My hands are shaking and my stomach churns when I climb into my vehicle and start the ignition. I drive two miles away and park in a shop’s lot. It only takes a few minutes to do a one-way-flight search. It’s already after dark, but I’m hoping I can get Anna on a late flight tonight.

No such luck. Damn it. I slam my palm on the steering wheel. I don’t want to chance another night with her, but I also feel ill at the thought of having her out of my sight. I book her for the earliest flight back to Atlanta in the morning, and then my gut twists as I make a more difficult call.

“Miss Patti?” I say when she answers. “It’s Kaidan Rowe—before you ask, everything is all right.” She lets out a huge breath. “Erm, have you spoken to Anna yet?”

“Yes, we just got off the phone. Are you okay, Kaidan?”

“Well . . .” I clear my throat and gather my wits. “I’ve just run into some issues and I won’t be able to drive Anna home after all, so I’ve booked her a flight.”

“Issues? Are you in danger?” Her concern makes the back of my throat burn.

“No,” I lie. We’re always in danger. “Nothing like that. Let me give you her flight information.”

She takes it down, and when we hang up I get out, keeping a constant watch for demon whisperers. Remembering Anna has no money for her trip home, I stop at a corner ATM and take out cash for her. Then I walk. I can’t go back to her yet.

It’s a busy street with two nightclubs and a bar. I must be giving off pheromones like a champ because heads are swiveling my direction as we pass and red auras are popping up, even through the haze of drunkenness here and there. For once I’m unfazed, despite the needling ache deep within.

I need to walk it off. Or run. Or pound something with my fists. Because for once in my life I want something—truly want something—that I cannot have.

“Hey, you,” murmurs a girl in a black dress who’s getting out of a car with her friends. She touches my arm, but I keep walking, slipping right past her. I pinch the bridge of my nose.

Lust is the groveling cousin of love. It’s the house made of straw and sticks. It cannot compare. I was a fool to think chasing lust forever could be enough. That is not a life. I would take one moment of love with Anna over a lifetime of meaningless lust, but I can’t. That’s not my fate, and it hurts worse than anything I could imagine. God, if my father could see me now. He would have my balls for tea.

I walk and walk until I’m craving Anna’s presence so strongly it sends me jogging back to the lot where I left my car. I half expect to be pulled over as I speed back to the hotel, but L.A. cops are too busy to worry with me.

I run up to the room and am blasted with Anna’s scent when I open the door. I practically tremble as I breathe her in. A stab of abdominal pain hits me, but I ignore it as I walk into the room. She’s restless in sleep, and I want to climb into her bed and hold her. I’m a fucking mess as I sit on my bed, longing like a heartsick boy for the girl on the other side of the room.

I set the alarm for four thirty, but there’s no hope of sleep for me. This could be my last time with Anna, and I just want to experience these hours of being in her presence.

Four thirty is a right bitch. Anna is confused and groggy when the alarm goes off and I tell her we need to get an early start. I don’t have the heart just yet to tell her I’m taking her to the airport. Our grand adventure is over. That bubble has popped, and reality is glaring into my face, as hideous as ever.

Like the good girl she is, Anna gets ready and climbs into my car without complaint. I feel my mood plummeting to wicked depths as we approach the airport.

“Where are we going?” she asks sleepily.

My heart picks up speed with nervousness.

“You’re going home today. Everything’s been arranged. Patti will be waiting for you when your flight arrives in Atlanta.”

“Why?” She sits forward a bit so she can look at me.

“Things have gotten too complicated.”

“Do you mean because of the sword or because of me?” she asks. She doesn’t sound happy, and I’m afraid this will get ugly. Why must I constantly explain the danger we’re in? Why is she unable to grasp these facts?

“It’s you,” I say. It’s everything about you. Everything I’m not. Everything I can’t have. Anger at the injustice of it all rises up to suffocate me.

“Is it so unbearable to be around someone who cares for you?” she asks.

Let’s not beat about the bush.

“I’d say you’re feeling a bit more than ‘care’ for me, Anna. I could see your emotion popping around you like pink bubble gum last night.”

“So what?!” she yells. “I haven’t tried to say it to you. I’m sorry I lost focus for a second and let you see it!”

I grit my teeth and take the airport exit. This entire situation is driving me mad. The sooner she’s away from me, the better. “Don’t be dramatic about this.”

“You don’t call this dramatic? Abandoning me at the airport before daylight?”

Abandoning? As if I’d leave her in an unsafe situation.

“I’ll see that you’re in safe hands before I leave.”

“Don’t bother!” She’s seething, and her angry passion stirs me. But then everything shifts as her chin trembles. “I’ve never even been on a plane before.”

I desperately hope she doesn’t cry. I prefer her anger to her tears.

“You’ll be fine,” I say.

“I want to stay with you.”

Don’t cling, Anna, please don’t cling. Don’t make this harder for me, when all I want to do is cling, as well.

“You can’t,” I say. “Your father was right. You should get home as soon as possible. I don’t trust myself with you.”

“Don’t trust yourself? Or don’t trust me?”

I’d thought about this all night. I’d imagined dozens of scenarios where we’d run away together. I imagined what it would’ve been like if I’d ignored that intuition and kept going when Anna told me not to stop. I imagined a life in Atlanta where we’d sneak to be together when my father goes to New York each week. And every single imagining ended the same way.

In our early deaths. Watching Anna be killed. Reality.

This is clearly not what Anna sees when she imagines us. She still envisions rainbows, kittens, and fucking unicorns.

Frustration ignites. I explode. “I don’t trust either of us! We can’t be together in any capacity ever again. It’s a damn-near miracle you’re still a virgin now. If that Sword of Righteousness is intended for you to use, then you should want to stay away from me, too, because I promise I could not resist if you told me to pull the car into that parking garage right now.” I inch closer, daring her. “Could you resist a drug if I repeatedly placed it on the tip of your tongue, Ann? Could you? We’re playing with fire!”

Her eyes are wide and filled with realization. She now sees how hard last night was for me, but pity isn’t what I want. Nothing I say has the effect I need it to have. I glance up at the outdoor check-in desk, which blessedly has no line.

“So, what are you going to do now?” she asks. “Go back to doing your father’s work and pretend you never knew me?”

That’s exactly what I’d intended, though it sounds so pathetically depressing when she says it. I sigh and let my head hit the headrest. “What would you have me do?”

She pauses a long while. “You have to work.” Anna’s voice is full of emotion, and I wish for the millionth time that she wasn’t so soft for the things of this world. I need her to be tougher, more aware. I need her not to love me. I need her to let me go.

“Do you know what my father said when I came home the night after he met you?” I say quietly. “He said God was a fool to put you in my path. And he was right.”

“No. Your father was wrong! And how do you know it wasn’t you who was put in my path? There’s a purpose for you in all of this, too.”