No shame.
I’m crying again. And I’m letting it happen.
“List, baby girl, I need you to go down and hang out with Daddy Jasper.” Pepper sets the little demon on the floor, and she hits the ground running.
Pepper walks in slowly. Lucinda shuts the door behind her. They take seats on the bed while I kneel on the floor, losing my entire mind.
“Okay, I’m getting a weird read on you.” Pepper sits beside Lucinda.
“I’m dreaming.” I gasp.
“No, Ash, you aren’t.” Pepper reaches out and threads her fingers through mine.
And still I’m sobbing. Big, heaving sobs. The last dream, Pepper looked at me like I was scum. Now she can’t understand why I’m on her floor falling apart.
If I could get my shit together and talk, that would be great.
I breathe as slow as I can. “I don’t know how I ended up here, but I have to know who I’m marrying. Right now.”
Lucinda and Pepper look at each other, then back to me.
“Davis,” they say in unison.
My stomach revolts.
I scramble up and out of the bedroom, skid into the bathroom, and barely make it to the toilet before everythingcomes up. My body heaves until there’s nothing left, then heaves anyway.
I end up on the floor. Tiles cold against my cheek. Tears falling because I don’t have the energy to stop them.
Pepper and Lucinda join me silently, locking the door behind them. They bring a rag, some water, aspirin. Then they surround me.
“There’s a magenta magic around you that didn’t exist around our Ash.” Lucinda’s fingers run through my aura. She brushes the energy. It pulses back. “Something old. Something testing.”
“It’s the Trial of Survival.” I sit up, wiping my tears, because I need to understand what the trial is pulling now. “I’m not human. I never was.”
Pepper and Lucinda look at each other, then back to me. Pepper’s nostrils flare. “Explain, Ashlyn Hayes.”
“Morgan. It’s—Fae have too many names. I swear it’s a game they play.” I give it freely, because this Pepper and this Lucinda deserve that. “Ashlynne Moonshadow is my true name. Davis was my handler. Your Ash, when she comes back—test her for iron poisoning.”
Pepper stands abruptly and paces. “You look at me like you really pissed me off.”
“I did.” I settle against the wall, eyes closed. “I think the trial is showing me the alternate path. The one where I put you first.”
That word guts me.
Then I look at Lucinda. “And you.” I can’t even say it.
“I didn’t make it.” She doesn’t phrase it as a question. “Did I?”
I shake my head. “Not really, no.”
“I’ll come back to that.” Lucinda smirks. Just rolling with the fact that in my reality, she’s dead. Pragmatic to the end.
“Put me—” Pepper kneels before me. “Explain.”
Except I don’t have time. The edges of reality ripple. “I don’t have time.” I swallow. “How do I get you to forgive me?”
“Why do I need to?” Pepper’s eyes search mine, back and forth.
