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I smack an affectionate kiss to the center of his precious little hand. “As I love you, son.”

But I’m only given a couple of precious seconds to cherish the perfection of the moment. Both Lux and I start when everything rattles around us again, rolling through a sizable aftershock to the tremblor that’s less than five minutes old. But the pulse spike is like a warm-up shot to the arrows of adrenaline that hit when my back pocket starts beeping. Loudly. Incessantly. The tonal alert is as shrill as a tsunami siren because it’s meant to be heeded the same way. It’s been assigned to one entity alone—the Brocade’s executive offices—to notify me of one message alone.

Drop everything.

Come now.

We have an emergency.

A big emergency.

Chapter One

Emma

Three screaming orgasms.

Two rolling earthquakes.

One airborne son.

And that’s just in the last ten minutes.

As I race to follow my husband to the Hotel Brocade’s private penthouse elevator, the universe itself answers my mental gawk about the whole situation. Welcome to being a superheroine, chica. You asked for this, remember?

I’m damn sure I’ll never forget. Becoming solar-powered Flare was never an easy road, from my first feelings of helplessness during Reece’s “adventures” to the second I told the Team Bolt techs to hook their equipment to a giant bank of solar panels and then divert that power to my bloodstream. So now I’ve got everything I wished for. I’m my husband’s equal, and we’re responding to an urgent emergency hail as a team.

Except…

Except…

Well, shit. I may as well admit it.

There’s a huge part of me that just wants to go back and be the charming engagement party hostess, superhero spouse, and doting mama to the world’s most perfect little boy.

Doting mama.

Words I never thought would actually describe me have become everything to me.

Maybe that’s why it feels fine to see my amazing son clamoring up my husband’s back, wrapping his small but mighty arms around my husband’s neck, and squealing in joy as the lift doors open. Despite the danger ahead, I’ve never felt more joyous hearing my son’s laugh as he swoops to hang upside down from Reece’s neck. I’ve never felt more at peace as we prepare to help right some kind of gigantic wrong.

At least that’s what my instincts are blaring as we disembark from the elevator and then sprint through the executive office’s glass doors. As we leave behind the last signs of our shiny, pristine, private world, the insight bellows even louder inside me.

That maybe our not-so-small shaker wasn’t a gift from the Elysian Park Fault System, after all.

It’s the same feeling I experienced the last time that distinct alarm beeped from Reece’s pocket—when Kane Alighieri had become a human hurricane tearing across downtown Los Angeles. Everything bound by Pico Boulevard, the 110, and the river bed was in danger of being flattened—and a lot of it was. Now, two years later, structures have begun taking form from that rubble. Some went up fast and are nearly ready for occupation, their advance sales offices doing brisk business. Others proceed at slower paces, with underground infrastructure systems needing repair before they can go vertical.

“Dear God.” I can’t help spewing it as we’re confronted full-force by the grim grit of the real world. Where I wonder if Godzilla might really be a thing. Or Rasputin. Or Thanos. Or maybe Kane has simply earned himself a posthumous copycat city wrecker.

Or…

Or this grisly scene is courtesy of a new city wrecker, controlled once again by Faline.

Faline.

Another concept my brain forces itself to grasp—all over again.

The woman. The witch. The enemy.