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The sheer relief threatens to drown the anger, but someone took her from me. Past the forest, past my wards,past me.

The chemicals may have masked her scent, but I still failed. I couldn’t protect her.

My eyes scan over her body, searching for the wound I smelled in the woods. Her hand is neatly bandaged. He cleaned her wound?

A familiar scent drifts by—chamomile. I turn and see a mug on the nightstand. Next to it lies a folded piece of paper. I snatch it so quickly that the paper crumples in my palm. Three words written in what I know is her blood:

I could have.

I realize what the words mean as soon as I read them. He didn’t want her dead; he wanted me to know that he had access to do whatever he wanted to her.

I brush her hair back, gently. My voice is thick with unshed ice. “I’m here now. You’re safe. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to you sooner.Veyr’kael ves skrae’thrin... Saelûn. Thal’kai ves’karan ael’vesh rae’nai.”(Let the gods judge me as they will, soulbond. You deserve a mate greater than I am.)

I glance at the tea he made for her. “If she wants warmth,” I murmur, taking the mug into my hands. “It will come from me—not from a male too pathetic to show his face.”

I hurl it across the room. Glass shatters against the floor, but she doesn't budge.

I notice the leather glove still lying on the table near where the mug sat; her scent is all over it.

He left it forme.

A message: Itouched her. I could have taken her. I didn’t, but I can.

He wants me to chase him, but will not leave my Saelûn.

I lean down, forehead against hers, breath shaking as I whisper a promise into her skin:“Velorin...kaemorin.”

12

CHAMOMILE

Anonymous-

She whispered his name, not mine. I’m the one who held her. I’m the one who carried her through the snow like something precious.Like a bride.

And wasn’t it, in some twisted way, its own kind of ceremony?

He came for her, I knew he would, but he was too late. He willalwaysbe too late.

I was here first, and I won’t let something like him replace my spot in Lumi’s life.

He tucked her in with a promise. I tucked her in with proof.

When push comes to shove, I’m the one there for her, just like when she ran from him.

I watch from the frozen rooftop across her apartment. He closed the curtains, but that is merely an inconvenience. I prepared for everything. Sixteen hidden cameras—installed the day before I followed her into the woods—render his privacy meaningless.

I pull my phone out and swipe to the bedroom feed. He’s sitting beside her bed, his monstrous claws pretending to begentle as he brushes her hair back. I listen as he whispers promises he’ll never be able to keep.

My mind drifts to the weight of her in my arms—the perfect, compliant weight. She was so afraid until I wrapped my arm around her waist.

She gave me her fear like an offering... and I did something I wasn’t sure I was capable of: I held her gently, I tucked her in, I bandaged her palm, and I made her tea.

None of this was about taking from her. It has always been my duty to save her. He protects her out of animal instinct. I protect her because I choose to. She wouldn’t have survived the last four years without me.

When he finally leaves her side, even for one second, she’ll look at the nightstand and wonder: Who did all of this for me?

“Let me tell you a bedtime story, Lumi,” I murmur to the screen, watching her chest rise and fall.