Misha had meant the world to me, and I hadn’t even known him. Not really, and that was as tough to swallow as his betrayal. But I still hadn’t cried and I didn’t understand that—

I tripped over a fallen log, catching myself before I fell.

Sighing, I straightened and kept walking as the woods got thicker and more fireflies appeared, flickering in and out of existence. Misha had called them lightning bugs. When we were younger, we’d catch them in our hands and chase one another with them.

My chest ached as I rounded a thick tree and came upon...a tree house?

Yep. That’s what it was.

A tree house with what looked like a huge observation deck. I looked over my shoulder in the direction of the main house. I was still on their property, so I was betting this had been for Zayne once. For Zayne and Layla.

Now my chest hurt even more, because I really did like Zayne, and if things had been complicated before, they were sure as Hell a mess now, because Protectors and Trueborns...

That was a big No.

And I felt it then, a burning in the back of my throat and behind my eyes. I smacked my hands over my face and took several deep breaths, but those breaths seemed to fuel the ugly, raw mess of emotions expanding in my chest and building and building until I couldn’t hold back. I couldn’t swallow them down or shove them away. I couldn’t push them to the back of my thoughts. They were tearing and ripping and clawing free.

The tips of my fingers dampened, my cheeks became wet and when I opened my mouth the scream that tore loose was full of anger and sorrow and rage. It sent the birds in the trees around me flying and it ended only when my voice gave out and my throat become raw. I took a step, and I just couldn’t take another. I plopped down in the plush grass under the deck, my hands still over my face. I rocked onto my back and I curled onto my side, pulling up my legs as far as they would go.

I wanted my mom—I wanted one of her hugs, right then, more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life, and I wanted Misha. God, I wanted Misha—the Misha I knew and loved, and not the one who hated me. Not the Misha I’d had to put down.

Not that one.

I wanted to go back and prove to him over and over that he was special and that he mattered, and I...I hated that. Fucking hated that, because I didn’t do this to him. I didn’t make him become this way. I didn’t turn him into what he became. It wasn’t my fault.

But it felt like it was, and I screamed again, but it made no sound as it still tore at my throat, because I wasn’t just crying for Misha.

I was finally crying for my mother—giving in to the grief that had been building for over a year, the pain and anger of her loss compounded that it had been Misha who had caused it. It had always been him, and I wanted to hate him. I did, but I wanted to hate him more, because maybe if I did, it wouldn’t hurt so bad.

I didn’t feel the bond in my chest warming. I was so caught up in the maelstrom of emotions, I didn’t feel Zayne’s approach. I felt him only when he crouched beside me, picked me up and shifted me into his lap, his strong arms wrapped around my shoulders.

The grief and the pain poured out of me in big, ugly sobs, and it hurt—all of it hurt, and I didn’t think it would ever stop. But through it all, Zayne held me tight, so close that even if there wasn’t this strange new bond feeding him what I was feeling, he would’ve known.

He just held me, one arm folded over me and the other moving up and down the length of my back, slow and soothing, and finally, finally the tremors eased off, and the tears dried up.

I didn’t know how much time had passed, but when it was all over, the back of my head ached and my throat felt raw.

And I had not only torn the front of Zayne’s shirt by pulling on it, I had drenched it.

Awkward.

Easing my fingers from the material, I pulled back. Zayne didn’t let me get too far, though. “I’m sorry.” Wincing, I cleared my throat.

“Don’t apologize,” he said, and I was grateful it was too dark now for me to see his face, but I felt his hand on my neck. He moved slowly as he raised his hand to my cheek and caught the tangled mess of hair there, gathering it and pulling the strands back from my face. “Do you feel better?” he asked, his voice soft.

“No,” I muttered. “Yes.”

“Which one is it?”

“I don’t know.” I took a couple of breaths. “I feel better. That’s the right answer.”

“I don’t care about the right answer, Trin. I just want the truth.”

I spread my hands against his chest. “I...I feel like I’ve been suffocating, and...I don’t feel like that anymore.”

“Then that’s a start.” He brushed back the hair on the other side of my face.

A few minutes passed as Zayne continued to hold me, his hand curved around the side of my head, his thumb sliding up and down the line of my cheekbone. “I was selfish. He was right about so many things. It was always about me. I was always thinking about me and—”

“You weren’t selfish. He was. Selfish and possibly delusional,” Zayne said. “What he did was on him—on him and no one else.”

“I want to hate him, Zayne. A part of me does, but I...”

“I know. I get it. I do.” There was a moment, and then I felt his warm lips against my forehead, and that went a long way, longer than it should’ve. “You’re going to be okay.”

I was.

I knew that.

I would be okay.

This was going to hurt, and this was going to haunt me like a ghost, but I would be... I would be okay.

And I needed to put some space between Zayne and me before I did something impulsive and that was sure to have consequences.

Balancing myself, I shifted off his lap and onto the grass beside him. Our thighs touched, as did our arms. I didn’t move farther away. It was like I...I had to be close enough to be touching, and I had no idea if that was the bond, or if that was me.

Zayne cleared his throat. “I left when I...”

My shoulders slumped. “When you felt me?”

“Yes.”

“This bond thing is going to be really...inconvenient.”

“Not at this moment,” he replied. “You needed me, and I needed to be here.”

His words stole their way into my heart even though I knew better—because those words came from the bond and not from his heart. I knew this, and yet they were inking themselves into my muscle and onto my skin.

“What did they say?” I asked, focusing on the important things. Entire conversations I’d bailed on. “About the Harbinger?”

Zayne leaned back against the tree trunk. “They’re worried. Whatever this thing is, it’s been working at this for a while, and if Misha was involved with it, it wanted you, and it’s still out there.”

I shivered as I rested against the trunk. “I don’t think it’s a demon.”

“Neither do I,” he said, and I felt his head turn toward mine. “Nicolai doesn’t, either.”

And that left the big question. What could it be?

“You know,” I said, feeling weary as I let my eyes drift shut. “My father could’ve filled us in. Given us some direction. Maybe a spoiler. Something.”

Zayne was quiet for a moment, and I remembered seeing my father whisper in his ear. I turned my head toward his, and realized our mouths were inches apart.

“Did he tell you anything?”

“Nothing about the Harbinger.” His breath coasted over my lips as he spoke. “We got this, Trin. We only have to stop the end of the world with little to no direction.”

“No big deal.”

He chuckled, and my lips curved up at the sound and the feel. “None at all.”

We both fell quiet, even though there was a lot left unsaid between us, but I felt what wasn’t spoken through the bond. What was flaring alive deep in me was doing the same in him. It was there. Desire, need and...yearning.

There was yearning for something more. It was there even if I wasn’t sure what that meant, even though his heart might still belong to another, and it was there even though he was now my Protector.

It was still there.

“Trin?”

“Yeah?”

“I know we have an apocalypse and all to stop, but I’ve been thinking about something you said.”

“God only knows what that is.”

He chuckled again, and I smiled, knowing he probably could see it. “You said you liked being on the roofs of buildings, because it was close to the stars and the closest you could get to flying. You also said flying was the one thing you were jealous of.”

“I did say that.”

“Do you want to fly?”

Pulling away from the tree, I twisted toward him even though I couldn’t see him. My hands landed on his knees. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

“You want to see the stars?” Zayne asked, and I nodded emphatically, knowing what he meant, and when he took my hand, I folded my fingers over his like I had the day I’d left the community. I felt him begin to shift, his skin hardening under mine. “Then hold on tight, Trin. I’m going to get us as close as we can go.”