Ronan
“Deirdre Olivante,” I said, hating the shape of it in my mouth. Though we’d never met before, her name had been seared into my memory for decades, the echo of it like a ticking time bomb that haunted my every step.
She looked like I’d always imagined her. Short, small-boned, and old, but tough beneath her layers of crafted sweetness, with the same intense blue eyes and sharp cheekbones as her granddaughter.
I wanted to despise her, but right now I could only be grateful.
She’d saved us. Ironic, all things considered.
“Foolish boy,” Deirdre snapped, the first words she’d ever spoken to me. “Rayanne’s soul is trapped in hell, and you’re playing around with a vampire. I thought you were her guardian.”
I said nothing. She was right. Gray—Rayanne, to her—was my charge, and I’d failed her.
Again.
But the fire smoldered out of her words quickly as she took in the sight of Gray. Kneeling beside her on the floor, Deirdre brushed her fingers across her granddaughter’s forehead for the first time in more than twenty years.
“She’s beautiful,” Deirdre said, momentarily lost in her own world. Her voice was thick with emotion. “So grown-up. I never thought…”
She trailed off as a tear slid down her cheek. In that moment, she looked vulnerable and wounded, a woman who’d seen more than her fair share of suffering and loss.
Behind us, Darius twitched on the floor, groaning at the pain of the poison coursing through his blood. Despite the fact that he’d damn near killed me, I hated seeing him in that state. I hated seeing Gray unconscious on the floor, the grandmother she didn’t remember weeping over her body.
A fresh lump lodged itself in the back of my throat.
For so many years, I’d believed the worst thing I’d ever have to face was Gray’s death—the event that would trigger the official start of her contracted servitude, requiring me to deliver her straight to Sebastian.
But now here she was, very much alive, her soul trapped in his hell. Was that worse than becoming a demonic servant? An eternal slave?
Was there any chance at getting her out of either disaster? Of any of the obstacles and terrible situations she’d likely face, even if we could free her from this latest round of torments? She was a powerful Shadowborn witch. To think she’d survive this life unscathed was a ridiculous pipe dream.
I turned away, unable to look at her another minute. I didn’t have the strength for this. It turned me inside out, like someone had carved me open and set all my nerves on fire. It hurt to breathe. To blink. To think.
Gray’s death? It would’ve gutted me.
But this… This was definitely worse. She wasn’t dead, just trapped, condemned to an eternity of suffering, mere seconds after we’d liberated her from the last otherworldly prison.
Deirdre sighed, and I turned back to face her, our eyes locking once again. Hers were cloudy with sadness and regret, and for a brief instant, that shared pain connected us by an invisible thread.
In another life, we might’ve been family.
I wondered if she was thinking the same thing. Then she got to her feet and said, “Don’t just stand there moping, demon. Sebastian is certainly expecting you by now.”
“Fuck Sebastian.” I closed my eyes, breaking the momentary connection. “There’s nothing he can do for me now. And if you think for one hot second I’m taking her anywhere near him, you’re—”
“She’s lost in his domain now, Ronan Vacarro. He’s theonlyone who can help us get her back.”
“Us?” I opened my eyes and looked at her again, eyeing her skeptically. “You think there’s anusin all of this?”
She folded her arms across her chest and jutted out her chin, a look that was so very Gray, it shot a bolt of pain through my heart.
I stepped closer, staring her down. “Let me tell you what it means to be part of an us. Gray and I were an us. We had each other’s backs. We cared for each other. We shared things, went through shit together, came out on the other side swinging. We didn’t condemn each other to—”
“Enough!” Her eyes blazed, and she didn’t back down, glaring at me as if she were the one towering over me rather than vice versa. “We’ve all done unspeakable things to keep her safe. Don’t pretend you’re above all of this. I know the truth.”
“You know nothing about me, witch.”
“Oh no?” Her steely gaze softened, and she reached up to touch my face, her palm soft against my cheek. “I know what you gave up for her. I know what she means to you. And,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, “I know what haunts your dreams.”
