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That had the power to break you.

Like my dad.

Like Lana. The image of her screaming over her mate’s corpse ripped through me, and my pulse kicked harder.

I took one step forward. The creak of my boot must’ve reached her, because she slowly lifted her head enough to prop her chin on her fists. Even that looked like work. Like she had nothing left.

“Go, Cyrus. Now.”

I locked on those hazel-ringed jades and dragged in a breath as that thing in my chest pulled me forward, aching like a bruise beneath my ribs.

Tears welled in her eyes. My throat thickened, and something inside me cracked at the sheer uselessness of standing there.

With a nod and a painful swallow, I turned toward the door.

When I looked back, something squeezed behind my ribs. She still hadn’t moved. Just stared at the table like it might hand her an answer.

I cleared my throat. “You look beautiful tonight.”

I wasn’t even across the threshold before my shadows snapped out to catch...

Her shoe. She’d chucked her damn heel at me.

My gaze shot to hers. She just stood there, chest heaving. I arched a disbelieving brow.

“I look beautiful tonight?” she asked in that lethal calm she used right before cutting somebody to pieces. “Did you just tell me I look beautiful tonight?” The calm cracked around the edges, mania slipping through. Somehow better and worse at once.

“You heard me.”

“I am covered—” Balancing on one bare foot, she reached back for the other shoe. Could be worse. Could be blades. “—in Renown entrails and demon ichor.” She ripped the heel off and planted both feet on the hardwood.

“You’re ruthless.” A smirk tugged at my mouth. She either didn’t hear me or didn’t care.

“You’ve pretended for all the world that I died with my father—” A solid goddamn windup. “—for the last four months, and the first thing you say to me outside a goddamn mission is that I look beautiful?” She hurled the shoe full force. I twisted aside and let it slam into the wall, ricocheting to the floor. I’d barely straightened when she shifted through shadow and appeared less than a foot away. “If you’re going to hate me, Cyrus, at least have the balls to stand behind it.”

Something thick lodged in my throat. “I don’t hate you.”

“Really? Because you fucking fooled me.”

“I could never hate you, Freya.” Even if I wanted to. I’d sure as hell tried.

“Stop doing that.”

“What?”

“Saying my name. Saying it like that—like I still mean something to you.”

I held her furious stare, knowing I’d put that anger there because I couldn’t admit I had no idea how to do this. How to be this. “You’ve always meant something to me.”

“No.” Rage ignited in those jades. “No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to act like I imagined all of this—” She slashed a hand between us. “You don’t get to go full fucking Clark Kent in your goddamn fortress of solitude when I need you—actually need you—and then fly in the second somebody else notices me, beating your chest like a caveman. No. We’re not doing this.” Practically vibrating, Freya spun away and started pacing.

“It’s not about him.”

She whirled back on me, and I swore flames flickered in her hands. “Excuse me?”

“It’s not about him.”

“Oh, bullshit. You’re like a kid who abandoned a toy in the sandbox, then lost his mind when somebody else picked it up. You don’t want the damn thing, but nobody else gets to play with it either.”