Chapter 125 Epilogue
Six goddamn months.
It had been six long months of doing everything he could to bring her back. The ashes she had turned to were kept in a transparent jar in his father’s study—the room that was now his. He stared at it daily, buried in every ancient book he could find.
Ethan had turned into a ghost of himself. Loneliness did that to people.
Jace was gone. His best friend had died betraying him. They hadn't been close recently, but that was what hundreds of years did to a friendship. Their priorities had shifted, and Jace was always disappearing for long stretches of time. Ethan had learned to accept it as Jace being reckless, but he never thought he was being hunted by his own blood.
His best friend had been plotting with the enemy the entire time. Jace used their history as an excuse to stalk him, or maybe it was something deeper. Maybe it was blackmail. It was the only way Ethan could justify it in his head—the fact that Jace had put his own life on the line to save Zara just to lead her to a trap.
The betrayal broke him.
But what broke him more was Zara. She was gone with the wind while he—the one who was supposed to be tied to her—lived with a hollow ache in his chest.
There had to be a way to bring her back, but the reading felt futile. If Imogen hadn’t disappeared, maybe there would have been a solution. She always had one.
Ethan buried himself in work to stop the grief. He resumed the new school session, ignoring the reporters who swarmed him for details on what happened to him and Zara after the kidnapping. They wanted to know about the experiments. They wanted to know why he looked so different ans hiw he escaped.
The police had shown up that day, too. They took him to the station for a psych evaluation while Marcus watched knowingly from the corner. Ethan just kept repeating the same words: “I can’t remember.” He pretended to dissociate until they let him go.
He told Noah. He told Coach Castillo. What else was he supposed to do?
He couldn't protect the secret of the clan while the people who loved her were left in the dark. He didn't care if they hated him—and they had, at first—but hate wasn't going to bring her back. Somehow, they bonded over the loss while he continued to promise them a miracle.
The bond was still there. It was real…. She had to be hanging on somewhere.
He still ran, but it wasn't the same. He would look at the bleachers, past the aging face of his coach, waiting. He waited for Zara to be standing there, cheering for him with that bubbly smile.
But she was never there.
Each time he realized it, rage would burn through his chest. Rage at himself, at Jace, at his father... at everyone. It was a rage that made him kill.
The Moreau name sent fear through the dark side of California. The patriarch was gone, but the rival clans and the mafia knew the new King was the one to fear. He was untouchable. He was cold.
Ethan stood on the balcony, his hair fluttering in the wind. A small cry snapped him out of his reverie.
“I’m coming,” he whispered, a sad smile touching his lips.
He turned and walked toward the cot, picking up the baby and gently patting his back.
Arlo.
That was the name Ivanna had whispered on the delivery bed before falling into the same vegetative state as his uncle. Arlo had stopped crying now, his big blue eyes looking up at Ethan with a strange clarity.
Maybe he and Zara could have shared something this beautiful. Maybe there could have been a world with a happy ending for them.
“Maybe in another life, we could be together… and happy,” he whispered to the wind.
“Maybe in this world,” a soft and familiar voice responded. “Or another realm.”
Ethan froze.
He turned in the direction of the voice so fast he almost dropped the baby.
Zara was standing there.