Page 60 of Summertime Hexy

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“I’m not dying,” I rasp.

“Good,” she whispers. “Because you still owe me, like, seven apologies, a real date, and probably your soul.”

I reach for her hand.

Grip it tight.

I don’t regret the pain.

I regret not telling hersooner.

Everything hurts.

My body feels like broken glass—scattered and sharp and burning.

I’m drifting, heavy-limbed and too light at the same time, like I’ve been untethered. Like gravity forgot me.

Her voice.

Faint at first. Muffled.

Then louder. Fiercer.

“Don’t youdare, Derek Virel.”

Hazel.

She’s dragging me—arms under my shoulders, boots crunching through leaves, breath ragged and furious andpanicked.Every word from her mouth is laced with a kind of desperation I’ve never heard before. Not even in battle. Not even in death.

“You absolute dumbass,” she growls. “You don’t get to die dramatically in the woods like some angsty martyr.”

I want to answer.

I try.

What comes out is a groan.

She doesn’t stop. Doesn’t slow.

“Shut up,” she snaps, voice breaking. “You lost too much blood to be sarcastic right now.”

I feel the ley lines shift around us. We’re close. The Grove.

Good.

It hums beneath my back like I’m sinking into the pulse of the earth.

Her grip tightens. She’s trembling. Her magic is all over me now—messy, hot, alive. She presses her hands to my chest and I can feel her pulse under her palms.

“Derek,” she whispers.

My name.

Again.

And again.

Not like a cry.

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