“Benefits of being a street rat,” he murmured. After a minute of her body shaking uncontrollably, he asked, “Do you have a smoke?”

She nodded. “But I can’t light the match.”

“Give it to me.”

She dug through her pockets, her hands shaking too bad that she couldn’t even reach them. Tears fell down her cheeks. Hadrian put his hands on hers to still her and then carefully looked for the smoke and matches she carried with her everywhere. He pulled one out, lit the cigarette, and put it to her lips.

She inhaled sweet loch. Her very life force. The shaking didn’t completely subside—some of it had to be shock—but it wasn’t as debilitating.

She took the cigarette out of her hands and pressed it to his lips. It was a testament to how terrified he was that he actually inhaled. Straitlaced Hadrian smoking loch.

After she finished the cigarette, she stubbed it out next to them and settled back into Hadrian’s arms. She turned her head to face him. “You saved my life.”

“We did it together,” he said, his voice raw.

Clover put her fingers to his lips to silence him. She could barely see the outline of his face, just a bit of blue hair and a sharp jawline and those big brown eyes. “Thank you.”

He pulled her hand away and crushed his mouth onto hers. The last hour vanished as he devoured her. She didn’t care if it was the terror still coursing through them. She needed him in that moment like her life depended on it. And there was no world where she would stop him.

34

The Martyr

ISA

Everything had gone to plan.

Isa smiled through her red mask as the world turned to utter chaos. Humans and half-Fae ran for their lives. Bodies littered the ground. Buildings were toppled. The Red Masks were on top of the world. They had won.

They’d waited it out until the protests got big enough that even the Society took notice. Attacking the small ones would have given them more notice than was necessary. But if they were going to actually become a threat, that was a different story.

And now, they were nothing.

This was Father’s great undoing. He had been misguided to ever let Basem Nix do as he pleased. It had set back their cause. But then Kerrigan had been named to the Society, the protests had started along with petitions to the government for humans to be treated as Fae were. It had turned the tide.

The Red Masks were innumerable. They would wash this city in blood before allowing the humans and half-Fae to take a place beside them. And it was all Father’s doing.