Page 137 of You Only Love Twice
And then she was in them, and they wrapped around her, bringing with them all the absolution she'd been hoping to find.
"It's not your fault," he murmured, stroking her hair.
"They put that cursed neural implant in my head, didn't they?" All her memories were scrambled. She could barely piece together the last few days, let alone... today? Had it happened today?
"Yes. I had to shock you with one of the guards’ stunners to bring you down." Obsidian began to explain, telling her everything he knew.
Oh, my goodness. Isabella was dead. Malloryn... missing. It was all too much for her.
"I'm here." He picked her up in his arms, dragging her onto his lap as he slid onto the trundle bed.
It was all starting to come back, little fragments starting to piece themselves into the pattern.
Isabella looking at her. Saying those words.
London Bridge is falling down....
Light draining out of the world until it felt like she was staring down a narrow tunnel. At the end of the tunnel she could hear Malloryn's voice. Byrnes. Ingrid. Obsidian. But it was like looking through the wrong end of a telescope.
All that remained was a high-pitched whine in her ears and a voice.
"Your mission is to kill the queen."
What happens if someone gets in my way?
"You must kill the queen."
But what if—?
"Kill. The. Queen."
A hollow silence.
"Or die trying."
Suddenly she could see it all running swiftly through her head, as if someone had sped up the action. Byrnes stepping between her and the throne room, a determined look on his face and his hands held defensively.
Men in the Coldrush uniforms sprinting toward her and then falling, one by one by one. A bullet hole slammed through a man's forehead, and Gemma squeezed her eyes shut, trying to forget the look of shock on his face as he fell.
Blood on her hands....
Splashed across her memories....
"And the... others?" she whispered, half afraid of the answer.
"Alive." A warm hand rubbed her back. "Ingrid wanted you to know she was sorry for dislocating your shoulder. And Byrnes said to tell you he's still picking bullet fragments out of his ass, but he appreciates the fact you shot him there and not in the head. He also said something about how you were wrong; you're top of the list. I don't know what he meant by that."
Gemma broke into a laugh-sob, because that sounded so like Byrnes, and yet at the same time she knew exactly what the bastard was trying to tell her. What Ingrid was trying to tell her.
This time the real sobs began, racking through her chest.
Obsidian's arms squeezed her tighter, and Gemma wrapped herself around him desperately. Her fingers curled in the slick leather of his coat, and her face nuzzled into the crook of his throat as she let it all out.
She needed this so badly.
Strong arms to protect her from the rest of the world. From herself. Kisses that scattered over her cheek and forehead, cool against the heated flush of her skin.
Someone who could understand her, who would never flinch from the darkness within her, because he had his own share of ghosts.
