Vortiger Tower – Cassien’s Office, 10:36 A.M.
Selene couldn’t move.
Not because of the ring Cassien held in his palm, its familiar gleam nearly identical to his, but because of the words he’d just said.
“There was a second ring.”
There was.
God help her, there was.
Her lungs refused to cooperate. The office around her blurred the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the sleek black desk polished to perfection, the muted hum of Valemont’s skyline below. All of it dimmed beneath the weight of that truth finally spoken aloud.
She had buried the memory of it so deep she sometimes convinced herself it had been a dream, a fever fantasy born of love and desperation. But now, Cassien was standing in front of her, the city’s gray light cutting across his face, eyes clouded with memory and pain.
