The air between them was thick with unspoken words, with emotions neither of them could contain.
Memories surged like a tide, dragging them deeper, drowning them in everything they had once been—everything they had lost.
Cyrus staggered back, his breath ragged. His hands trembled as he looked at Phoenix—not as she was now, but as she had been then.
Nila.
His wife.
His love.
The woman he had sworn to protect, the woman he had failed so completely that it shattered the very foundation of his soul.
His knees buckled, but he didn't fall. He couldn't.
Not when she was looking at him with those eyes.
Those same brown eyes, filled with fire and sorrow.
With love and rage.
Phoenix—Nila—took a shaky breath.
