The chaos fell silent in an instant.
"That was YOUR child too, Rowan—how could you?!"
"My children are Maisie's three—no one else's."
He hurled the knife away and charged out.
Behind him, Lilith's screams clawed at his back, raw and broken, but he never turned.
When Rowan reached the shore, the Carter family's forces had been obliterated.
The beach was littered with corpses, stiff and bloodless.
So many familiar faces—
His brothers.
The loyal followers I'd helped him raise from nothing.
Ice slithered down his spine; grief gnawed at him like a beast.
He dropped to his knees, fingers digging through lifeless flesh.
I was nowhere to be seen.
My name tore from his throat in a ragged howl as sobs wracked his body.
Rowan couldn't wrap his head around how it'd all gone to hell.
At
