Page 174 of The Incendiary

Damond studied the ground beneath his feet. “Was he okay?”

“This isn’t going to help you.” The pity in his eyes made me feel pathetic, but not pathetic enough to stop pleading.

“Please,” I begged desperately. “I need to know.”

Damond sighed in defeat. “He was without you. He was worried sick. Of course he wasn’t okay. He was in hell.” He watched fresh tears stream down my cheeks and took my hands in his. “He was my godfather, Ary, and I cared for him deeply. After his oath to Molochai took my parents, he was the only family I had. If I wasn’t absolutely positive he was gone, I would be out there right now, by your side, searching for him. Instead, I’m here, more than willing to repay him for everything he’s ever done for me.”

I blanched. “Giving up on him isn’t repaying him⁠—”

“I am repaying him by protecting you.” His brows knit together. “He knew Molochai would eventually call upon his blood oath and give him your name. He was adamant he needed to stay away for that reason, and he knew his death was a probable outcome.”

“If he killed me, I would have come back,” I insisted. “It wouldn’t have been permanent. We could have found a way⁠—”

“It wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.”

I shook my head, refusing to accept that he gave up and ended it all. Or would he, after I sent him away? After I made him feel like I wanted nothing to do with him?

If I can’t spend eternity looking at you, I’d rather my soul cease to exist.

The agonizing memory ripped the air from my lungs. “I can’t just let him go.” My voice cracked on the final word. “He never let me go, he⁠—”

“He knew you were still alive,” Damond interrupted with the hard truth. “That’s the difference. You weren’t gone forever.”

Numbness started to seep into my veins, a defense against lonely, empty pain that threatened to drag me somewhere deeper and darker than I could survive.

“You’re going to be okay,” he promised me, his hands tight and reassuring on my shoulders. “You’re not alone.”

Damond lifted his leather bag and emptied the contents on my bed. My hand rose to my mouth to stifle a sob at the sight of the wolf pelt Gavin gave me on my twentieth birthday. And I heard those words, in his voice…

May your light blind your nightmares, and your love burn away the life that confines you.

“He left this,” said Damond. “He asked me to give it to you if he didn’t make it.”

I stared blankly at the perfectly folded pelt. Resting on top of it was a letter with my name on it, in his handwriting.

“You were the air he breathed, Ary,” Damond reminded me. “Without you, he had nothing.”

That wasn’t true. He had Damond. There had to be others who cared for him over the years. I refused to believe that he spent so much time entirely alone.

“Do you want to know the last thing he said to me before he left us in Brinnea?” I whispered. “He said, ‘Don’t let this world take one more thing from you.’” I blinked out a tear and looked up into Damond’s eyes. “I swore to myself I wouldn’t, but I failed. It took him.”

He pulled me in tight and held me for a few minutes, my cheek against his chest.

“I know you need time to process this,” he said at last, “but come see me or call for me soon. Winterton can show you where I’m living. We have a lot to catch up on, and I want to hear about it all.”

Damond closed the door behind him, and I approached the wolf pelt that I hadn’t touched since Brinnea, since I wore it during the dinner we shared, when everything between us was free and perfect for a little while.

I was scared to touch the wolf’s fur. I was scared to open the letter, knowing it might be the last I’d ever hear from him. I owed him so many things. He’d saved my life and helped me find my strength, my truth and my fire. He’d taken his own life to save me from suffering by his hand. Reading his letter was the least I could do, so I braced myself and unsealed it:

Ella,

If you’re reading this, then I’m gone, and I’m so sorry that we didn’t have enough time.

I don’t know if you’ve grown to hate me, or if, by some unearned grace of the gods, you’ve forgiven me for all I’ve done and what I’ve become. Regardless, know that I love you. I have always loved you. And I swear to you, I will find you in the next life and every life thereafter.

But now, in this life, I want you to live. Find love. With him or someone else. But he better make you fucking happy, and he better keep you safe, or I will find a way to haunt his soul throughout eternity.

Most important, I’m telling you not to hold on to me, Ella. Perhaps, given the way I held on to you, that’s a hypocritical request. But while you’ve always been my whole world, you have the whole world right in front of you.