Page 72 of Celestial Combat

Like he was angry.

Or scared.

Maybe both.

The cool night air hit my face as we stepped outside, sharp against the blood drying on my skin. The streets were eerily quiet despite the chaos we had left behind.

Zane carried me straight to the car, setting me down in the passenger seat. His hands moved with an efficiency that was almost robotic as he reached across me, buckling the seatbelt, securing me in place.

His face was close.

For half a second, his fingers brushed my arm. A ghost of a touch, barely there, but it burned.

Pulling back like he’d felt the fire too, he slammed by door shut and hurried to the driver’s side, getting in beside me and roaring the engine to life.

Trevor leaned into his window. “Get her checked out.”

Zane didn’t respond with words, just a sharp nod, his jaw locked tight. And then, without another glance, he pulled the SUV off the curb.

I turned my head toward the side mirror, watching as Natalia and Trevor faded into the night behind us, their figures swallowed by the neon haze of Chinatown. A part of me felt bad leaving them to clean up the mess, but I knew they could handle it.

With a slow inhale, I dragged my gaze back to the windshield, watching the streets shift around us as Zane wove the car out of Chinatown.

He didn’t say anything.

Neither did I.

The quiet between us was thick, heavy in a way that had nothing to do with the blood drying on my skin.

I glanced at the road ahead. He was heading downtown on Lafayette Street, slipping past streetlights that cast golden streaks over the car’s sleek black hood.

He had to be taking me to Queens – to the mansion, to my family’s estate.

I turned my head, pressing my temple lightly against the cool glass of the window as the city passed in a blur.

I felt my eyes sting, thinking about my parents’ reactions.

Why did these things always had to happen to me?

When we hit Federal Plaza, I watched the towering forms of the US Court of International Trade, the NYC Health Department, and the looming pillars of the New York County Supreme Court slide past us.

They all looked so untouched, so orderly.

So different from the world I came from.

Zane’s hands circled the steering wheel smoothly as he made a left onto the Brooklyn Bridge.

The bridge stretched out before us, a skeletal structure of steel cables and pale stone illuminated against the dark sky. In the mirror, Manhattan glowed, wrapped in gold and glass. I turned my gaze past the spires of the Financial District, comparing them to the softer lights of Queens.

Queens was different.

Queens was home.

Manhattan was ruthless. Beautiful in a way that demanded something from you.

I turned my eyes to him.

He looked as he always did – controlled, unreadable. Hands steady, shoulders tense, eyes locked on the road. But there was something different tonight, in the way his fingers gripped the wheel just a little harder than necessary.

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