I shut my eyes tightly against tears, but when I re-open them, he and the bedroom are both gone, and I’m standing in a pitch-black room. Or, at least, I think I’m standing. Truthfully, I can’t even see my hands right in front of my face.
“You won’t escape,” a voice I recognize all too well whispers.
I spin but see nothing but blackness. “You had your fun, now let me have control back.”
“Neither of us has any control at the moment. Your friend saw to that when she put three bullets into our chest.”
Rainey.
“Yes. Rainey Astor. The one we told you to kill.” The blackness ripples, and an image of Rainey appears before me. She raises her gun, jaw set, and pulls the trigger.
No hesitation.
No blinking as the deepboom, boom, boomhammers the room around us. Do I blame her? No. I know she wasn’t trying to kill me or she would have aimed for my head, but the magic is trying to pin my anger on her.
Because it’s trapped just like me. Somehow, that thought brings me hope. Maybe we’ll rot here together. The image disappears. “She had to stop us. She’s only trying to help. I wish she would have aimed higher. Somewhere right between my eyes.”
“You are foolish. You are a waste of power. We only wish we’d devoured you and left you to die before we became trapped in here as well. Rest assured, the moment we awake, we will rectify that error in judgment.”
“This is my body. My mind.” I turn again, still looking for anything with a solid form, but there’s nothing and no one but me in this dark, empty space.
“It belongs to us now. And we will be victorious. Even if it means burying you in useless memories for all of eternity.” As soon as the final word echoes around me, the black ripples—changing—shifting into something else entirely. Soon, I’m not in a dark room at all but on a brick-lined road as people stroll past me, their attire something right out of another time.
Dressed in garments from what I’m guessing is the eighteen-thirties, they move by me, not bothering to stop at all, and I glance down, surprised to see that I am wearing a deep purple gown. The same one I was wearing the first day I met—
“And who are you?”
“Elijah.” I turn to face him, and he smiles at me, reaching forward to take my own hand.
“I see you know my name. May I know yours?” He grins at me, all carnal animal wrapped in handsome charm.
“I—” The memory shifts, the sky darkening, all while Elijah continues to smile at me, not at all noticing everything going on around us. “Do you see that?” He doesn’t respond. My dress changes, something I notice right away as the gown I’m wearing now is simple, and not nearly as heavy as the one before.
I realize exactly where I am the moment a man emerges from the shadows. He moves across the brick street, strutting with all the confidence in the world. Crimson eyes settle on my own, and he smiles, stealing the breath from my lungs. “Good evening, Bronywyn,” he says, his deep baritone filling me with more emotion than I can handle.
I’m struck speechless as the memory plays out; only this time, instead of having eyes for Elijah, Tarnley steals every bit of my focus. “Yes. It is.” I reach forward and take his hand. The touch is warm, the contact more than welcome even as it breaks my heart to know that this isn’t real.
He’s not really here.
“Doesn’t her beauty just steal the breath from your chest, brother?”
“More, every time I lay eyes on her,” Tarnley replies softly as he presses his lips to my hand. Where in the reality of this moment, I leaned into Elijah, now I long to fall into Tarnley’s arms and pass the time away, despite what’s going on outside of my mind.
And that is exactly why I pull away. The evil in my body wishes to bury me in memories— in happy moments—so I never want to leave. Letting myself become distracted would be letting that thing win. I’ll be damned if it does.
Tarnley stares at me curiously, a grin on his handsome face. “You will die in here,” he says, eyes turning obsidian.
“Then I’m taking you with me.”