“Don’t. Not yet. Just ten more seconds, Vivian. Please.”

Lucian’s grip on my hand was a vice, his knuckles standing out like white marble against the sterile blue of the hospital sheets. We were in the pre-op bay, a space defined by the rhythmic, heartless hiss-click of oxygen tanks and the distant, metallic rattle of surgical trays. The air here didn’t smell like the Aldridge estate; it smelled of ozone, industrial floor wax, and the cold, terrifying certainty of the end.

“I’m right here, Lu. I’m not going anywhere,” I lied, my voice a jagged, hollow reed. I leaned over the gurney, my hair brushing his shoulder, the scent of...