Darkness.

“Do not fear the darkness.”

She slept.

She was in Cappadocia. She didn’t know how. They put her in a bed that smelled of him, and she slept.

Warm, wrinkled hands forced her up in the bed.

“Drink. You must drink.”

No.

“Please, Ava.”

Small hands led her through the forest. Soft hands clutched her fingers. Childish voices whispered in her mind.

“Come back.”

No.

“We need you to come back.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ava woke in the blackness, in the cave where they’d first made love. She was wrapped in his scent, but not his arms.

Everything was gone.

She lay still, staring at the chisel marks in the ceiling, wishing the mountain would close in and crush her.

“I know you’re awake.”

It was Rhys. She turned her head to the side and he was there, sitting in a corner of the room, staring at her with bloodshot eyes. They filled with tears as he watched her.

“Ava.”

He reached over and caught her when she started to sob. The cries wracked her body, wringing her out as he held her. She shouted into his shoulder, beating at his back, but he only gripped her closer, rocking back and forth.

She cried for hours, and then the blackness enveloped her again.

Damien was there the next time she woke.

“You need to eat, sister.”

“I don’t want to.”

“He wanted you to live.” Damien continued, even when she curled into herself, trying to shut out the words. “More than anything, he wanted you to live.”

“Go away.”

“Not till you’ve eaten.”

“No.”

“It’s been over a week. You’re dehydrated. Evren is hours away from putting you on an IV if you don’t drink something.”

“I don’t care.”

Damien knelt beside her, holding out a soft roll and a cup of water.

“Do not let his sacrifice be in vain.”

She started to cry again, silent tears rolling down her cheeks, but she sat up. Damien helped her, placing more pillows behind her back after Ava took the roll from his hands. She bit down, and it tasted like dust.

Whispered thoughts circled her mind as she stared at the mural in the library, the bucolic scene of families in the village. The ancient scribe she remembered sat across from her, staring silently with pale blue eyes.

She was his companion now.

Ava sat in the library for weeks, staring at the painting as the scribes fed her, forced her to drink. Her body grew strong again.

She slept in the bed she and Malachi had shared. The sense of him lingered for a time, and when it started to fade, Rhys showed up at the door with a blanket that held her mate’s scent. Ava silently took it and wrapped it around her before she shut the door.

“You grieve,” the ancient scribe said one afternoon as the sun lit the rich colors on the wall.

“Yes.”

“As do I.”

She glanced over. “How long?”

He shrugged. “Just a little while longer.”

“You’re immortal.”

“She was supposed to be, too.”

Ava whispered, “We’re all immortal, as long as our stories are told.”

The old scribe smiled, nodded, and turned back to the painting.

She stared at the fire someone had started in the sitting room. It didn’t warm her. She was cold to her bones.

“Brage?”

“Gone,” Max whispered. “You fell in the water, and you didn’t come up. He escaped when we ran for you. He’s not in Istanbul. We don’t know where he went. But we have his weapon. He lost it in the fight.”

“I want to kill him.”

“Good.”

“You don’t sound fine,” Lena said.

“I am. Or maybe I’m not.” She twisted the phone cord around her finger as she sat. “But I will be.”

“I want you to come home.”

“No, I’m fine here. I like it here. I’m staying with friends.”

“Do you need—?”

“I’m not the only woman in the world who’s had her heart broken, Mother.” She didn’t try to stop the tears, knowing her mother believed the lie. “Give me some time. I’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t a lie. He’d left her.

She told the truth. Just not all of it.

Damien came to her room one night. She was looking through the pictures on her laptop, which had miraculously survived the fire at the scribe house in Istanbul. Pictures from her time with him before. When she’d still been human, and he’d still been her bodyguard.

There weren’t enough.

He knocked on the door she’d left cracked open, then slipped in the room, sitting in the corner chair where Rhys, Maxim, Leo, and he had all watched over her.

Like brothers. His brothers.

Damien sat and watched her in silence until she spoke.

“What’s up?”

“I’m going to take you to my mate. To Sari.”

Ava swallowed the lump in her throat. “I don’t want to leave yet.”

“You need to.”

“Are you going to force me?”

Damien took a deep breath and leaned forward. “Ava, when you screamed in the cistern, you burst your own eardrums, along with Max’s and mine. Blood was pouring from your nose when we dragged you out. We were crying blood. The only reason you survived the wound to your abdomen and healed yourself was because Malachi performed the mating ritual. Otherwise, I know you’d be dead.”