“Maeve?”

I rapped my fist against the door to the bedroom. Nothing. I’d already tried the door handle and it wouldn’t. Maeve must’ve woken up after Aline brought her sleeping body in from the car and locked it. I knew I should leave her to sleep, but I couldn’t stand her not talking to me and thinking badly of me. I wanted to tell her about my visit with Lady Pembroke. I wanted to lift this heaviness in my heart with her presence, just for a moment.

I rapped again, harder, the urgency rising in my throat. “It’s Rowan. Please talk to me.”

No sound. Panic shot through my body. First Corbin, then Arthur, what if Maeve…

I jiggled the handle between shaking fingers, but it was just as locked as before. I stepped back and threw my body at the door. My shoulder slammed into the wood, but it didn’t give a millimeter. Frustrated, I leaned back and kicked out with my foot, the way I’d seen Arthur do in his drills a million times.

“Ow,” I moaned as pain shot up my leg. How’d Arthur make that look so easy? Wood was hard. Clearly, there was some trick to this. I swung my throbbing foot back and kicked at the door again.

Just as my foot skimmed the surface of the wood, Maeve flung open the door. I flailed my arms to regain my balance, but it was too late – I sailed straight into the room, toppled over the dressing table, and landed in a heap on the rug at the foot of the bed. Pain shot up my side.

“Rowan, are you okay?” Maeve fell to my side, her voice tight with concern.

“Fine,” I gasped, pulling myself into a kneeling position. I grazed her cheek with my fingers. Her eyes were ringed with red. “Maeve, please, talk to me. I can’t stand it if you don’t talk to me.”

She leaned back against the bed and ran her fingers through her short, lank hair. “Why were you kicking the door?”

“Because you locked it and I thought…” I gasped. “I thought you…”

“It wasn’t locked.” Maeve stood up and turned the handle. “Look, there isn’t even a lock on this door.”

Relief washed over my body. I leaned against the end of the bed, hugging my feet to my chest and resting my head on top. I studied the deep-pile rug, running my fingers through the fibers. The urge to count them crept up my spine, but I was able to push it back. “I must’ve been so scared that I couldn’t turn it properly.”

“Oh, Rowan.” Maeve’s warm arms circled my neck. She pressed her face into my shoulder, and despite everything, my heart soared. “I’m sorry for scaring you, and I’m sorry for yelling at you before. What you said at the hospital—”

“About the Post-it notes?”

“Seeing his handwriting killed me.” Maeve sniffed, snuggling her face deeper, muffling her voice in my dreads. “I can’t hope. Do you understand? I’m hanging on by a thread here. If I hope, and it turns out I’m wrong and I have to mourn his death all over again, then…” she sucked in a shuddering breath. “I’m not strong enough to deal with that, okay?”

“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t strong enough to deal with that, either. I had to cling to this belief that Corbin was still alive.

“Why did he have to die, Rowan?”

I bent my head to hers, planting my lips on her crown. Corbin was everything to both of us. I thought it was Maeve that bound us all together – and she did – but without Corbin, the Briarwood coven wouldn’t even exist. I’d still be living on the streets in London, if my sickness hadn’t claimed me already. Flynn would be a low-level mobster in Dublin, his artistic talent limited to illegal graffiti. Arthur would be an arsonist. Blake… well, we never would’ve met Blake and we never would’ve accepted him. Corbin was the one who took broken people and made them whole again.

Maeve turned her body toward me and I fell into her arms, burying myself in her soft, short hair. We rolled on the rug, wrapping ourselves up in each other. Our lips met for the first time since Corbin’s death, and we drank the sorrow from each other through warm, tender kisses.

Tears streaked Maeve’s face, mingling with my own. The salty droplets puddled over our lips as we drew up our memories of Corbin into a hopeless, lonely, beautiful kiss.

“I miss him,” I whispered.

“I know,” she whispered back. “I fucking know.”

We sank into each other, drowning in our sorrow, wishing for something that couldn’t be true. My hands snaked under her rumpled t-shirt, my palms pressing into warm, living skin. My earth magic pattered against my palms like rain droplets on the garden path. She moaned against my lips, pressing her body into mine.

Maeve and I, we were alive, we were flesh and meat and bleeding hearts. As our kiss heated up, our grief transformed and became hunger, a need for skin against skin and a human connection that would drive out the pain. We tore at each other in our haste. Seams ripped. Sleeves caught on wrists. We tossed and tumbled on an ocean of grief, our bodies driftwood crashing together in the storm.

Her tongue seared against mine. My hands cupped her breasts, searching her chest for the thunder of her beating heart. Blood rushed to my ears as she wrapped her fingers around my shaft and dragged a dark pleasure through every vein and sinew of my body.

I only pulled myself from the moment to remember to grab a condom, the last one I had in my pocket from what felt like a lifetime ago. Maeve rolled it on for me and pulled me against her.

As I entered her, fresh tears streamed down her face. Maeve’s body curled around me, her heat welcome solace against the cold grief washing over my heart. We moved together, riding that ocean of grief, becoming one with the battering waves.

Pressure built inside me. I collapsed against her, a mess of shuddering pleasure and wrenching pain. Maeve clung to me, her body rocking with silent sobs. I wrapped my arms around her, conscious of how fragile she was, how precious.

Footsteps bounded along the hallway, approaching our room. My heart clenched as though someone held it in their fist and squeezed. I scrambled off Maeve and managed to pull my trousers back on just as Flynn burst into the room.

“Get your arses up right now,” he yelled, flailing his arms. “Daigh’s missing!”