Page 36 of Illusory

Razor sharp fire licked down my spine like the strike of a match. “Was it like that for you, too?” I asked him, suddenly breathless.

“It was all I could think about for days.Weeks.” Darkness flitted through his eyes like smoke, and my heart raced in response. “Nothing could satiate my hunger after that, and certainly not a mere mortal. I imagine it’s far worse for him. For yourfirst feedto begin at the vein of a Slayer—an earth Angel. He’ll only ever be chasing the dragon because nothing will ever come close to that again.”

His words sobered me right the hell up. “But it will get better for him, right? With time? I mean, ithasto. Gabriel is helping him—he’s teaching him to—”

“To drink from a blood donor bag?” he cut in jeeringly. “I can assure you, that willneverwork.”

Dread seeped into my pores, making my head spin from the dysphoria. “But it worked for Gabriel,” I pointed out, desperate to keep believing that this was going to get better. That itcouldget better. That Trace wasn’t going to be stuck chasing some kind of unattainable high for the rest of his damned life.

“Gabriel lived off animal blood for years before hetransitioned to donor blood, and even that wasn’t a pretty transition. But Romeo? He began at the very top shelf, and I promise you, there is no coming back down from that. To deny oneself that gift is to spend the rest of your days in a certain kind of madness. It’s unsustainable. The longer you deny yourself, the harder you will inevitably fall.”

His words shook me to my core. It rattled the windows and made the earth tremor beneath my feet. “Are you saying he’s never going to be okay? That he’s never going to able to be in the same room as me without wanting to rip open my neck?” Somehow, that sounded even worse than him just hating me.

“If he continues with donor blood? That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he answered plainly like it was nothing. Like he hadn’t just doomed Trace’s life with a stroke of his tongue. “I don’t make the rules, love.”

Suddenly, the air felt too thick to pull into my lungs, my head too unseasoned to hold all of the rioting thoughts. “What do I do now? How am I supposed to fix this?”

He paused and looked down at me, the weighty emotion behind his eyes completely lost on me. I wasn’t sure what he was seeing just then, what I looked like to him—my heart hammering in my chest, my eyes wild and wide with fear, my hands balled at my sides like I wanted to hit something.

Maybe him. Maybe myself.

“You do the only thing you can do,” he finally said, his voice and eyes once again shuttered. “You give him what he wants.”

12. A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY

I awoke the next day to the smell of eggs and bacon wafting in through my bedroom door like the residue of a life that was dead and gone. It took me several minutes to fully rouse myself from my sleep and remember where I was—that I was in Hollow Hills andnotback in Florida with my dad just steps away from me, cooking us breakfast like he’d done every morning of my life.

Grief needled my heart as I rubbed my palms against my eyes, still exhausted on account of having spent the majority of the night tossing and turning in bed thanks to Dominic’s late-night visit and the emotional rollercoaster he’d chucked me on.

My lips twisted into a scowl, primed to curse his name into the heavens when it suddenly occurred to me that I may have been having a stroke right then. Because why else would I smell eggs and bacon cooking in a house where the only two people who required food couldn’t make a slice of toast without burning it.

Kicking off my covers, I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and bolted downstairs, not even bothering to change out of my pajamas. If I was in some kind of medical emergency, I needed to be with people who could call for help. I blew into the kitchen like a storm rolling off the coast and then froze in my tracks as I took in the colorful spread set out on the dining table.

It was a breakfast feast fit for royalty, including the eggs and bacon I had smelled from my room, stacks of golden pancakes, magazine-worthy fruit platters, and all sorts of other fixings that definitely didn’t come from a package orbox. As amazing as it looked and smelled, I didn’t waste a second more of my time ogling any of it, nor did I bother greeting Gabriel or Jaqueline who were both seated at the table, not eating.

My gaze zeroed in on the petite, red-headed woman standing at the stove wearing a chef’s coat and holding a spatula in one hand and the frying pan handle in the other. Her tongue was sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she worked something in the pan with pure determination.

I tried to get a better look at her face, as though I might be able to place the stranger if I just squinted at her hard enough. I may have been off my game lately, but I was pretty sure I’d remember running into a chef and inviting her over to my house. “Um, hello…who are you and what are you doing in my house?”

“Relax, Tiger,” answered Tessa as she walked back into the kitchen holding an overflowing plate of food in her hand as she simultaneously shoveled a fork full of pancakes into her mouth. “Can’t you see she’s our new chef?”

“Our new chef?”I repeated, even more confused. Had I fallen into some sort of time warp? “When did you hire a chef?”

“Goodness, forgive me! Where have my manners gone?” squealed the woman as she wiped her hands on the bar cloth hanging from the waistband of her pants and then rushed over to shake my hand. “I’m Isadora. It’s so very nice to meet you,” she said, rattling my entire arm up and down. “I’ve already gone ahead and served breakfast, but if it’s not to your liking or you prefer something else, I’m more than happy to whip it up for you. Truly. Anything you want.”

I immediately frowned at the telling glaze in her eyes as she dropped my hand and then rushed back to the stove like her life depended on it.

“Who the hell compelled her?” My gaze swung to Gabriel and then Jaqueline, waiting for one of them to fess up seeing as they were the only two Revenants in the room.

Jaqueline momentarily lowered the grimoire she was combing through and shook her head as Gabriel held both his hands up in a gesture of innocence.

“Don’t look at me,” he said, pressing his lips together as though he were hiding a smirk. “I would never.”

My glare veered to Tessa because…well, there was no one else left in the room to accuse.

“The hell if I know,” she said and then chugged a glass of what looked like freshly squeezed orange juice. “She was already in here cooking up a storm when I came downstairs this morning.”

“So no one knows where she came from or who sent her and you all just let her into our house?” I gaped at each of them like the dimwits they obviously were. “What if she’s a spy?”

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