Page 150 of Underground Prince

Verily’s heat drifted away, and so did their footsteps.

* * *

Cassie sat beside me. We didn’t talk, deciding it was best to communicate through comfort. After a while she stood, her long brunette waves flowing over her shoulders as she bent down and kissed me on the forehead.

“I have to go,” she said. “I love you.”

Moaning, I rolled against my pillow.

A hand, calloused like Noah’s, strong like my father’s, caressed my cheek. But it contained a spark, an awareness, unlike the familiar touch of my family.

My lips moved, wanting so badly to form words. Just one. The name bordering my dreams and dancing across my nightmares.

The worst has happened.

“Shh.”

Warm softness replaced his hand. The connection of breath to skin. My hair was smoothed back, the line between my brows coaxed away.

Don’t go. Don’t ever leave. Please.

“I’m here,” he said, his whispers so close, his lips closer.

“Theo…”

The line of his shoulders was sharp in the shadows, his features highlighted in eerie green light. His eyes, caramel sweet in the daylight, had taken on the hollows of a bleached skull, his cheeks carved into navy-green angles.

He was rumpled, slumped and tarnished. He was beside me.

A thumb brushed over my eyebrow, the weight of him firm and stable. I met his touch, covering his hand with my own. And in the shared quiet, where our souls commiserated better than voice, I closed my eyes. Because I knew.

“You’re leaving,” I said.

He drew away, but took my hand with him. Another moment of our spirits, whispering through touch, entwining before releasing. “I have to.”

“No. You don’t.”

“You almost died.” It tore at him to say it, the fact of my near-demise slicing into his tongue.

I gripped his hand. “Everything I did was through my choice. Don’t insult me by saying my life almost ended because of you. I could’ve stayed behind. But I didn’t because I’m lying here with the certainty that I’d do it again. I’d gladly take the role of your perpetual shield if it meant I could protect you from everything you didn’t ask for.”

“You say that like I should accept it,” he said. “You, the one person who tore me out of my placid existence. The girl who flashed her rainbow hair, who took a battered man and showed him how to see in color. You’re trying to tell me that woman’s life counts less than my own.” His head lifted up. “I won’t allow it.”

“You’re not hearing me,” I said. “I’m saying that neither of us matters without the other.”

“Christ, I hear you.” He folded, his head dipping low to mine. “I heard you when you went silent on the pavement. Could feel your heart slowing down, your chest stilling in the cold. My brother’s bullet ripped into your skin. There is nothing like that moment. Nothing.”

I buried my fingers in his hair. “I know.”

“I refuse to give you any more of those seconds. And it’s because of that—no, Scarlet.” He moved my face back to him, though I’d crumbled, tears hitting his skin. At the sight, his expression lost its determination. He shattered, and the pieces he left behind said, “It’s because of that I have to let you go.”

“That’s no reason,” I said, tasting the salt of my tears. “If you go you’re not leaving me behind. You’ll create a husk. Someone with no dreams, no purpose—”

“Never.” He laid a finger on my lips. “You will not become a woman who lives only for a man. Not the Scarlet I know. You’ll be strong, you are resilient, iron-willed, and you’ll do whatever it takes to forge the life you were meant to have.”

“Not without you,” I sobbed. “Please—”

“My sweet, stubborn girl,” he said, with such endearment that my throat ached in answer. “You have me.”

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