Leelo’s velvet-blue eyes were shining with tears, and wordlessly, Jaren leaned down to kiss her, breathing in her scent one last time. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered as she tilted her face up to his. When their lips met, he could taste her salty tears, and he felt his shattered heart break a little more.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he said. “You have done so much for me, Leelo. I’m the one who should be sorry. It was selfish of me to ask you to leave Endla.”

She sobbed and fell into his arms, and he hugged her tightly, telling her that he loved her and that he always would. Finally, he released her and turned to the boat.

They both froze when they heard a rustle in the nearby bushes, their tears already drying on their cheeks in the wind that now whipped around them in a fury.

“What was that?” Leelo whispered.

Before he could respond, a woman with hazel eyes that seemed to glow with anger stepped out from the trees. On the surface, she wasn’t a threat. She was unarmed and wore a dress and slippers. She wasn’t a Watcher.

But Jaren knew in his bones that whoever she was, they had waited too long. This woman had no intention of letting Jaren go.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Leelo gasped as her aunt burst onto the beach, with Sage right on her heels. She must have followed them to the grotto and gone back to get Ketty. Leelo pushed Jaren behind her. “What are you doing, Sage?”

Her cousin’s face was twisted in a triumphant grin as she glanced between Ketty and Leelo. “I’m saving you,” she said.

Something that was half sob, half laugh burst out of Leelo. “From what?”

Ketty pointed at Jaren as though he were some disease-ridden creature. “From that. Sage told me he was trying to seduce you and lure you away from Endla.” She turned to where Isola and Fiona stood, holding each other and crying. “It all made sense, finally. I just had no idea my own sister was trying to help him.”

“Leave them alone,” Fiona said, but Ketty had already taken a step toward Leelo.

“I should have known. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Leelo pressed her back to Jaren’s chest, as if she could somehow save him with her body. “Let him go. He hasn’t done anything. This was all a misunderstanding.” She looked at Sage imploringly. “Please, you have to know he didn’t mean any harm. He just wants to go home to his family.”

“I might have believed that,” Sage said. “If I hadn’t heard what you said to him in that pathetic hovel.”

Leelo’s stomach sank at the thought of her cousin watching them, of her listening to their private conversation. “You were spying on us?”