It happened in an instant, yet it somehow took an eternity.
His eyes blew wide, his brow furrowed with a pain I couldn’t even imagine. His mouth hinged shut, only for his lips to part on his next gasping breath. Blood oozed from his lips, and my name—my favorite pet name he had for me, that he barely ever used—rolled from his tongue like a dying man’s last prayer.
“Ru.”
And there he was. My dark knight. The prince who held a piece of my heart not because I’d given it to him but because he’d savagely ripped it from my chest that first night he’d rescued me from my bedroom prison.
Death clouded my mate’s eyes and, on the next pound of my heart, he exploded into ash.
Behind me, Eros swore under his breath. When he’d urged me to release pent-up frustration on his brother, I doubted he’d meant this.
He’d probably just wanted me to cut his balls off or something. In that pandemonious moment, that hadn’t felt like a just enough punishment.
I held up the shears; the flame light danced up and down the blade with the tremors of my shaking hand. A few small feathers had stuck to the metal, thick with blood and clumps of ash.
The super detailed elements that composed this little pocket of the dream realm were all fun and games for things like sex. Not so much when I was trying to blow off steam in other ways. This didn’t feel like a dream when I needed it to. It felt wrong. Almost as if it actually happened.
Like I really had murdered Vincent.
Cold sweat pebbled over my whole body, and a deep chill burrowed into my bones, sweeping over me like a fever. There were receptors inside me that didn’t seem to get the memo that I hadn’t killed my own mate.
My darker side went into shock. In a blink, our fearsome mate was reduced to nothing but ash. My monster didn’t grasp the fact that she was only one half of me and that the other part was her enemy. My Helsing blood was practically a buzz in my veins, coming to life for what felt like the first time as I gaped at the ash dusting Eros’ coffin.
Just like that, my two halves were at war.
With a shrill scream that didn’t sound like my own, I angled the shears, their tip pointing straight at my heart.
I thrust it toward me, but Eros was at my side on the next beat.
He seized my wrist just in time.
I blinked, lowering my eyes to the blade which bit into my breast with every frantic inhale I gulped down.
“I— I—” I wanted to apologize, but my lips wouldn’t work. Numbness leeched from my icy heart, freezing me all over.
Eros sighed, but it wasn’t in frustration with me. Understanding flickered behind his coffee-colored gaze. He ran his thumb in soothing circles over the interior of my wrist while his other hand wiped the fresh tears spilling down my cheeks. “It’s okay. You’re going through a lot right now, and your two halves aren’t exactly cooperating under the stress. It’s safe to process it here.”
I sagged into him, and he swooped me into his muscular embrace, then carried me into the main room of the basement.
My head hung back over his elbow as my body turned to jelly in the comforting cradle of his arms. He set me down on his bed, and the mattress shifted as he climbed in beside me. I shifted closer to the male and tucked myself into the curve of his body, bringing my head to rest on his chest.
Time worked differently when I was inside my mates’ minds. Just like Faerie, it seemed to pass quickly, while the human world moved at a snail’s pace in comparison. That knowledge had my cramped muscles unwinding, easing into a relaxed state I hadn’t known since finding out Dagon had resurrected our father.
I could lay here forever in Eros’ bed, listening to the Ramones' album Rocket to Russia play on his Victrola in the background. A few minutes later, the record flipped on its own. Only instead of playing a Ramones song, a Misfits track began playing.
“‘Hybrid Moments,’” I said, chuckling at Eros’ subtle joke.
He hiked both brows. “You know it?”
My attention wandered to the milk crates pushed against the far wall of Eros’ room. They were stuffed with records, some of them strewn loosely on the floor. Many of them were familiar. “Yeah. Back in the day, my adoptive mom was super into punk rock. Before she got weirdly religious, that is. She got me into the Ramones, the Misfits, the Sex Pistols. All the big ones.”
The vampire’s eyebrows tugged higher in surprise. “Huh. She almost sounds cool.”
I blew a sigh. “I think she was before I came into her life.”
Talking about my fake mom was still kind of a pain point for me, but it beat talking about pretty much anything else that was on my mind. Besides, there were still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding my adoptive mother. My thoughts briefly ebbed to the Guild memory I’d walked through to get to Eros’ dreams.
“Deathwish, what do you know about Trinity Baxter?”
