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I didn’t want anything else.

Just me and him.

If it was three days we were given, I would savor every second of them.

It would be a love I would carry for the rest of my life. A friendship that changed me. A soul that had possessed me and challenged me and made me better.

There were no other options—not where he was concerned.

I’d endure it. All of it.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Avery—”

“I’m not. I want to know what it would be to live this life with you. To belong to you as completely as I do now.”

He gripped me hard, yanking me against his chest. His lips brushed against my brow, my nose, smearing raindrops across my skin.

“If I was going to love but once, Avery Eden, I am glad it was with you.”

Chapter 28

The sun rose on October thirty-first, bringing with it a pristine, cloudless blue sky and a cold, bitter wind.

I tore from bed, fingers already shaking, and headed down toward the sitting room. So many places to hide in this castle, so many other rooms to explore, but none of those would be where I found him.

I crept down the stairs, stone cold on my bare feet. He was before the windows, hands laced behind his back. My vision slipped again, spinning out away from me. The room changed, reshaping itself to how it’d been when he was alive. The rug under his feet was a different color, a rich navy blue instead of the swirling pattern that sat there now. No electricity, just burning oil lamps on the tables.

He was vibrant. Rich hair, pale skin, rough hands, strong back.

I wanted to curl up against him, lay my head against the slope of his spine and simply breathe him in.

The room reoriented itself, all the modern fixtures sweeping back into place.

But Wolfe…the surety, the sturdiness, remained.

“Wolfe?”

He turned, cheeks slightly flushed. “Morning, grá.”

Even the nights at the church ruins and faerie circle hadn’t made him look like this. There was a mischievous sparkle in his eye, a playfulness about him that had been missing over the last few days.

“Are you…? How are you feeling?” I asked cautiously.

He flexed his hands, gold band winking in the light. There were no beams of sunlight searing through him. No fuzzy parts that faded and came back together. He looked whole. Real.

“Good. The veil is nearly here.”

“Where does it go?”

“There is a ley line conjunction in the woods not far from here. Three main lines connect and they form a bridge, of sorts. There are other lines born from it, but those three are what enables us to pass.”

I nodded, heart already a sickening drum against my ribs.

“Only the lost and wild things can see it,” he said, brogue thicker than I’d ever heard it. “A thousand lights and heartbeats snaking through the ground. Like a siren call.”

“And you’ll follow it?”