Remo's POV
The world went white when she disappeared.
And when it cleared, everything inside me broke.
Her scream still echoed in my skull as I stood in the ruins of the valley, the air thick with blood and smoke. The witches were gone — vanished with her — leaving behind only the stench of burnt magic and the hollow pulse of power still bleeding through the ground.
“Remo,” Christian rasped, his chest heaving, “she’s—”
“Don’t say it.”
My voice didn’t even sound human. It was too low. Too sharp.
Maddox crouched near the edge of the cracked altar, his hand trembling over the darkened runes. “They didn’t kill her. The energy was a summoning, not a sacrifice.”
Summoning.
The word tasted like acid.
I dropped to one knee, pressing my palm to the cold earth. I could feel it — a vibratio
