Her breathing quickened. “Then what do we do?”

I looked at her, truly looked. The girl who once hated me. The one who now carried pieces of a dead man inside her heart.

“We break the bond,” I said.

She laughed weakly. “You can’t just break death, Lucien.”

“I can,” I said grimly. “But it’ll cost something.”

Her eyes met mine. “You mean me.”

I didn’t answer.

The quiet stretched between us like glass fragile, waiting to break.

Then suddenly, she ...