When I returned to Hell after cursing the Reaper siblings, everything changed. I couldn’t feel anything. Not the itch of skin, the press of a cushion beneath me, whether I ached from an injury. Even the chair I hurled across the room—splintering into a hundred pieces—felt like air in my hands.
Inside, I was a storm of fury. My blood still pumped with rage. My mind burned with it.
But outside?
Numb. No taste. No scent. Not even the memory of pleasure remained.
My body was failing in every way that counted. Even my fucking cock. What once had been a source of command and power had withered to something useless, unresponsive. A quiet mockery of what I once was.
Hell had finally figured out how to destroy me.
And yet Kara… Despite everything, she had managed to live. Not just survive but live. Pleasure. Connection. Desire. Even in the shadow of Grim’s legacy, she had carved out her own world.
She’d never told me those things. Not when I was her shadow. I wondered if she ever thought of Shadow when someone else touched her? When lips traced her skin…When hands explored places, I had only ever gazed upon…
Did a part of her remember the darkness watching?
She didn’t know who Shadow really was.Who I was.But I did. And I wanted her to feel it—every haunting, every thought. I wanted her to be just as consumed. Just as tormented.
Still, I was grateful—perhaps in some pathetic, twisted way—that I couldn’t fall prey to her lust. The prison of my body made sure of that.
It didn’t matter. Lust might as well have been my invention. I could wield it even if I no longer tasted its fruits.
So why, then—
Why did it bother me so much?
Kara groaned softly, stretching her legs in front of her.
My thoughts shattered.
The way her dark shirt bunched around her waist as she lifted her arms—casual and unaware—made something inside me snap taut. The shadows rippled wildly around me, pulsing with a heat I shouldn’t have been capable of feeling.
It was unbearable. Craving in this form was madness.
If I slipped into her now, became one with the darkness clinging to her skin—would she resist? No. I was her shadow. She tolerated me. She might grumble or sneer, but she wouldn’t fight. Because she didn’t know what I was. Not really.
I tore away from the cell, fleeing the pull of her like a coward.
The further I got, the clearer I became. The anger rushed in to smother the heat she stirred in me. How long had I walked this line? Between fate and obsession. Between control and collapse. How many times had I told myself it would never happen?
The vision.
The petals.
Her hand reaching for me.
It would never happen.
Never.
Damn her.
And damn me for caring.
If I ended her once she was mortal, my suffering would cease. No more visions. No more thoughts. No more ghosts gnawing at what remained of my mind. I would be done.
I turned back toward the cell, but my fury evaporated. Kara lay on her back, one arm draped across her chest, the other flung to the side. Alone. Vulnerable. Small in that cell, though I knew her strength. She didn’t look strong now.
