Page 265 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

She huffed a quiet, broken laugh and nodded. “I love you.”

“I love you too, little nova.”

And then we danced.

We danced right there in the alley—just us and our lone, disinterested audience—as rain turned to sleet and soaked us down to the bones. We danced through grief, through fear, through the remnants of what we’d tried to forget. Every spin and step, every stolen kiss, poured something back into us. The storm cascaded into all the fear I’d been collecting until it was so diluted it no longer had the strength to paralyze.

By the end of the third song, when the door clicked shut behind the attendant, we finally slowed, clinging to the only thing that mattered.

Then we jumped.

Hand in hand, we portled back to Westerlund Estate, sprinting across the pasture in soaked shoes, laughter spilling from Ally’s lips. We leapt onto the porch, burst through the door, breathless and euphoric⁠—

And stopped cold.

Every member of our coven—minus two—sat waiting. Their grim expressions sucked the air from the room like a record scratch. Mug in hand, Marcus looked up from the head of the table and raised a pint toward the empty chair beside him.

“Sit.” Less invitation than command.

I glanced at Ally. She swallowed hard.

“Did we lose someone?” I asked, tension clamping my spine. “Freya? Aren?”

A chorus of shaking heads was my answer.

“Then why do I feel like I just walked into an intervention?” I muttered, kicking off drenched loafers and squeezing her hand.

“You always were good at calling a spade a spade,” Alec said, jerking his chin toward the table.

“Ansel. Lana. Good to see you,” I said stiffly.

“Mm-hmm,” Ansel grumbled, thumbing the torn wrapper on his beer bottle.

“I don’t really feel like sitting,” Ally said, unclipping her soaked curls and running her fingers through them.

“Does it look like we give a shit?” Alec snapped. “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Alec,” she warned, sharp and low.

“Don’t ‘Alec’ me when you’ve already given up.”

“I haven’t given up,” she countered. “We’re working our asses off to get everything ready before it all goes to hell, and if you’d been around the last six weeks⁠—”

“It’s not your effort I’m questioning,” he cut in. “It’s your resignation.”

“You think we can’t recognize a bucket list when we see one?” Marcus asked, his eyes cold, locked on Ally.

“Guys,” she scoffed, shaking her head—but she didn’t deny it. The silence that followed hit harder than any admission. My post-storm clarity faded under the weight of their stares.

“Ally, sweetie, please,” Fae said, softer now, pulling out the chair beside her. “We deserve to understand what you’re thinking.”

I looked at Ally. And I saw it—the hollow ache we’d just danced away flooding back in.

Reluctance was etched into the set of her shoulders, her fists curled tight in the folds of her dress as she finally closed the distance and sat. I did the same, taking her hand while accepting a beer from Marcus with a grateful nod.

“What did you do, Ally?” Ansel asked gruffly, leaning forward to brace his forearms on the table, still peeling at the label like it might tell him the answer.

“Nothing any of you wouldn’t have,” she said simply.