And yeah, that would be a nightmare, because not only would I die, so would Zayne. A tremor coursed through me as I slowly turned under the spray of water. I couldn’t cave to that fear—couldn’t dwell on it for one second. Fear made you do reckless, stupid things, and I already did enough of those for no good reason.

The top drawer had been empty and unlabeled until now, but I knew what I was filing there. That was where I was putting everything that had happened with Zayne. The kiss I’d stolen when we’d been back in the Potomac Highlands, the growing attraction and all the want, and that night, before we were bonded, when Zayne had kissed me and it had been everything I’d read about in the romance novels my mom had loved. When Zayne kissed me, when we’d gone as far as we could go without going all the way, the world had truly ceased to exist outside us.

I took all of that, along with the raw need for his touch, his attention and his heart—which most likely still belonged to someone else—and closed the file.

Relationships between Protectors and Trueborns were strictly forbidden. Why? I had no idea, and I guessed the reason the explanation was unknown was that I was the only Trueborn left.

I closed that drawer, which I simply labeled ZAYNE, and stepped out of the shower into the steam-filled bathroom. After wrapping a towel around myself, I leaned forward and wiped a palm over the mist-covered mirror.

My reflection came into view. As close as I was, my features were only a little fuzzy. My normally olive skin, courtesy of my mom’s Sicilian roots, was paler than usual, which made my brown eyes seem darker and larger. The skin around them was puffy and shadowed. My nose still tilted to the side, and my mouth still seemed almost too large for my face.

I looked exactly as I had the evening Zayne and I left this apartment to go to Senator Fisher’s house in hopes we’d find Misha or evidence of where he was being held.

I didn’t feel the same.

How could there not be a more noticeable physical manifestation of everything that had changed?

My reflection didn’t have an answer, but as I turned away from it, I said the only thing that mattered.

“I got this,” I whispered, and then repeated louder, “I got this.”

2

Hair damp and most likely looking like a complete mess, I sat at the kitchen island, bare feet tapping, staring at bare walls as I nursed a glass of OJ.

Zayne’s apartment was so incredibly empty, reminding me of a staged home.