Mag-log inThe first thing I register when I wake up is the empty space beside me.
The indent in the pillow is still there. The warmth is still faintly there. I lie on my side looking at it for a moment.
I smile before I can decide not to.
Then I reach for my phone.
Leo: nothing.
The smile goes. I lie there looking at the ceiling for a count of ten, then I get up, because lying there looking at the ceiling doesn't solve anything and never has. I shower, d
(Dante POV)The warmth of the embrace lingered for a moment before my father, Dominic Silvercrest, slowly stepped back. He kept his hands on my shoulders, his eyes scanning my face as if searching for the boy I had been and finding the man I had become overnight. He looked past me, his gaze landing on the girl standing by the door.Kira stood there, her clothes torn and stained with the soot of the Spire, her expression a mix of exhaustion and a guarded hope I hadn't seen in weeks."Kira," Dominic said, his voice echoing in the high-ceilinged study. "Come forward."She hesitated, then stepped into the light. The Blood Heir and the Alpha stood face-to-face. Dominic’s expression didn't hold the suspicion or the cold calculation of our first meeting. Instead, there was a profound, weary respect."The enforcement protocol is rescinded," Dominic st
(Dante POV)The wind on the observation deck had turned from a howling beast to a soft, grieving whisper. I stood at the edge, looking at the two women who had bled and fought alongside us through the longest night of our lives. Sage was still trembling, her eyes fixed on the horizon as if she could already see the quiet life she was dreaming of. Juniper looked smaller than I had ever seen her, the weight of the Ironclaw legacy sitting heavy on her slumped shoulders."Sage. Juniper." My voice was a dry rasp, but it carried in the still morning air.They both looked at me."You heard what I told Kira," I said, my chest tight. "The same goes for you. If you want to walk away from this, if you want to leave the Spire and the Depths behind and never look back, you can. I’ll make sure the records reflect that you died in the explosion at the Civic Hall. You can be ghos
(Kira POV)The sun didn’t rise with a celebratory flare; it crept over the edge of Callahan City like a bruised secret. The light was a pale, watery gold that washed over the carnage of the observation deck, turning the shattered glass and cooling blood into a mosaic of failures.We sat in a ragged semi-circle, the silence so thick it felt like another presence on the roof. Dante sat closest to the edge, his silhouette sharp against the morning sky. He looked at the bodies, at Silas, whose twisted ambition had almost rewritten the stars, and at Cassidy, whose sacrifice had been the final, bitter anchor for our survival.Dante reached out, his fingers tracing a jagged line in the frost on the concrete. "I spent my whole life looking up to them," he said, his voice a low, hollow rasp. "Silas taught me how to read the city’s Ley lines. Cassidy taught me how to throw my first punch.
(Kira POV)The silence that followed Silas’s passing was heavier than the noise of the battle had ever been. The wind had died down to a melancholy whistle, weaving through the jagged rebar of the Spire like a funeral dirge. I stayed on my knees, my hands stained with a mixture of my own blood and the gray ash of Silas’s remains.Dante stood up slowly. His movements were languid, his body still recovering from the violent influx of essence I had forced back into him. He didn't look at me. His gaze was fixed on a point near the service lift.I followed his line of sight. Alpha Lyra lay sprawled against the metal doors, her neck bent at an unnatural angle. The white light of the ritual’s collapse had been unforgiving. Dante walked toward her, his boots clicking softly on the concrete. He reached down and lifted her hand. He held it for a heartbeat, his expression unreadable,
(Kira POV)The silence that followed the explosion of light was a heavy, viscid thing. It pressed against my eardrums, punctuated only by the whistle of the wind through the Spire’s steel skeleton. Underneath my palms, Dante’s heart hammered a steady, rhythmic beat—a miracle of blood and bone that I had clawed back from the brink of the void.I tried to push myself up, but my muscles felt like they had been replaced by wet sand. My internal well was dry; the constant, gnawing hunger of the Blood Heir had vanished, leaving behind an effete hollow that made my head spin.Across the shattered concrete, a sound broke the stillness. It wasn't a sob or a groan. It was a wet, hacking laugh.Silas was dragging himself upright against a girder. His pristine wool coat was shredded, his face a mask of soot and cooling blood. But it was his eyes that stopped my br
(Kira POV)"Cassidy, now!" I screamed, my voice barely audible over the gale.Cassidy didn't hesitate. She abandoned her cover, her movements a blur of tactical precision as she charged Silas. She didn't use her gun, it was useless against the kinetic shield, instead, she drew a pair of short, silver-weighted batons. She slid across the frost-slicked concrete, coming up under Silas’s reach and swinging with a ferocity that made the air whistle.Silas snarled, forced to divert his attention from the ritual to parry her blows. "You’re a flea biting a titan, Cassidy!" he roared, lashing out with a burst of kinetic force that sent a nearby industrial crate flying toward her head.She ducked, the crate shattering against a steel beam behind her, and kept swinging. She wasn't fighting to win; she was fighting to buy me seconds."Sage! The sout
I stood outside the infirmary door for longer than I should have, hand still resting on the cool metal handle. My heart hammered against my ribs in a rhythm that felt foreign, too fast, too erratic, nothing like the controlled calm I'd spent eighteen years perfecting.The mat
I couldn’t sit still.The suite felt too small, the walls pressing in like they were trying to squeeze the air out of my lungs. I paced from the window to the couch, back again, boots scuffing the same strip of carpet until the fibers started to look worn. Sage’s
Sage shifted beside me, just a small movement, but enough to remind me she was still breathing the same air. I felt her glance toward me, the way she always did when she sensed the ground tilting under my feet.My mouth opened. Closed. The lie I’d rehearsed in my head; gas station, e
The road kept unfolding beneath us like black ribbon, endless and indifferent, headlights slicing through the dark while my mind stayed trapped back at that park. I could still see her face buried in Leo’s hoodie, shoulders finally dropping the way they never did around me, ar







