Scarlett
He is dead.
Rhodes is gone.
No body where he died. No kiss or goodbye before he went. Just a hole in the world where his presence used to be.
It breaks me to look there. I know that we only had a temporary mate bond. That it shouldn't have meant anything and yet—
I see his eyes. His smile. How he carried me in the maze. Shifted. Bleeding. Barely able to walk, still doing his best to protect me. I remember telling him he smelled like rain when we slept. Not just the kind that falls, but the kind that bruises the sky before it arrives.
He snorted. Said I smelled like dirt.
Later, when he thought I was asleep, he whispered it like something else.
"Dirt is where things grow, you know. Flowers."
It was the stupidest, softest thing he ever said. And I would give anything to hea
