Page 130 of Without a Trace
He stepped closer. Still veiled in shadow. “They think they’re protecting you.”
I swallowed. My mouth dry. “Who are you talking about?”
His silhouette didn’t move. “The ones watching. The ones waiting. The ones who already know.”
A chill spread through my chest.
“You were born for this, Scarlett.”
I shook my head. “Born for what?”
He looked past me, into the dark. “To inherit what they fear. To rise in the ruin.”
The silver flame flared once more—violent, blinding—and I saw it behind him.
A veiled eye, covered in red. A symbol carved into bark I’d seen before in a different dream.
My father turned away.
"You’ll remember when you’re ready."
Then everything vanished.
I woke up gasping, fingers clutching the bracelet, heart pounding hard against my ribs.
Something had changed.
And I wasn’t sure it could be undone.
Scarlett
The dream clung to me. My father’s voice still echoing, low and certain. The stone circle. The blood on the trees.
I didn’t know what it meant.
Trace stirred behind me. A quiet sound in his chest. Alden’s fingers curled through mine.
I stayed between them, eyes open, chest tight.
They knew something. I could feel it in the silence. In the way they hadn’t let me go all night.
My chest rose and fell with theirs. My body ached in every place they’d worshipped. The low, even rhythm of their breathing was cathartic. I was pinned between them, wrapped in them, and if this was heaven, hell, or something worse—I didn’t care.
Trace’s hand was splayed across my ribs, warm and possessive, Alden’s fingers still tangled with mine like he wasn’t ready to let me go. Neither were.
We were a mess of limbs and heat, hearts still raw from whatever the hell last night was. And god, I still felt every inch of it. Of them.
It should’ve felt impossible—loving them like this. But it didn’t.
It felt inevitable.
Smiling, I closed my eyes, breathing them in. The scent of skin and sex and salt clung to the sheets, to me, lighting something dangerous and soft in my chest. A whisper I hadn’t let myself fully believe until now.
I loved them. Both of them.
Not with some storybook logic. Not with a clean ending or a perfect answer. I loved them withfire, with chaos. I loved Trace’s edge, the guilt and gravity he carried like a cross he refused to set down. I loved Alden’s steadiness, the quiet way he looked at me, as if I already belonged.
I pressed my cheek into Trace’s chest, my thumb brushing over Alden’s knuckles.
