Page 105 of Lunar Diamonds

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I crawled in the direction of his voice, only to be stopped by something solid. Something breathing.

Lifting my head, I met the crimson stare of the shade that’d attacked me six months ago.

Chapter 28

DRAKE

Visions of my childhood flashed before me, clicking from one awful moment to the next. A slide presentation of sadness and cruelty. Unrelenting, with the ferocity to break me into a million pieces.

I screamed.

These memories were supposed to be locked in a box and buried deep.

The death of my parents. The crash. The darkness. The aftermath.

The children’s home, the sorrow, the adoption.

The suffering of living withher. Sandra. My adopted mother. A wicked woman, now a dead woman with her claws buried deep into the fabric of my being.

She’s dead.

She’s dead?—

She liked locking me in the basement for being a bad boy. No food or water or hope. Told me I’d ruined her life, my adoption was a mistake. Told me how useless I was.

Trash. Trash. Trash.

I closed my eyes, covering my ears as the familiar sounds of leather on my skin cracked around me.

Go away. Go away. Go away.

I heardhim, the beast she married when I turned sixteen. Bryan. Handy with his fists. One day, he hit me so hard he broke my jaw.

They hurt me because I was unworthy of love. My birth parents left me, taking love with them.

“Died to get away from you,” Sandra would spit at me.

I believed her. I always believed her because there was nothing in that house and my life but hate and pain.

Trash. Trash. Trash.

Darkness closed in around me as I wept. I hid my face, not wanting to see it crush me, bury me, take me away from the light.

Useless.

Unworthy.

Fading.

Chapter 29

RILEY

Iscurried back, slipping in the snow, unable to get vertical.

The shade hissed, its eyes deadly fires. My insides curdled, this arsehole stealing every breath. Back to finish the job. The one who got away, right here for the taking. It had a taste of my flesh and wanted the full meal.

I wrestled with my spiking blood pressure, refusing to crumble while holding back my own screams.

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