I leaned back in my stool to look at my easel, scrutinizing a portrait of Elena I’d been working on for the last week. I’d managed to see my reflection in a recent memory of her prepping for a hunt. She’d always worn her thick blonde hair in a braid, the wave of her hair just as untamable as mine. The words I’d shared with Damien rippled through my memories.
You used to braid my hair?
All the time.
Damien had braided her hair for her.Myhair. It was still strange to grasp that I’d lived not one but three past lives, and it was just as difficult to accept that I was Damien’s mate. I felt it, though, that strange pull to him, as if he completed me. I’d felt it from the moment we first met. The way he acted toward me, though, I knew it paled in comparison to what I would feel if I were an immortal like him.
My eyes fell to the Lupai, a wolf made of shadow and black mist, sitting at my side. Its head rested in my lap, where it had remained for the last hour as I worked on Elena’s portrait. I smiled, running my hand through its thick, black fur, the mist of shadow magic dancing around my skin, rising to disperse into the air. It wagged its tail, whimpering as it begged for more pets. I chuckled, showering it with affection, but my smile faded.
My training wasn’t moving along fast enough, and my time was running short. I’d been lucky to have not suffered an attack. There’d been times during training the last couple of months where I’d found myself at that unmeasurable limit and had to stop. Thankfully, since I was human, Damien and the others never pressed and would typically let me call it a day.
I knew better, though. I couldn’t allow myself to believe my powers awakening had somehow healed the damage in my heart. No, the Goddess Selene made it clear what would happen to me when my human body could no longer sustain my magic. It wouldn’t be a heart condition that killed me...
It would be my own power.
Tears of frustration dotted my lashes as I leaned in to grab the charcoal and continued working on the details of her face. I needed more time. I’d only started to grasp three out of countless abilities, and one of them I have no control over.
Melantha.
Just the thought of her name sent chills down my spine, the image of her still fresh in my mind. The memory I’d successfully plucked from Cole’s mind haunted my dreams. She was such a proud creature, elegant, poised.
Deadly.
I’d felt the raw power she possessed the first time I encountered her, the first time I’d encountered the darklings in the alley.
My brows knitted, a realization crossing my mind, and the charcoal halted against the paper. I’d met Melantha, had been held in her grasp when I first encountered the darklings. Marcus let slip that she wanted to convert me into a darkling. Why hadn’t she taken me then? I was an easy target, and she had her claws around my throat. I’d been completely defenseless.
So why didn’t she?
I hadn’t known at the time what I was, what I was capable of. She’d sent Marcus after me, to send me out into the streets so she could take me. Perhaps she realized then that I didn’t have access to my magic. Maybe she was waiting for my powers to awaken, for me to master my abilities before she tried to convert me.
Unlike the feral creatures she commanded, she was smart, calculated. She’d somehow turned Damien’s brothers against him—both Marcus and Cole. She’d played us like a game of chess.
I set my charcoal down, unable to focus on my drawing. Melantha. Marcus. Cole. Amara. Eris. The Goddess of Strife and Discord. They were all pieces of a puzzle scattered in every direction, so many pieces that didn’t add up, didn’t fit into place.
Damien and I hadn’t had any luck figuring out what role Eris played in all this. She was another goddess for me to worry about, one more powerful and dangerous than I could fathom. Whoever she was, she scared Damien, that much was certain, and Damien didn’t scare easily.
Unfortunately, Marcus had only mentioned her name. He hadn’t spoken anything more of her involvement, and that knowledge died with him.
I hadn’t been able to bring myself to tell Damien about Marcus thanking me in those final seconds before he turned to ash. He’d suffered enough at Marcus and Cole’s betrayal. I feared it may make him question everything if he knew. No matter how much I thought about it, though, it didn’t make sense, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to erase the memory of his smile.
A knock at the study door pulled me from my thoughts, and I looked up from my easel as Damien entered. “Hey, Salwa’s afternoon is clear. She’s moving your appointment up and coming over.”
He approached the window where I sat and passed his hand over the Lupai. It disappeared into nothing, returning to the shadows, to the Godsrealm. “She’s thinking it might be a good opportunity while it’s still fresh in your mind.”
My eyes drifted from him, my shoulders sagging. “I’m sorry I ruined today’s training. I wish I could just figure this out.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for,mea luna.” He reached out to brush his hand against my cheek and my control slipped, his pain searing through the touch of his skin.
I was hurting him, and I didn’t know how I could make it better. How could I heal the wounds he’d been nursing over countless centuries, having lost me over and over? He was afraid of losing me again with each decision he made, I knew it. He just didn’t know it would be sooner rather than later, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
There’s nothing to apologize for. Yes, there was. God, there was so much to apologize for. Perhaps it would have been better if we’d never met that day at The Galleria, or if he’d erased my memory and we’d gone our separate ways. Damien had said the Fates were cruel bitches. What he didn’t know was just how right he was in that statement.
It was cruel of them to reunite him with his reincarnated mate just to have her die so quickly. Next to the centuries he’d lived, the possible few years he might get with me would be like days to him, like a candle blown out the moment it was lit.
“How have you been since we last spoke?”
I settled into the couch near Salwa, the leather cushions groaning beneath me. “I’ve actually been doing better. The dreams aren’t as frequent.”
