It was fucking exhilarating. It was life altering.
I was the biggest idiot of all time.
While I struggled with my insane emotions, Aoiki was the only one who didn’t shy away. She nailed me dead in the eye. “Sometimes it happens like that. Sometimes love smashes into you like a Mack truck, and rationale has no ground to stand on. You can either go with it or dig your heels into the ground and miss the opportunity to fly.” Her hand tightened on Sunny’s, and the other girl met Aoiki’s gaze with a mirror of loving devotion.
The serious admission from a girl who seemed so young—excuse me, a five hundred something year old fae—only unsettled me more.
We had gotten so far afield of why I’d come. I came to learn more about Bob, about why I’d been chosen to carry him. Putting my professional voice back on like one dons a jacket, I said, “Thank you for the information and the tea. I may be in touch in the future regarding the talking sword. I appreciate your time.”
Then I shot a hard look at Vivien. She picked up on her cue and extracted herself from Darth Vader and followed me out without another word. Thankfully Bob also remained mercifully silent.
Only when we stood in the freight elevator side by side, did she speak.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked, her voice softer and more careful than I’d ever known her to be. It would have been far more normal if she came at me like a battering ram, demanding to know more. It only heightened my awareness of how wrong and screwed up I was.
I said I loved the god I killed every night. Maybe I was as mad as he was.
“Nope,” I said, popping my ‘p.’
I could feel her disappointment fill the space around us. Great, now I felt guilt on top of everything else.
Vivien was an absolute open book. Everything she thought or felt came out, and I supported that. Her free, open expression was part of her.
But it must look like I didn’t trust her, but it was really because I couldn’t face my own feelings much less put them all out in the open air. They would solidify, become real, and I couldn’t afford that. It was better to keep all my rioting emotions inside under lock and key.
Vivien opened her mouth and then closed it several times as if debating what to say. Finally, she landed on, “You don’t have to kill him.”
My body nearly sagged with the weight of her words. Because it was something I so desperately wanted to believe, but at the very center of my heart I knew it was the right thing to do. I had to release Xander from his torment. Even if that meant carving off a piece of myself in the process.
So all I said was. “Yes, I do.”
ChapterTwenty
THE BADASS
My heart pounded as I ran through the darkness, my lungs burning with each breath. I stumbled, catching myself just in time before I fell face first onto the ground. The scenery swirled around me. The bright lights of the Vegas Strip, the polished black marble of Sinopolis, and then the vast desert stretched out before me in a barren, deathly wasteland.
Fear had taken hold of me. Something was stalking me, something malevolent, and larger than life.
Running faster, I pushed myself to flee, until I couldn’t breathe, my eyes watered and stung.
The sands pulsed and a wave of black rushed over them, turning the hard granules into soft silt, making it even harder to move.
BOOM. The earth shook.
“Miranda.” A voice called out my name. I couldn’t tell if it was male, or female. All I knew was it hungered to take me. Claim me? Kill me? I didn’t know.
Sweat covering me, my legs started to give out, but I pushed on.
BOOM.
Something massive was right behind me. It was too big, too powerful and I wouldn’t survive it.
Then I felt it. A pin prick of burning on my back. I instantly felt scorched as it spread. I was an ant under a magnifying glass.
“Miranda.” The voice called again, just as my body finally gave up. My knees buckled and I crashed to the ground. I was covered in sweat, every bit of muscle trembled and shook from the exertion. A strangled sob escaped my lungs. I couldn’t catch a breath.
As the entity drew closer, the heat from my back spread until it was suffocating, and I felt like I was going to burn up from the inside out. I wanted to scream, to fight back, but I was paralyzed with fear and pain.
