Vale smiled, but no humor glowed in her eyes. “I’ll return alive. I’m a superhero. Intangy Girl, trademark pending. I pity our opponents.”

They climbed up the ladder, emerging in daylight to face their foes, leaving the weakened Nola in the cave. Alone. Cold. Afraid. A metaphor for her past.

But what about her future?

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

How to tame your beast in a day

GET TO NOLA. Get to Nola now! Bane had been tracking her for hours, her note on repeat in his mind.

Dear Bane, aka golden god, aka beasty-boy, aka hot buttered buns,

You’ve touched my life in so many ways. I’ve grown to love and hate you, you wonderful, terrible beast! That’s right. I love you. But I hate you because I have to leave you and this hurts. This hurts so stinking bad. But there’s a reason for it. Are you ready? Here goes. Zion had a psychic dream of the future. He claims I’ll stab and kill you. I don’t want to take a chance that he’s right. You mean too much to me. So, I don’t know if this will work, but here goes. I’m ordering you not to come after me or contact me. I plan to kill Aveline and save Meredith. I know you said you’re keeping me, but think! You’ll have the love of your life back, and you won’t remember me. The All War will transpire, but the new queen will send a different Adwaewethian to Earth. We’ll never meet, but maybe that’s for the best? You can’t miss what you’ve never had, right?

Love, Nola.

PS: This is my least favorite day.

Her tears had stained the paper.

Now, he felt skinned alive. Never meet her? Not a life worth living. He breathed for this woman, and she thought to leave him, because she feared a prediction? She thought to put a new queen in power, one who would send a different warrior to fight in the Terran All War, a man willing to kill Nola at the first opportunity? Nola must have realized the truth, yet she’d planned to sacrifice herself anyway. For Bane. Because she loved him. Loved. Him.

Get to Nola. Just get to Nola.

To give an order life, a royal had to voice it, so he was under no obligation to obey her note. Already he’d attempted to peer through her eyes and speak in her mind, but he’d failed, encountering block after block. He’d decided to track her by scent; all that jasmine and honeysuckle would be a true guide. He would find her. No one kept him from Nola, not even Nola herself. As for Zion’s prediction, Bane didn’t care. So his little princess might stab him. So what? Whatever happened, they would deal.