panic and something far worse.

He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts into the trees, “Luna! You owe me for saving you from that bat swarm, you can’t ghost me now! I brought you a present—’s very serious, very sage-like abs. They’re limited edition, sweetheart, one-night offer.”

There’s no answer. No flutter of her presence brushing against my mind, no thrum in the bond. It’s nothing. Like she’s fallen off the edge of this cursed world.

Silas spins, manic energy bleeding off him in waves. “She’s close. I know it. We’ve gotta sweeten the deal.”

He turns on us, eyes glittering like a man possessed. “All right, you assholes, shirts off. It’s the only way.”

I blink at him. “You want us to what?”

“Do I stutter, Elias? You—” he jabs a finger at me, then Ambrose, then Caspian, then Riven, “—all of you. Off. Now. If one set of abs isn’t enough bait, maybe an entire buffet will be.”

Caspian groans, dragging a hand down his face. “It’s freezing.”

“Exactly!” Silas shouts, wild grin spreading. “That’s how she’ll know we’re serious.”

Riven mutters something about how we’ve all lost our minds, but he’s already peeling off his shirt.

Ambrose, predictably, doesn’t argue, just scowls and shrugs his off like he’s done this a thousand times in darker ways. Caspian follows, quiet, wary, but compliant.

Silas beams, clapping his hands like a lunatic. “There. Now if she doesn’t come out, she’s legally blind.”

He looks to me expectantly.

I lift a brow. “This is insane.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Silas grins, then lowers his voice, almost serious beneath the absurdity. “She’ll think we’re not looking hard enough, that she doesn’t matter enough to freeze our asses off and humiliate ourselves.”

That lands sharp in my chest, slicing under all the ridiculousness.

So, fine. I drag my shirt over my head and toss it to the dirt like the others.

The cold hits immediately, biting, brutal—but it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the way Silas yells again, voice cracking as he cups his mouth once more.

“Luna! Come out and touch us! It’s a full Sin Binder abs sale and you’re the only customer, sweetheart.”

Nothing.

No flicker of her laugh, no glimmer of magic on the horizon.

Silas’s voice quiets, desperation threading through the chaos. “Please.”

We keep moving, bare-chested, wild, ridiculous, gods of death stripped down and begging the girl who doesn’t even know how much she owns us.

We step into the courtyard like a war party who’s lost the plot—shirts slung over shoulders, boots caked in mud, and Silas already cupping his hands around his mouth like a lunatic bard.

"Sweetheart! Come on out! You’re missing a very exclusive, very sinful ab show!"

His voice bounces off the hollow stone walls, ricocheting in the eerie quiet of the spiral grounds. The crumbling buildings loom around us, their windows empty, doorways gaping like mouths ready to swallow anyone dumb enough to step inside.

The cold presses against my bare skin, damp and biting, but none of us notice anymore. It’s not the weather that matters. It’s the fact that her footsteps stop here—like she vanished.

I glance down at the cracked stones under my feet, the mud smeared and broken by her prints until they simply… don’t continue. No exit. No signs she circled back. Just absence. The worst kind.

Silas keeps going like a man possessed, stalking the courtyard, spinning like he thinks if he turns fast enough, she’ll appear. "Luna, baby, if you come out now, I’ll let you lick whipped cream off Ambrose’s abs!"

Ambrose shoots him a look that could kill lesser men, but Silas is immune to death threats. Has been for centuries.

"I’ll even add Riven’s ass to the deal," Silas adds, winking over his shoulder, like this is a goddamn carnival and not a hunt for the girl who’s unmade all of us.

Caspian huffs beside me, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. "You're going to scare her deeper into hiding with that mouth."

"I’ll scare her into running straight to me," Silas counters, grinning wildly, though the corners of it fray. His voice fractures when he yells again, louder this time, as if sheer volume will shake her loose from wherever she’s buried herself. "Come on, love! It’s a full Sin Binder flesh buffet out here, and it’s only for you."

I scan the buildings, the jagged outlines of broken towers and fractured walls. Too many places to hide. Too many shadows that could swallow her whole. My stomach knots tight.

Behind me, stands quiet, watchful, and shirtless like the rest of us—except Lucien. Lucien's the only one who refused, arms crossed, shirt still intact like he’s above all this, even now.

"She’s here," I mutter, half to myself, half to the others. "Her tracks stop here."

"And she’s hiding from us," Ambrose says flatly, scanning the buildings like he’s cataloguing every exit.

Silas breaks the moment by cupping his hands again and hollering, "Luna! If you don’t come out, I’m going to tell everyone how you begged me to touch you last week!"

I choke on a laugh despite myself. "She’s gonna kill you when she hears that."

"If she’s here, she’s listening." Silas’s voice drops, the edges of it softening just enough to hurt. "I just need her to come out."

He keeps circling, calling her name like a curse, a prayer, a lifeline.

We’re all standing there like idiots—immortal, lethal men, stripped bare and exposed for a girl who keeps slipping through our fingers.

And somewhere in this crumbling courtyard, she’s listening.

Silas is pacing now like a man with no earthly shame, bare-chested, mud streaked across his chest, like he’s auditioning for the world’s most depraved burlesque act.

"Maybe," he says, dragging out the word like he’s delivering divine wisdom, "we need to strip more."

I scrub a hand down my face. "No."

