Page 4 of Dominion

“My name is Stefan Palisander, Medea,” he said, as his tongue licked my earlobe. A moan started deep in my chest, sliding through my esophagus, and rolling off of my lips. “And you, my little flower,” he growled. “You’re going to be mine. In Aeternum.”

2

SKYLAR

Present

The light flickeredon the streetlamp, playing hide and seek with the moth going toward the flame. It beckoned it, whispered sweet nothings. As I stood not too far away, observing the scene, I saw it flying closer and closer until its wings touched the scorching heat of the glass that hid the pretty little light moths always wanted to have.

Just like I did.

I’d been searching for light, for salvation, for oblivion, and I never truly understood why it evaded me so much. Why was it that some people had everything, when others had to go through life with a bitter taste in their mouth, looking for something better, something lighter, something easier to help them through the day?

But light was never meant for me, just like it never was meant for that moth that now laid on the ground, lifeless and betrayed by that one thing it wanted to have. With everything that had happened lately, I understood now that light wasn’t always good, and dark wasn’t always evil.

And the darkness… It knew my name. It hugged me when things were bad and put Band-Aids on my broken skin when I was a kid.

I was in love with the dark ones, the broken ones… The ones who carried mischief in their eyes, and violence in their hearts, but they loved me. I knew both of them loved me. Their fingers painted pretty stories on my skin every time they touched me, and I had lost them.

“Are you okay?” a feminine voice rang behind me. I turned around to see Zoe standing on the porch of the house Cillian brought me to.

Somewhere between Winworth and wherever we were right now, I had fallen asleep. But my dreams were empty, just like my soul was. My anger still simmered in the depths of my soul, and even though I expected regret to knock into me with full force, it never came.

The screams from those godforsaken catacombs still rang in my ears, and the flickering fire that consumed the entire building still danced in front of my eyes. But regret… Regret wasn’t what I felt.

They all deserved to burn. They all deserved to feel pain so immense that even in death, they would remember it. Death was a mild punishment for the Order, but I knew it would hurt Judah. I hoped it cut him, sliced over his heart, just like his words did when he called me back in the hospital.

“Skylar?” she asked and wrapped her arms around her middle, shivering in the cold morning air.

I couldn’t even feel it.

“I-I-I don’t…” I stammered. “I don’t know.” And I didn’t know. Was I okay? I just killed somebody. Not just somebody—several somebodies, and I didn’t feel a thing.

No regrets.

No pain.

No sadness.

Just pure, hot anger. Anger that quieted down for a bit, but it was still there. It still whispered through my veins, through my nervous system, and I didn’t want it to stop. Anger was better than sadness, better than fear, better than anything else that I could be feeling right now.

“Where’s Cillian?” I looked at her.

“Asleep. You should be too.”

I should be. I knew that. Every muscle in my body protested, but I couldn’t close my eyes. Every time I closed them, I could see Ash and Dylan. I didn’t even want to think what they were going through right now.

If the Syndicate and the Outfit had them, with Judah, I didn’t want to imagine the horrors they were going through.

Would they torture them?

Would they kill them because of me and what I did?

Shaking my head, I stepped closer to Zoe, heading toward the shadows of the house, evading the morning light.

“What time is it?” I asked and looked toward the horizon, where the sun didn’t hold dark gray clouds, but was colored in red, yellow, and orange.

“Maybe six twenty,” she murmured. “You really should rest, Skylar. You’re barely standing.”

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