“Have they even tried?”
“What’s to try? Those beasts that attacked us in the Shadowrealm weren’t called memory borrowers or memory misplacers or temporary memory blockers. They’re memory eaters, Gray. They destroyed his mind. I want to believe there’s a way, but I just…” Ronan sighed. “Maybe there’s no coming back from something like that.”
Darius had no response to this. When I turned to look at him again, I saw his head hanging limply, his hair falling in front of his eyes. He’d gone still.
“He’ll be okay, though, won’t he?” I asked.
After all the secrets, the deceit, the misdirections, the cover-ups, all I wanted now was one more lie. I wanted Ronan to look me in the eye and tell me that Darius would pull through this. That we’d all pull through this.
But Ronan shook his head. “I don’t know, Gray.”
It was just as well. Lies never really fixed anything, anyway. They just prolonged the breaking.
“Did you know I was the Silversbane heir?” I asked Ronan. Emotionless. Cold. A throwaway question I didn’t really expect him to answer.
“No,” he said. “But I always suspected it.”
I looked up into his eyes, searching them for some sign of hope. Something flickered there—a spark, maybe, and then it was gone.
“You were always destined for greatness,” he said, leaning in close. “I never doubted that.”
His smile reappeared, and for one brief instant I thought he might actually try to kiss me again. But then he pulled back, shoving a hand through his hair.
“We… We need to find Asher,” I blurted out. I wasn’t sure why—it’s not like finding Asher could do anything to bring back Darius’s memories or break the chains Sebastian had put on my relationship with Ronan. But I had to stay focused on something—a mission with a definite end goal. Something we actually stood a chance at achieving.
“We will,” Ronan said firmly. Definitively. Then, in a softer voice, “That’s a promise, Gray.”
I shook my head, biting back a snarky retort. There was a time when I believed Ronan’s promises without question. When that firm, no-nonsense, no-bullshit tone had the power to pull me from the darkest depths of worry and fear. When one touch of his palm against my cheek could soothe the deepest ache in the darkest parts of my soul.
But he wasn’t allowed to touch me now, and the ache bloomed unchecked, blackening me from the inside out.
I turned my back on both of them—my demon and my vampire, the men whose claims on my heart were burned into me like brands—and walked to collect my hounds.
Right now, our priority was Asher. He needed me to stay strong.
And I needed him to be… No, that was it. No more words necessary. I needed him to be. To justbe.
Nineteen
Gray
“How soon can we get back to Raven’s Cape?” I paced the hotel room, wishing I had a suitcase to pack or papers to shuffle oranythingto distract me from the black hole eating away at my heart.
I was the fucking heir to the Silversbane legacy. The prophesied witch born with the power to unite the covens and bring order to the chaos and blah, blah, blah.
So why couldn’t I save the men I loved?
Why did I grow up alone, isolated from my three sisters?
How did my parents actually die?
How did Deirdre end up in Sebastian’s company?
Where were my sisters now? Did they know about me?
Who signed my original contract with Sebastian?
How much, if anything, did Calla know?
