I wasn’t done with them yet. I didn’t want to go in there and be alone. I would do nothing but curl into a ball and sob until I couldn’t get out of bed. “Aren’t you coming in with me?”
Mom shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear. I will stop by later. We have some leftover guests from the the party here to discuss war strategies with Maxus. I can’t. I will stop by later. Okay?” She gave me a peck on the cheek and hurried away.
Miserable, I turned to Stef, who was also backing away. “I promised Max I would do something to help him out. I can’t stay either. I’m so sorry.”
“What?”
Stefani turned on her heel and hightailed it down the hall.
“Wait!”
She waved over her shoulder, but kept walking.
Well shit. I was going to have to go in alone and go with the sobbing mess version of the night.
I was crying before I had the door to my room open.
I was sobbing by the time it was closed. Choking, wrenching sobs. I couldn’t control it. I didn’t care who heard me.
I didn’t make it to the bed. I dropped to the thick carpet in front of the door and collapsed, forehead on my arms as my entire body shook with anguish.
He was gone.
“Do not. I cannot bear it.”
Great, now I was hearing things, too?
13
Adrian
Now I was hearing a dead man’s voice.
The thought sent a wave of regret through me. I should have tried harder. I shouldn’t have trusted Helion and his stupid plan. I shouldn’t have gone up to that top floor with Max and been trapped up there, unable to stop them from killing…
From murdering…
“Adrian, my love. Stop at once.”
I wailed like a baby, the sobbing worse. “Kovo.”
Strong hands wrapped around my waist and lifted me off the floor. Before I could blink, I was pressed snuggly against a warm chest, cradled. Kovo’s scent filled my head and I couldn’t understand what was happening. I closed my eyes at once, not wanting to lose this feeling, deathly afraid if I opened them, the experience would fade away like my best dreams always did in the morning.
The nightmares, however, stuck like super-glue.
Was I hallucinating? Was I so out of my mind that I was seeing things? Did that drug Helion told the doctor to give me send me on some weird acid trip? Was this my Everian blood making me have visions of him?
“I am here. Love, please. Stop. You must stop.”
“You’re dead.”
“I am holding you.”
“I watched you die.”
“No. You watched me be sedated while our I.C. operative placed faulty data into the system. That was not my heartbeat that stopped. Adrian, my love, listen to me. Please. I cannot bear to see you this way.
Faulty data?
