He’d just gotten her back. Just had the best night of his life. How was this happening?How?
The shadows halted their invasion, allowing him a single breath before he felt the first razor-sharp fingers of it tunneling through his insides, raking over muscle and mind. His gaze locked with Luna’s, a tear slipping down his cheek as a dark cloud crept in from the edges of his vision. He tried to blink itaway. To hold on to the blessed sight of her even as he fought his pain and hopelessness.
Puffy, reddened eyes stared back at him, blue as the sea and holding a wealth of tenderness in their depths. His favorite fucking color.
“I love you,” she whispered, smiling despite the fearful trembling of her lips.
No. That wasn’t supposed to be the way he first heard those words from her perfect mouth.
He tried so hard to reach for her, to offer her anything in return, but a stark cold was wending its way through his veins, his body shaking as consciousness began to slip away.
He’d thought the Veil would be softer, more welcoming. Had expected Luna at his side when he crossed over, her hand in his own ages from now as they went together into their joyful eternity.
Not this weeping loneliness slashing its way through the hole in his chest. Not this freezing lethargy.
One last look, then. One last glimpse of her before he died so he could take the sight with him.
Brand forced his lids to open and found himself sprawled on the floor, the wooden floorboards scraping against his back as the sickening sound of Luna’s choking sob seized his attention.
“I know this seems unfair, my perfect boy, but you must say goodbye.”
Luna was snatched backwards into the seething black mass on a blood-curdling scream, thrashing and baring her fangs. Even fractured and ruined, she resisted, her wild eyes darting and searching until she found him and calmed.
“She’s done all she can for us.”
Nothing in this world—not the creature, not even the Sisters themselves—could have stopped the roar of denial that shredded his vocal cords and took half his soul with it when one of thosespikes of shadow thrust down through her torso before tossing her aside.
An enormous wave of black surged upwards and the glass dome above shattered along with his heart, pelting him in countless, jagged pieces as darkness finally consumed him.
“Lunara!”
She ignored the insistent wail, too taken with what lay before her.
The Veil stretched out, promising an eternity of solitude. She wasn’t sure how she knew where she was and she couldn’t be bothered to care. She’d never expected it to be so deep and vast. So lovely.
If only that voice would quiet down and leave her be.
Ghostly blue shadows enveloped her, whispering for her to follow. Their luminescent presence offered a peaceful temptation she was loathe to ignore. Her footsteps glowed behind her as she trailed them, brightening with each step she took towards the onyx chasm in the distance.
“Lunara!”
There it was again, that infernal screeching denying her the rest she sought. The sound of it competed with the lulling voices of the Veil, tickling something on the edges of her memory, butthe spirits ahead were so sweet in their coaxing as they beckoned her to join them. To revel in the dark joy of death.
She finally reached the edge of the abyss and dared a glance down. Souls swarmed in its depths, the dance of their eternity enticing her beyond reason. A soft laugh left her lips as she readied for the jump.
“Are you supposed to be here? You don’t seem like you are, and IknowI’m blimmin’ not. It doesn’t feel right.”
The rasping, unfamiliar voice drew her up short, poised one step from the edge of that final oblivion. Confused, she spun towards the speaker.
She knew that gorgeous face, butwhy?
It jarred her to see it, recognition trying to bloom but stunted by the encroaching darkness.
“Hold on, Lunara. Please, witchling, don’t you bloody go there. Hold on for me.”
That anguished sound stopped her, too.Lunara.She knew the word, but why didn’t she know what it meant anymore?
How long had she been here? Her memory was twisted, like it had been both centuries and seconds, time warping around her.
