ELIAS
I could still feel her beneath me.
My men were hauling me away by the armpits like I was some drunkard being kicked out of a bar, but the memory of the moment clung to me. The face of it.
What… in the absolute hell was that?
The image replayed behind my eyes in an endless loop. The hood had slipped back, just a little. A brush of wind had lifted her hair just enough that I caught sight of what she’d been hiding this whole damn time.
“I’m not hallucinating,” I muttered to myself. “I’m not. I can’t be.”
Except maybe I was. There was no universe where Mina looked like that underneath.
Why would you hide that face?
Why would anyone?
Her features were still burned into my mind—delicate lines, clear eyes, a softness she hid so violently that even now I questioned if I imagined the