"But hear me out," Silas presses, turning to the rest of us like we’re the idiots here. "What if—just what if—we all pretend to be strippers? A private show. For Luna. She’d love that."

Ambrose’s groan is somewhere between dying and homicidal.

Before I can shut him down, Silas flings his arms wide and bellows into the courtyard, "Luna! Baby! I’ll let you have as many clones of me as you want!"

I freeze. "What the fuck does that even mean?"

He doesn’t answer, too busy spinning theatrically, throwing his voice up to the cracked towers like she’s a princess trapped in one. "Endless Silas’! Your dream, right?"

I’m halfway to telling him to shut the hell up when the courtyard itself bites back.

"Silas Veyd, shut up!" Her voice cracks like a whip, sharp, furious, and impossibly near. It ricochets between stone and shadow like she’s everywhere at once. "That was a private thing!"

Silas halts mid-spin, jaw dropping. "Oh, she’s listening."

A grin splits his face, wild and wicked, and he cups his hands again. "Baby, come out! I can do the thing with the rope too!"

There’s a scuffle—footsteps. Fast. Soft. And then her voice again, blistering. "Silas!"

I laugh, breathless, something sharp unraveling in my chest at the sound of her, even pissed off.

"She’s here," I murmur to Ambrose beside me.

lifts his head, eyes narrowing like a predator scenting blood.

Silas turns to us, bouncing on the balls of his feet like a fucking lunatic, and says smugly, "Told you. She can’t resist me."

"Or she wants to strangle you," I mutter.

"Same thing."

Her voice cuts through the courtyard like a blade, sharp, brittle, shaking at the edges even though she’s trying to sound furious. "I’m not coming out. So just leave me alone."

Silas freezes beside me, his grin faltering for just a second, something cracking in his face before he pastes it back together with something softer, something that guts me.

He steps forward, his voice lifting, no theatrics now. "I can’t do that, sweetheart."

His hand scrubs over his bare chest, over the binding mark that ties him to her, and his voice slips, genuine and boyish and goddamn wrecked. "Because I’d rather be out here yelling like an idiot, freezing my ass off, than breathing a single day without you. You’re my person, Luna. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and you’re stuck with me."

Silas glances sideways at Riven, who looks like he’s going to throw up. He sighs like he’s about to walk to his own execution and then cups his hands, calling out toward the shadows.

"I don’t say this shit enough, but you’re my heart, moon girl. I’d burn this whole place to the ground just to make you smile."

A beat. A pause.

My throat tightens, but I step forward next, shoving my hands in my pockets like it’s casual, like I’m not breaking apart from the inside.

"You annoy the hell out of me," I shout. "But I wouldn’t trade you for anything. You’re mine, Luna. You’ve always been mine."

Caspian’s voice follows, lower, a little rough. "You made me want to live again. I don’t care how far you run—I’ll always come after you."

Ambrose lifts his head, and it surprises me when he actually yells, his voice sharper than the rest of ours. "You are the most infuriating, impossible, reckless thing that’s ever happened to me. And I want every fucking piece of you."

Then —stoic, patient —folds his arms and calls out, voice cutting like silk over a blade. "You don’t get to vanish, Luna. Not when I’ve only just started loving you properly."

There’s quiet for a breath, the space heavy with all of us exposed, raw, waiting.

And then, last, Lucien’s voice breaks through, low and rough like he’s dragging every syllable from his throat.

"I’m sorry."

The words hang there, like something fragile and bloody and real.

None of us move. None of us breathe.

Because now it’s her move.

The courtyard is dead quiet after Lucien’s apology—like the entire Hollow itself is holding its breath, listening.

And then her voice comes from somewhere above us, disbelieving, cracked at the edges but not quite hiding the way it splinters when she speaks.

"Are you all really half-naked?"

My mouth curves, sharp and aching all at once. I cup my hands around my mouth and shout back, "Yes! And my nipples are stiff, Luna! We're out here risking hypothermia for you!"

Silas snorts, grinning like a madman because he knows she’s still listening, knows we’ve cracked something open.

There’s a pause, then her voice again—closer now, more curious than angry. "Even ?"

The courtyard stills. Slowly, all our gazes pivot to the ancient, sage-like bastard who has somehow managed to look entirely unbothered, despite standing there like some brooding philosopher in battle-worn leathers.

exhales, low and resigned. "Apparently," he rumbles dryly, "my abs are now bait."

"Confirmed," Silas chimes in with zero shame. "You like his the best. I know things."

"You don’t know shit," mutters, but his voice softens, something fond beneath all that gravel.

I can’t help myself—I lean back, shouting up into the darkened eaves. "You hear that, Luna? We’re freezing and flashing skin like it’s a damn burlesque show. So you better come out and see the view."

Silas elbows me and adds, "You should see how shiny ’s abs are in the moonlight. I’d lick them myself if you don’t come out."

Riven groans like he’s dying, Caspian mutters under his breath, and Lucien looks like he wants to murder us all—but there’s a flicker of something soft in his jaw, in the way his eyes lift toward where her voice came from.

I don’t care if we look ridiculous. I’ll stand here shirtless until the gods themselves fall from the sky if it means she’ll step out from wherever she’s hiding and look at us again.

And we’re all waiting now—not breathing, not moving—because she hasn’t answered yet.