Kol Mikaelson had never feared eternity—not when he had her. His wife. His goddess. The only constant in a world that had tried, time and time again, to tear him apart. She had been his since before the curse of vampirism, before their family became the monsters they were forced to be. She was power incarnate—a siphoner by birth, a vampire by curse, a werewolf by blood. The first and only Original Tribrid. His equal in every way.

But eternity had not been kind to her.

Every time his family daggered him, ripping him from the world, they did not just punish him—they punished her. He had once thought she was unbreakable, too fierce, too stubborn to shatter. But even the strongest walls crack when struck enough times. He could see it now, the way time had chipped away at her mind, how the centuries of solitude had left their mark.

She looked at him now as if she barely recognized him, as if she were trapped somewhere between the past and the present.

Had he lost her? Had she finally succumbed to the madness his family forced upon her? Or was there still time to pull her back—to remind her of the fire that had once burned so brightly between them?

One thing was certain. He had spent lifetimes longing for her, searching for her. He would not lose her now.