Lauren. There was so much wrapped up in a single word, so much history, so much meaning, so much joy and pain, so many memories tied into the way the letters of that name moved against her mouth and tongue.

Her voice still sent shivers down Bo’s back. Still sent a thrill of longing and fear and need that resonated deep in Bo’s gut and warmed her from the inside out. Seeing her there, holding a book to her chest, with concern painted across her features… Bo was fighting a war, but the hardest battle she waged was the one that rose within her own breast at the mere mention of the woman standing in front of her.

She didn’t have time for this. Didn’t have time for the ache that spread in her chest and the hurt that constricted her spirit. There were other, bigger battles to be fought and won, and Kenzi was in so much pain. She didn’t need to talk to Lauren. She needed to go home to her.

But she pushed it down, pushed it away. Because there were bigger battles, because Rainer was dying, because the Pyrippus was coming and she could feel him, could feel his power thrumming through her veins and she couldn’t control it, couldn’t claim it, and the one thing that scared her more than Lauren breaking her heart again was her own loss of control. She couldn’t hurt the people she loved anymore. She wouldn’t. So she followed Lauren out of the kitchen and up to her bedroom, incapable of banishing the memories that haunted her, of late nights steeped in sweat and love-lust and the sound of Lauren’s heavy breathing, of her soft moans of pleasure and cries of ecstasy. She took the book her once-lover offered her with hands she’d once used to evoke pleasure and flipped through the crackling pages, its weight a heavy burden on her lap and the air of her room a stifling, choking field of unrequited desire. And she allowed its stories to distract her.

“Fangs, horns,” Bo’s voice was a little incredulous as she thumbed through the passage Lauren had pointed out to her, “obviously this Wanderer isn’t the guy in my kitchen.” Was it jealousy? None of them had liked Rainer, but wasn’t this a little bit much? Lauren was usually so level-headed, but though the pages crackled as if they were old, the ink rubbed off on her fingertips like the spread of a fresh newspaper. Annoyance flared, they’d all warned her against Rainer from the start, but Lauren had broken Bo’s heart first, and it just wasn’t fair. Rainer was her destiny. Her future was intertwined with his, and Bo didn’t know how; but she thought that maybe, just maybe, she could love him. And if Lauren didn’t want her, couldn’t she at least want her to be happy? Bo shoved the book away, back into Lauren’s lap, her voice rising with her irritation and the buzzing, painful energy that crackled against her skin whenever Lauren was near. “This book doesn’t even look real, is the ink still wet?”