“You killed my parents.” She shakes her head.
“Drink the wine, Eloise,” he says through his teeth.
She hurls the glass at him, and it explodes against his raised arm, cutting his face. That’s my girl. But Tony attacks her, strangling her. She’s only human! He’s going to kill her!
I break into shadow, stabbing through his chest and up through his chin. Pulling him off her, I send my shadows down his throat and expand them, popping him like a balloon. But when I turn back to Eloise, she’s not the same. She’s grown old, ancient.
“No!” I’m with her in an instant, but she’s already ash. She crumbles into dust and sifts through my arms. I cry out her name, “Eloise!”
Shaken, I brush the ash from me and scan the room. I’m still sealed inside. Shit. Shit. Shit. I have failed this test. Drawing back, I shake my head. Why? What was I supposed to do? Why did she age? Why did she…?
It comes to me the moment I think the word “die.” If Tony doesn’t kill Eloise, she doesn’t descend into the underworld where her parents completely unbind her powers. Eloise doesn’t become the Eloise of today if she doesn’t suffer this death. I can’t stop it from happening without irrevocably changing who she is, who she is meant to become.
I close my eyes and back up a step and then another, praying for another chance. I’m rewarded when Eloise is back, trying to open the window.
Tony arrives. He pours the drinks.
They exchange words.
She throws the glass.
He attacks. I watch her life drain from her eyes. “Fight, Eloise,” I cry. “Come back. Kill him as you were always meant to!”
She reaches for her palette knife. And then she goes limp in his hands. The bastard doesn’t stop strangling her. Tony laughs. Laughs as her body flops like a rag doll. I’m barely holding myself back when her eyes flip open. The palette knife flies into her hand, and she stabs him in the side. He stumbles back, cursing her.
With a running kick, she sends Tony flying into her mother’s sculpture.
Eloise stares up at him, eyes rimmed red, neck ringed with enflamed bruises. She’s a warrior. She’s survived. In her eyes, I see the start of everything.
There’s a click, and the door opens. I race into the hall and straight into her arms.
“Damien!” she says, breathless.
“Thank the goddess, you’re okay.” I hold her close.
“I never knew,” she says. “I never knew what you had to do to survive.” Her breath hitches.
I grip her under the chin. “I could say the same.”
Our eyes meet, and she seems to grow, to stand taller. Both of us do. Stronger in each other’s presence. An unspoken agreement passes between us not to share what we each experienced a moment ago. One thing is for certain—if we are going to survive this road, we can’t stay in the past.
The roses grow again. The hallway opens.
“Let’s go,” she says.
I take her hand. “Lead the way.”
42
Promises, Promises
DAMIEN
At the end of the hall, we find ourselves standing in her kitchen. It doesn’t look like a foreboding scene. Just her grandmother sitting at their heirloom table, dressed in an aqua blue outfit made of soft material I’ve seen many elderly humans wear. But I sense fear in my mate, and she stiffens beside me.
“What’s wrong, little bird?”
“I just wish we could get out of this house. This looks familiar again. Familiar but different. Why does it have to be Grams?”
