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ROMAN

I jolt awake from where I’ve passed out on the couch to someone banging on the door.

“I’ll get it,” my brother says, rousing from his own nap.

After our conversation about Gwyn, we’d settled into an easy silence.

After deciding he wanted to marathon the Lord of the Rings movies, specifically opting for the extended director’s cut, I’d joined him.

I’m pretty sure Boromir was dying when I passed out, but I can’t tell if we’re on the second or third movie now.

They’ve always been Remy’s favorites. I have no idea what time it is, but I wipe the sleep from my eyes as I stand up.

“No, it’s okay,” I say, but he’s already at the front door. There’s a high-pitched whining sound coming from the other side, and when he opens it, I can see why.

Zuul sits on my porch step, and for a second I think he’s found his way to my house himself—which is an inane thought—until someone speaks and steps into the light.

“I thought you were dead,” the man says to Remy.

My fangs extend in my mouth when I realize it’s Hannigan, the man who saw Gwyn naked when I was holding her prisoner.

Mesmerized by the scent of a hunter’s blood, he would’ve attacked her if I hadn’t intervened.

I’d told him to walk into traffic after that exchange, and I haven’t seen him since.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask. Hannigan loses hold of Zuul, and the dog barrels past my brother. He turns, slamming his body into my legs before nearly sitting on my foot and looking up at me. Confused, I want answers. “What is this?”

Hannigan yawns. I nearly rip his head off for the disrespect, but decide against it.

“You should really answer your phone,” he says. “The bitch is missing.”

I curse when I realize my pocket is empty. “I don’t know where it’s at,” I say, before understanding what the fuck he just said. “Gwyn is missing?”

“Yeah. Jumped off the building or some shit,” he says, and the thorns wrapped around my heart constrict so tightly, I’m sure it ceases to beat. I can’t breathe. My pulse is loud, pounding in my ears despite the fact that I think my heart stopped.

“Nico made me bring the mutt here so I could tell you to call him. Figured if I didn’t do as I’m told, you’d make me lay down on train tracks.”

“She jumped from the rooftop?” Remy asks, and Hannigan nods. “Fuck.”

My brother asks him something else, but none of it registers.

I can’t focus on their conversation, only able to replay his words over and over again.

He said she was missing. He didn’t say she impaled herself through the heart or some other equally wretched mental image I’ve painted in the last few moments. He didn’t say she was dead.

She isn’t dead.

Hannigan leaves and Remy shuts the door behind him. Zuul is licking the backs of my legs as I reach down between the couch cushions looking for my fucking phone. When I can’t find it, I flip the bastard sofa over in a rage. I’m imagining the worst.

She fucking promised me , I think. Is she injured somewhere, trying to find a way to finish whatever the fall didn’t? And why the fuck did she jump? When she woke up and found me gone, had it set her off? Is her blood on my hands? There’s a physical ache behind my ribs, and I rub at my sternum.

I told Remy things between me and Gwyn were done, but it was wishful thinking.

There’s no way I’m finished with her, and I was kidding myself when I voiced that aloud.

But if she’s actively working against that by trying to fucking kill herself?

I begged her to live when I helped her Ascend, and I made her promise to stick around last night.

I don’t know what else I can do to keep her. But whatever I feel for her has surpassed need, and I refuse to let her go.

She knew a jump like that would only maim her until she could heal, so did she do something else before she jumped to ensure it would kill her? Why Sasha and Hale thought Gwyn having a gun was a good idea is beyond me. What if she used it before she fell?

She’s missing , I remind myself. No body.

No body, not dead.

“Where the fuck is it?” I bark, sifting through the couch cushions on the floor.

“Use mine,” my brother says, pulling up his contacts to find Nico. It’s a new phone so it doesn’t take him long, but when he holds it out, I don’t take it. For some reason, I can’t. I have to find my own phone. I have to call her —not Nico.

He hits the call button and puts it on speaker, but it goes straight to voicemail.

“Fuck!” I shout, and Zuul barks at me. He hasn’t stopped whimpering since he’s been inside, and when I turn to look at the animal, he shoves his muzzle into my hands, licking and nipping as if he wants something.

“I know, buddy, I know.” Scratching behind his ear, my worry has slid into frustration. Leaving me is one thing, but Zuul?

Would she really do that?

