The first dream came before sunrise.

Cassian saw Luca standing in the middle of the river, clothes soaked, eyes open and empty. A single bullet wound bloomed red through his chest — the water around him burning gold. Then the city caught fire.

Cassian woke with his hand at his throat and the sound of his own heartbeat echoing like a drum.

He didn’t tell Luca.

Not yet.

The air in the safehouse felt heavier that morning, as if the ghosts themselves had crawled inside to listen. Luca was already awake, cleaning his gun with a quiet precision that always made Cassian uneasy.

“You were talking in your sleep again,” Luca said without looking up.

“What did I say?”

“Just my name.”

Cassian froze mid-motion. “…Did I?”

“Twice.”

Their eyes met — a flicker of something between fear and tenderness crossing the space.

Luca looked away first, holstering the weapon. “You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Then drink something. Coffee. Bourbon. I don’t care. You look like hell.”

Cassian almost smiled. “You always know how to charm a man.”

Luca’s lips twitched, but there was no humor in his eyes. “I just don’t want to bury you.”

The words hit harder than either expected.

They drove out of the Quarter as dawn bled pink through the fog. Cassian watched the city blur by — the boarded windows, the wet cobblestones, the ghosts pressing against the glass.

Luca spoke without looking at him. “Rosa’s gone to ground. Vernetti’s making moves in the south docks. They’re saying she’s got a witch on her side now.”

Cassian’s gaze stayed on the window. “Then she’s not the only one.”

“Meaning you?”

“Meaning something’s coming, and I don’t think we’re ready for it.”

Luca gripped the wheel tighter. “You always say that right before something explodes.”

Cassian looked over, smile faint but sincere. “Then maybe I’m learning your timing.”

Luca glanced at him, and for a moment the whole world narrowed to that look — two men running out of reasons not to fall.

They stopped at an abandoned motel outside Plaquemine. The rain followed them there, steady and cold. Luca built a fire in the cracked brick hearth while Cassian rummaged through a bag of old books and maps.

“You ever wonder,” Cassian said quietly, “if we were supposed to meet?”

Luca threw another log on the fire. “You mean fate?”

Cassian nodded.

“I don’t believe in it.”

“Then what do you believe in?”

Luca thought for a long time before answering. “I believe in choice. In staying when it’s easier to walk away.”

Cassian turned toward him. The firelight painted his face in gold and shadow. “And if staying kills you?”

Luca met his gaze. “Then at least I chose it.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It pulsed — full of everything they hadn’t said, couldn’t say.

Cassian crossed the room slowly, stopping when the fire’s glow brushed both their faces. “You should hate me,” he said softly. “You’ve lost too much because of me.”

Luca shook his head. “You think this is loss?”

He reached out, tracing his thumb along Cassian’s jaw — a touch careful, reverent. “This feels like the only thing that’s real.”

Cassian’s breath caught. “You shouldn’t—”

“Tell me to stop.”

But Cassian didn’t. Couldn’t.

Their lips met — not gentle, not violent, just inevitable. The kind of kiss that felt like confession and punishment all at once. Cassian’s hands fisted in Luca’s shirt, pulling him closer; Luca’s fingers slid into his hair, holding him there like the world was burning outside.

And maybe it was.

When they finally broke apart, the fire had dropped to embers.

Cassian pressed his forehead against Luca’s. “You don’t understand. I saw it. You die because of me.”

Luca’s voice was steady. “Then we change the story.”

“You can’t outrun what’s already written.”

“Watch me.”

Cassian closed his eyes, but the tears came anyway — quiet, trembling, uninvited. Luca caught one with his thumb and kissed it away.

“I’m not afraid of dying,” he murmured. “I’m afraid of leaving you alone to live with it.”

Cassian’s voice broke. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Too late.”

Luca pulled him close again and sighed against Cassian’s throat as he climbed on top of his warm body and straddled his hips. “Tell me I can have you tonight.” He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he ground into Luca’s stomach and clutched the back of his neck as he pulled him in and kissed him with all the passion that’d been building between them since the beginning.

Cassian groaned when Luca squeezed his ass cheeks, his rough hands kneading and gripping, his touch far from delicate, and Casian didn’t want it to be. Luca flipped them over until he was between Cassian’s thighs, spreading him nice and wide. His hips were strong, digging into his pelvis, and the pressure of his solid body against his was unbelievable.

There were no words left, only the sound of rain on the roof and two heartbeats finding the same rhythm.

By the time dawn cracked open the horizon, Cassian was sitting by the fire again, staring into the ashes.

Luca slept nearby, one hand still reaching out as if searching for him even in dreams.

Cassian touched the small silver pendant at his neck — the one that hummed when the Sight was near. It was cold now, dormant.

“Please,” he whispered to the silence. “Let him live.”

Outside, something screamed in the distance — a sound half human, half something else.

The fire guttered once, then steadied.

Cassian looked back at Luca, and for the first time, he didn’t know if love was salvation or the sharpest kind of curse.

“You always brood this early?” Luca murmured.

Cassian glanced at him, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “Only on days ending in y.”

“Then you’re doomed.”

“I was doomed the minute I met you.”

Luca chuckled, stretching. “You talk like a man writing his own epitaph.”

Cassian’s eyes softened. “Maybe I am.”

For a while, neither spoke. The motel hummed with silence — the kind that felt more like peace than emptiness. Cassian poured them both coffee from a cracked thermos. Luca took his cup, their fingers brushing.

“Plans?” Luca asked.

“Head back into the Quarter. Check in with Rosa. Maybe try to figure out who’s been summoning dead men in the bayou.”

“Romantic,” Luca said dryly. “Should I bring flowers?”

Cassian smiled, but there was something in his gaze — a flicker of unease.

“What?” Luca asked.

Cassian shook his head. “Nothing. Just a feeling.”

He didn’t say a vision. Not yet.

By noon, the rain had turned to mist. They packed what little they had and loaded into the car. Cassian drove, Luca watching the world slide by — sugarcane fields, rusted signs, the curve of the Mississippi glinting under gray sky.

“Feels like the calm before something stupid,” Luca muttered.

Cassian laughed once. “You’re not wrong.”

At a gas station on the outskirts of the city, they stopped for supplies. Cassian went inside to pay. When he came back out, Luca was gone.

At first he thought it was a joke — Luca always testing him, always a step ahead.

“Luca?” he called, scanning the lot.

Nothing.

The trunk was still open. The passenger door ajar. A coffee cup overturned on the ground.

Then he saw it — a mark drawn in chalk on the side mirror. A halo with hollow eyes.

Cassian froze, the world going suddenly very quiet.

He reached out, touched the mark, and the Sight surged without warning — a flash of chains, chanting, salt circles, Luca’s voice screaming his name—

Then black.

When he came to, the air smelled of gasoline and rain. His hands were shaking. His pulse roared in his ears.

He stared out at the empty road ahead, and every cell in his body went cold.

Someone had taken Luca.

And Cassian Voss, the Prophet, the man cursed by his own visions, felt the kind of rage that only love could sharpen.