The ocean was a vast, obsidian mirror reflecting the sun's dying gasps, and as the waves surged around us, I felt the world beyond the Syndicate dissolve into nothingness. There was no mansion, no Council, no Marek—there was only the freezing crush of the tide and the incinerating heat of the man holding me.
I looked at Kaelen, and for a fleeting, terrifying moment, the loathing I had nursed in the dark of the Master Suite vanished. It was replaced by a dark, mutual recognition of our shared ruin. We were two broken things trying to fuse together in a storm. I leaned in, my cold skin slick with salt, and pressed my lips to the jagged scar over his heart. It was a soft, lingering kiss that tasted of the sea, the copper of the city's iron, and the bitter, chemical tang of the narcotics he had used to try and drown me out.
