CHAPTER 4
MADNESS
“Madness, what the fuck!” Miz yelled the next day when I used my thumb to imprint the shape of a heart in blood on Cat’s chest. So she’d remember she was loved. Obviously.
“What?” I blinked up at Miz as he ripped me away and frowned at the pretty swirling writing on my arm. It said Lioness, because duh. “I thought it might help.”
“You wrote her name on your arm; are you fucking insane?” he snapped, gripping my elbow tightly.
“Oh yeah, big time.” I nodded. “Comes with the job title.”
His jaw clenched, and it seemed to take him effort to release me. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t going to fight him, even if he needed to fight someone. Tor would usually help. Miz was probably as scared about Torment as he was worried about Cat, and fighting wouldn’t make him feel better. I had a better idea.
“It’ll be okay,” I said and stood, wrangling the snarling god into my arms for a bear hug, rocking him from side to side, patting his long white hair. “It’ll be okay.”
He was stiff in my arms, but I knew I helped. Hugs literally always helped. I smooched his cheek before I stepped back, peering into Cat’s face again for signs of life.
“Did I say you could touch me?” Misery hissed, low and furious.
“We’re brother-husbands, of course I can touch you.” I glanced up at him. “And you can touch me, too.”
“Thanks,” he drawled.
“Not in a sexy way. I’m my lioness’s and only hers. Just so we’re clear.”
“I’m devastated.”
I nodded. “I’m sorry to break your heart. I know it’ll take time to recover.”
“Eons.” He muscled me aside. “Now move, or better yet, go outside and get Pain and Death.”
“Do you know how to help our girl?” I asked hopefully, glancing from the trunk full of magical objects and death relics to my beautiful wife. I would give anything to watch her eyes focus on me, to see her smile, to hear the laugh that lit up my whole chest like a firework. Ooh, maybe fireworks would—
“There’s something we can try, but we’re going to need Pain.”
I brought Cat’s hand to my lips for a lingering kiss and aimed for the door. “I’ll bring your husbands to you,” I told my lioness. “Be awake when I get back, okay?”
I didn’t care that I was asking for too much, that it was unrealistic. To hope was to be utterly insane, and I’d always excelled at that.
CHAPTER 5
CAT
Ididn’t remember that skylight being there. I laid in a mound of pillows and plushies on my bed at home, staring at the ceiling above me where thereusedto be a solid wood-panelled ceiling I horrified my mum by painting a rich plum instead of the natural wood colour. Now, there was a circular skylight like a porthole on a pirate ship.
I looked at it one more time and shook my head, dismissing it. I’d been in the middle of a chapter in my book about a crime-solving duo who fought killer fairy tales, butthosewords had smeared across the page, startling me so violently that everything hurt. My chest pierced, like a stab wound oozed vital fluid from my heart, and my entire being flinched. And for a minute, I remembered.
That’s when I started counting backwards from a hundred and staring at the ceiling. And the new skylight.
I gave my head a firm shake and resumed reading, but all the words had fallen off the page, leaving me a blank notebook.I sighed and hauled myself out of bed to grab another, not stopping to question how the ink had left the pages of a book. Questions like that only brought me pain. They helped me remember, and I didn’t want to remember.
I discarded the useless book and picked up a fantasy about fae, dragons, and lightning magic. I recoiled at the first line.
I hope you don’t miss him too terribly, because I’m keeping him.
I threw the book so hard it hit the wall and tore down a corner of my Hot Fuzz movie poster. The glimpse of the reverse showed a tombstone and a Roman temple. I clutched my head as an ache spiked, turning my back to the poster and shutting those words out of my head.
A hundred.
