Chelsea
My knees hit the stone first. I look up. Eryx is on his knees too—he’s bowed over and his fingers dig into the stone. He’s gripping it like it’s the only thing holding him up, the only thing tethering him to this life.
And Nightmare isn’t inside him.
The sentient magic extends from his chest like jagged thread. It’s formless, a cloud of black wisps. But at the same time, fully formed.
It shoots out from Eryx and into Helena. She’s absorbing Nightmare.
She sees me and her lips peel back into a ghoulish smile. “You’re just in time to watch.”
“Let him go!”
She tsks. “I’m not holding him. I’m removing something that should never have been his to begin with.”
Eryx looks up, sees me. His eyes are haunted—with the past, with a future that never was. “Chelsea,” he whispers, his voice raspy, “let me go.”
I grind my teeth. “I will never let you go. Not for a thousand years. And not because you ask. Not again.”
I step forward and grab the strand.
I’m hit with an electric jolt. My vision shatters and I’m sucked into the darkness.
It’s dark in here, a heavy purple. Eryx has vanished. So has Helena.
I hear it before I see it.
“You came back for us.”
I spin around and there stands Nightmare.
Air locks in my lungs.
He looks just like Eryx. Same height. Same face. Same mouth I’ve kissed.
But it’s not him. It’s more.
But shadows move beneath his skin like living constellations, and vast black wings unfurl from his back—wings too large for the space, edged in starlight and smoke.
A sob catches in my throat.
Because this isn’t just Eryx.
It’s everything inside him that was too much.
The fury. The hunger. The protection.
The love so fierce it nearly destroys what it touches.
He is completely primal.
He is a lion, and one wrong move will make me his prey.
“Of course I came back for you,” I tell him. “You can’t die. Not like this. And I'm not losing you."
Nightmare's wings flare. "He was protecting you."
"I know. And I'm choosing this. That's what love is."
