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JADE
The silence after Logan and I finish telling Callie, Evie, and Kieran about the plan to go to Pine Valley stretches so long that I start counting the waves slapping the hull.
I get to eleven before Callie laughs.
“Pine Valley,” she says, as if she’s tasting the words and spitting them back out. “The two of you disappeared below deck for an hour, and now you want to walk a Revenant into a town full of shifters?”
Revenant.
The word makes me want to throw up over the railing.
Because she’s talking about Logan.
Logan’s a Revenant. His soul exists in a piece of jewelry hanging from his neck. His eyes aren’t really gray—they’re red, and I’ve never seen what they look like. It shouldn’t hurt as much as everything else, but the realization knocks all the air from my lungs, and suddenly I’m suffocating, just like I was under Evie’s heat dome when she was seconds away from cooking me alive.
Digging my nails into my palms, I force myself to breathe. Because loving Logan could be the biggest mistake of my life.
No, I think. Loving Logan isn’t a mistake. The world might feel like it’s falling apart right now, but Logan loves me, and I love him, and there’s not a timeline in existence where that wouldn’t be true.
But is loving someone the same as trusting them? It should be—at least you’d think it should. But standing here in the place where our worst secrets were laid bare by the Geryon, I’m not sure the answer is as simple as I need it to be.
“The plan isn’t up for debate,” Logan says from where he’s standing at the railing with his back to the open water, the morning light cutting across his face.
Callie scoffs. “Everything’s up for debate when you’re asking us to walk into a shifter town and announce ourselves to the moon goddess’s chosen champion. She’ll kill you in a heartbeat if she figures out what you are.”
“The ankar token hides what I am.”
“What if it’s not enough?” Her glare is sharper than all of Kieran’s blades combined.
Wind whips around Logan, tousling his hair and making Callie take a step back.
“It will be enough.” He matches her glare with an equally lethal one of his own.
No one speaks for a few seconds. I can barely even breathe, because one wrong move or word could bring everything crashing down.
Then Evie steps forward, standing next to Callie, of all people, as if the two of them are on the same side even though the Geryon just revealed that Callie’s a member of the Blood Coven. Kieran’s next to her, as always, his blades glinting in the sunlight.
Kieran Cross. A demigod.
Who the hell would have ever predicted that Kieran would be the good guy and Logan the bad guy? Is there really such a thing as “good guys” and “bad guys”? Aren’t we all shades of gray, just like Logan’s eyes?
Logan’s eyes.
The eyes that aren’t his eyes.
I try to look at him, but I can’t, and I hate that I can’t.
Instead, I glance down at the deck and reach for my bracelet. My fingers brush across the smooth place where the clasp used to be, thanks to Logan welding it in place.
Evie looks at me, which I’m surprised she can even do, given that she almost killed me.
“Do you really think Pine Valley’s the answer?” she asks. “You really think you can walk into a sanctuary built by four celestial goddesses and pretend you belong there?”
“I’m star touched, Evie,” I say, the words coming out flat. “I literally do belong there.”
“You’re in love with a Revenant.” She says it like she’s reading a diagnosis. “The star touched exist to destroy Revenants. That’s the entire point. And you’re bringing one to their front door because you can’t stand to be separated from him, even though he’s been drinking his ex-girlfriend’s blood and lying to you since the day you met.” She takes a deep breath, and tiny flames flicker from her fingertips. “Then again, you know a thing or two about lying, don’t you?”