There’s a faint vibrating sound coming from upstairs, and I take the steps two at a time, realizing I left my phone in my jeans when I changed earlier. Gwyn’s dog thunders after me and Remy follows behind. Margot’s calling, and I answer it before it can go to voicemail.

“What the fuck is going on?” I ask.

“You tell me!” she shouts. “Nico called me and said they’re looking for Gwyn, and then his fucking phone died.”

“So they didn’t find her body? Was there blood?” I ask, and I’m unnerved by how panicked I sound. I’m in so fucking deep. “Does she have her gun?”

“I don’t know. Nico said she jumped, and he and Hale are looking for her. That’s all I know,” Margot says. “I’m on my way to your place. When I get there, I’ll try to pull up footage.”

“Okay, can you send me Nico’s last known location?” I ask, because I’m not going to fucking sit here and twiddle my thumbs.

She agrees, and I just stare at the phone in my hand when she disconnects the call.

“It’s not your fault,” Remy says, grabbing my wrist.

“I never said it was.” I frown at him because how the fuck did he read me so easily?

“You don’t have to. But no matter how hard you might try, Roman, you can’t fix us. Sometimes life is just too goddamn hard,” he says with a shrug. “She’ll do it one way or another eventually if she really wants to.”

“Fuck that. I won’t let her,” I say, and then I confess what I’m sure he already knows. “I fucking love her, Remy.”

“I know,” he says, nodding as he stares at his feet. He doesn’t seem upset, and considering what he said earlier, he saw this coming. But a small voice in my mind pushes me to justify myself, and I think maybe I just need to say it out loud.

“She’s a mess, but she’s everything . I don’t know what that says about me, but I don’t care.

I’m holding myself back, and for what? Father is dead, and so is Emile.

As far as the coven goes, they’ll either hate me or they won’t.

You’re here, alive, and I can have everything.

I’m done pretending there’s a future for me that doesn’t involve her. ”

Remy nods, and I swear I see a smile at the corner of his mouth. I don’t talk about my own shit to him—never have—because I’ve been protecting him from more than he can handle. But I needed to say it out loud, I think, for it to be real.

And Remy accepts it like it’s an inevitability—because it always has been.

Zuul barks a second before the banging downstairs begins anew.

The dog takes off, and Remy and I are quick to follow.

My phone’s volume is all the way up, but I check it anyway and don’t see any missed calls.

A text from Margot comes through with Nico’s location, but I have to handle whatever this is first.

I shove past Remy to get to the front door and Zuul won’t get out of my way, so it takes a moment, with the banging only growing louder and more frantic.

When I finally open it, I don’t even have a chance to look at her before Gwyn’s rich apple scent fills my nostrils.

She nearly falls through the door, and I don’t see her face.

I can’t tell what she’s feeling, and I don’t care as I fold her into my arms.

She’s here. She might have jumped off the fucking building, but she didn’t do anything else to harm herself. Instead, Gwyn came here.

“You’re alright,” I say into her hair. “I’ve got you.”

Zuul is trying to jump on her, balancing on his hind legs as he whines. Remy’s footsteps fade away as he goes upstairs, and I’m grateful for the privacy. Gwyn takes a step back, eyes bright and cheeks pink as she looks up at me, and I think she’s about to say something, but I cut her off.

“If it kills me, I’ll die with a smile.”

“What?” she asks, breathless. I lean in, giving her a gentle kiss on her perfect, plump lips.

“If loving you kills me, I don’t care. Because I’m not going anywhere. I love you, Gwyn, and I think it’s more likely to kill me if I stop.”

She starts nodding. Her chin wobbles, and then tears spill down her cheeks.

But they aren’t happy or joyful. She heaves a sob and can’t seem to stop crying.

Her reaction isn’t one I expect, as if my confession hasn’t answered a question plaguing us since we met.

I cup her face in my hands and tilt her head up.

“What is it, ma petite cafarde?”

Her eyes are closed, and she chokes on another sob. Finally, after a moment, she wipes her face and lets me see those beautiful, golden eyes.

“Agnarr tried to kill me. Showed up at the penthouse. I-I jumped to escape.”

I exhale a breath. “You weren’t trying to hurt yourself?”

“No,” she frowns, nose wrinkling. “I mean, given my track record, I can see why you’d think that, but no. I was trying to get away. Which, I’ll admit, jumping was a mind fuck of a way to do it.”

“Wait,” I say, realization dawning. “Nico and Hale are looking for you, but Nico’s phone is dead. Are they in danger?”