Tony’s made me like him.
I’m going to shift. I’m going to be?—
My mind carried me away to a gorgeous sunriselighting up the horizon in an explosion of orange and red and pink, reminding me of who I was and what I’d been given. How I couldn’t be anything other than The Sun.
“I won’t be like him,” I said forcefully, my voice making the world ripple around me.
I rejected his touch, his kiss, and his taint.
And so did the goddess.
My mind sent me careening back into reality. I turned over, head over the footwell behind the driver’s seat, and threw up. The energy of my ex’s infection tore up my throat like a set of claws. Desperate to hang on, but rejected by me.
Get out of me, fucker!
Never would I consider his bullshit again. Not even for a fleeting, silly moment. I’d been an idiot texting him. I’d played with fire, got caught up in my feelings.
Not anymore. I was The Sun, not some ex-boyfriend’s fancy. Let him pine for me. Let him call me babe. I’d rather be unlucky in love for life than be in his presence for more than a second.
I puked my guts up, the onslaught of vomit endless and gross. But also a relief, Tony’s corruption leaving my body.
In your face, prick!
In your face!
Once I was done, I returned to my back, totally spent, and burst into tears. Broken by Tony, doing my own pining for my dad, for the lives lost at The Coral.
For all the bad shit. Pining and hating and wailing.
Riley was there, pulling me upright, giving me his shoulder, granting a sliver of comfort. I grabbed at his coat, my sobbing uncontrollable, tumbling into sorrow and weakness and more cathartic release.
Darn it. What a hot mess.
Chapter 28
ISAAC
It took twelve hours, including a four-hour nap, for me to finally get my strength back from the early afternoon sun streaming into my bedroom.
It was Saturday again.
I’d cried myself to sleep after taking two doses of Condition Removal potion, and undergoing several checks and tests conducted by the Brambles. My powers were back, a blood test giving me the all clear.
My wounds were already healed due to the perks of my sacred nature. Still, I wondered if whatever Tony gave me gave my naturally tough constitution a boost.
Hmmm.
Fuck thinking about my ex. I needed to get out of this room and heal Ollie like I said I would when we arrived back at the mansion—he’d been discharged at his insistence shortly after I’d been found. But those tests wore me out, my body giving in to fatigue.
Now I knocked on his door, stomach grumbling with hunger.
Heal him, get food. All good.
Kill Tony later…
By Hecate, I couldn’t even begin to formulate any theories on his schemes. Not without locking him in a room and slapping him around.
Scratch that. He’d enjoy the slaps, and I couldn’t be having the fucker deriving any pleasure from me.
