Page 106 of The Syndicater (Dark Verse 6)

Chapter 35

Lyla, Near Tenebrae City

She was going tocall herself Lyna if she made it out alive.

Malini had told her once that Lyna meant light while Lyla meant night. She had always felt like the night, and most of the time, she still did. But she also felt like the moon now, alight but with light it borrowed and stole from the ball of fire near it. It also felt like a good thing to do in honor of her friend's memory.

She had been thinking a lot about who she felt like lately. Lyla was the broken girl who had somehow survived, and Luna had been the innocent girl her brother had mourned. After the last few days, spending time with a family she fell in love with and a man who had shown her what the word meant, she realized she was both the girls and she would always be. And so, she claimed her power, became something new, even if it was the end.

She would rather die with her fire than end with the ashes.

"We will become ashes before we are apart."

His words came back to her, along with the memory. The memory of being in his arms, feeling the safest she had felt, so whole she never questioned where she was hollow.

She watched the man on the screen, the monster of her nightmares come to life before her eyes again, and grit her teeth. He wouldn't break her again, not this time. She had been a child alone when he'd gotten his claws into her. She was a woman who belonged now.

She looked at Morana, so feisty and protective, willing to take the brunt of their wrath on herself to save her. She looked at her brother, bleeding but not broken, forced to make a choice that had traumatized him and made his life hell twenty-plus years ago, yet still willing to die instead of choosing.

But she needed him to. She needed him to live, needed Morana to live, so they could be happy together. So they could get married and adopt a dog and take care of Xander for the rest of their lives. Her son needed them and their love more than he needed her. She would never be able to give him the stability, the love he deserved, not with the demons she battled everyday. She would love to be a part of his life though, and she didn't think Tristan and Morana would ever refuse that. But though she had been a mother to him, she didn't think she could be a mom. Not like Amara was with Tempest, or Zephyr was to her unborn child. Not like Morana already was with him.

She remembered getting that photo of Morana, all strung up in chains, unconscious, and the message that came with it.Take her place—alone—or die.

Alpha and Zephyr had gone back to Los Fortis after the shocking news, and then Dante had found more heartbreaking news. Vin and a girl he'd been with had died. Their bodies were washed up on the river in Tenebrae. They'd both gone to take care of things and make arrangements, all of them gone beforeshe could have told any of them. All but her brother by her side and her lover on the phone.

Lyla—Lyna, she promised herself, if she made it—hadn't even thought. She had told Dainn and told her brother, showed him the message, and saw how her brother was when helost it.

Dainn,herDainn, had simply said three words to her.

"Trust me still?"

She would trust him till the end of her time, trust herself to make that choice.

"Yes."

"Then go."

She hadn't even questioned it. With him at her back—her mind reminding her of that time he'd stood behind her in the mirror and told her he was always behind her—she would walk into the depths of hell, knowing she wouldn't be burned.

Tristan had not thought the same. He'd told her husband to 'fuck off' and accompanied her.

And though she didn't have a number to contacthim, she had tucked her phone under her left foot, between her sock and her shoe. She knew it was a matter of time—she hoped—before he found her.

And he would find her, because he always had.

Whether she would be dead or alive was a matter for debate at the pace at which things were devolving.

But hanging there from her chains, she surprisingly felt at peace. She had lived a good life in the last few months, the best she could have dreamed of, with her husband and her brother and her son, a trifecta of men completing her soul. And if this was the way she had to go, she was going to at least make sure it meant something.

"Choose her," she begged her brother again. "Get out of here. For Xander. He needs you both."

She could see the toll it was taking on him, chipping away at pieces of his soul as he looked between the both of them, a knife stuck to his side. She didn't even think he was feeling it.

Morana saw it too, probably better than her, and told her, "We won't leave you alone."

They were both so incredible. She was lucky to have had them. But they had to get out and she was going to lie if need be. "I won't be alone. He'll come for me."

When was the question.

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