The roar of the helicopter blades was the only thing standing between us and the absolute silence of the clouds. Below us, the smoking ruins of my past were shrinking into the Indonesian jungle, but inside my veins, something new was waking up.
I sat huddled in the leather seat, wrapped in Adrian’s oversized wool coat. He was sitting across from me, his eyes closed, his jaw set in that hard, imperial line. He looked like a king who had just burned his own throne to save his queen.
I looked down at my wrist again. The faint, rhythmic blue flicker beneath my skin—right where the pulse point met the bone—was still there. It wasn't an LED. It wasn't a machine. It was as if my very blood had become luminous.
"Adrian," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the engine.
He opened his eyes
