Page 44 of Illusory

The pain and fear had dissipated like smoke, consumed by the placating venom that was now firing its way through my veins. Subduing me. Soothing the terrified voice that had been screaming inside my head since the moment I descended those stairs.

A small, insignificant part of me knew there was still time to fight, but I didn’t have nearly enough strength to invokeany magic let alone the strength needed to put up a fight. The survival part of my brain required to accomplish such a feat had already lulled itself into a false sense of security. Even at my own peril. Even as I listened to the beastly rumbles sounding from deep within his chest and felt the warm slick of my own blood freely flowing down the length of my raised arm, all I could do was release the breath I’d been holding and relax against the bars.

That was the thing about Revenant bites. They were quite simply a Slayer’s one and only Achilles’ heel, and all the training and magic wielding of the world couldn’t hold a flame to the biology conspiring behind it. To what their bite was designed to do. It was their kiss of death meant to assuage your will to fight and then gently lull you toward your final dance. And it worked like a charm, every time.

I knew that more than anybody.

My sightline tightened at the corners as my legs became boneless beneath me and I collapsed, falling, tumbling, slipping deeper toward the threshold of no return, but somehow, I didn’t hit the ground.

In the vague periphery of my awareness, I could feel his other hand grasping my waist, holding me up. His hands were the only thing keeping me from hitting the ground then, pinning me instead against the bars, but I knew there was no affection or concern in his hold. I was merely the object of his feeding frenzy and not the girl he once knew and loved.

Craning my head, I looked at him through glassy eyes and choked out a sob. There was no sign of Trace in the fiend before me. No love in his eyes to remind him. No soulmate bond to temper him. Just predator against prey. Hunger against flesh. And I was as good as dead.

Not the worst way to go, I supposed, in the grand scheme of things. I’d danced this macabre dance with death countlesstimes before and had always secretly wondered if it would one day prove to be my downfall, though in all honesty, I usually imagined it happening in the arms of Dominic. That he might one day unwittingly go too far, and that I’d simply just let him.

But this was nothing like me and Dominic. Nothing like the way he’d hold me, worship me in his arms as though I were the altar at which he prayed. The way he danced me toward the darkness, only skirting me to the edge of it before drawing me back into the safety of his light. Everything about Trace’s touch was different—rougher. Out of control. Feral and unchecked.

My lids fluttered closed, too weighty to keep open any longer.

How ironic that it should end like this after everything I went through to bring Trace back from the brink of death. Perhaps this was what I deserved for breaking his heart so many times. For allowing myself to fall in love with another man. For turning him into the thing he hated most in this world. It was almost a sort of poetic justice if I really thought about it. Well, for Trace anyway. Not so much for me.

My own deranged, muffled laughter was the last thing I heard before the darkness came to take me.

14. DIGGING IN THE DIRT

Conscious awareness stirred me awake as my lids fluttered open to a darkened room and the feel of a soft comforter wrapped snuggly around my body. It took me several beats to reorientate myself and realize that I was laying down in my bed, tucked safely beneath the warmth of my blanket.

“You’re awake.”

My heart jumped at the unexpected sound of Gabriel’s voice. He was sitting in the chair by my desk, leaning forward with both elbows pressed against his thighs, staring at me, like he’d been sitting there watching me for hours, waiting for me to wake up.

“What…what happened?” I asked, my brain feeling muddled as though my thoughts were swimming in a cloud of fog. I pushed up from my pillow and sat up, unease crawling under my skin like an army of ants had invaded my body as I slept unsuspectingly. I hated finding Gabriel in my room like this. Too often it meant that I’d done something stupid or dangerous.

Usually both.

And then the memory of what happened with Trace flooded back in through my scrambled thoughts, and I cringed, because Ihadin fact done something stupid and dangerous.Fuck.

“Never mind. Don’t answer that,” I rasped as I shook my head, trying to chase away the image of Trace’s loveless eyes as he ripped into me and took what he wanted. I really didn’t need to live it over again in my mind. Once had been more than enough.

“What were you thinking going down there alone likethat?” he chided, rising from the chair and walking over to me, his presence looming over my bed like a sentinel. Even in the lightless state of the room, I could still see the crease between his brows from the frown he was directing at me.

He wasn’t happy about this, and clearly, he wasn’t going to let me off that easily.

“That wasn’t my intention—I’m not a moron,” I defended, more so for my own benefit than his. “I was looking foryou.”

“In Trace’s cell?”

“No.” I rubbed my temples, searching for the words that would prove my earlier point aboutnotbeing a moron. “I meant to leave when I realized you weren’t there, but when I saw him, I guess I thought I could talk to him. I thought that it would somehow…help.”

“He’s not in any condition to have a normal conversation right now.”

“I’m well aware of that.” I paused and then added, “Now. I just realized it a few seconds too late.”

He stared down at me for a long beat, like he wanted to say something else. Something more.

“I’m sorry I made you worry,” I said, trying to save him the trouble of chastising me.

“You can’t keep doing this.”

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