“You and me, until the stars turn to dust, Luka.”
My mate.
Luka.
The thread in my chest tugged. I reached forward, reached for him?—
I fell through him.
I hit the ground as the memory shifted, and I was placed into another one.
I was lying on a grassy hill, a blue-eyed, dark-haired male lay next to me.
A bottle of wine sat next to him, the bottle empty.
A tingle scattered up my arm as his fingers brushed against mine.
He turned his head toward me, causing a lock of hair to fall across his forehead.
Whoever he was, he was handsome.
His lips tilted up into a smile, revealing a sharp fang.
I pulled my hand back, scrambling away from him.
A vampire.
He was a vampire.
18
LUKA
I didn’t leave Lennox’s bedside for the next two days.
Two days and she still hadn’t woken.
Luce couldn’t figure out what Keziq had done to her. She wouldn’t know how the magic altered her memories until she woke.
If she woke up.
We didn’t know what Lennox would be like when she did wake. Did Keziq’s magic work? Would she try to kill me? Would I finally get Lennox back after all these weeks, only for her to hate me like she did the day we met?
It was supposed to be over. We were supposed to rescue her and I’d get her back. That was it. I didn’t anticipate, didn’t expect—this.
I hadn’t thought about what would happen after we found her. I never thought this could be our reality. All I had thought about was getting her back in my arms.
But now she might not even remember who I was to her.
I’d do it all over again if that’s what it came to. I’d win her over, make her fall in love with me. I’d do it all again for her. But still, the uncertainty of who she’d be when she woke—kept me from sleep, keptme tossing and turning.
It wasn’t only my own demons haunting my sleep, it was Lennox’s, too. I’d wake to her thrashing and screaming in reaction to whatever was happening in her mind.
“Come back to me,” I whispered, as I squeezed her hand. “Come back to me, Lennox. We’re not finished yet.”
I had no idea if she could hear me, and maybe it made me crazy to talk to her, but at this point, I didn’t fucking care. I needed her to come back to me.
And my voice seemed to be the only thing that would calm her during the nightmares.
