Though she hadn’t said the words, I felt them lingering in the wake of her exit.
You already have.
I realized then, with a sickening twist in my stomach, that she’d thought I’d remembered her. That she’d given herself so freely, so intensely, so… erotically, because she’d trusted me. Trusted the connection we were supposed to have had.
I wished things could’ve been different.
There was something so intensely familiar about her, but try as I might to find her in the dark recesses of memory, I couldn’t recall ever having met her. I don’t know how I’d managed to recall the nickname I’d supposedly given her. And though the brief taste of her blood had stirred something deep within me—something that spoke of a much more intimate history than she’d let on—it hadn’t awakened any dormant memories.
Despite what she and the demon had told me about our relationship—that we’d even had one at all, that my memories of it had been stolen by some sort of shadow creatures in another realm—I looked into her eyes and saw nothing. Knew nothing.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I knew she was going to stake me—perhaps even before she’d known it. Despite the pain and immobility it would bring, I’d let her do it anyway, almost welcoming the sharp pierce in my flesh.
It was better this way. She needed to understand I wasn’t the man she’d fallen in love with before. I was a vampire. A hungry one. And being with her like that… I closed my eyes, still scenting her desire in the air. Remembering her now, the soft curve of her mouth, the heat of her breath as she moaned beneath my touch…
She’d nearly undone me.
And I’d wanted so, so badly to devour her. To sink my fangs into her throat and drain every last drop of that sweet, silky blood.
Shame burned inside me, but that was the truth of it.
Though I’d sworn we’d only just become acquainted, something about that final look in her eyes said I’d hurt her. Not physically, but in a way that was so much worse. A way that only someone who cared about you could manage.
An ache opened up in my chest, the bright pulse of it outrunning even the hawthorn working its way through my system.
Nothing the demon had said had affected me like this. Nothing the old witch had whispered as she’d plied me with her brew even came close.
But now, as I recalled the intense blue of Gray’s eyes, the pain in them thatI’dcaused, I felt it.
For the first time since I’d arrived in this ocean-washed city, I felt the sting of something hot and fresh in my gut, the bitter taste of it coating my tongue like the very salt that coated the streets outside.
Regret.
Twenty-Three
Gray
The wind gusted, whipping the ocean into frothy white peaks and threatening to steal the breath from my lungs. Unperturbed by the cold, Sparkle and Sunshine bounded along the shore, chasing the receding tide and running from the surge like twin puppies.
Personally, I would’ve rather met Deirdre in a cozy little café in town, where we could sip hot mochas by a crackling fire. But it was better this way. Safer. We had a lot of ground to cover, and we couldn’t risk being overheard.
I needed to know about the Silversbane legacy. My blood magic. If my blood was powerful enough to call my ancestors out of their eternal rest, surely it was powerful enough for other magic, too.
Like restoring Darius’s memories.
It sounded crazy. Impossible. But after my disastrous reunion with Darius last night, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. He’d remembered my nickname, and when he bit my lip, the taste of my blood had affected him deeply. Not in any way I could put into words. Just in a way I could feel, right down to my soul.
Darius and I were blood bound. Deeply connected. Mated, for all intents and purposes. And that connection hadn’t broken. How could it? It wasn’t linked to memory, but to blood—something he hadn’t lost at all. I wanted him to remember our bond for my own emotional reasons, but physically, that bond still existed. I’d felt it drawing us close last night. I’d seen it in his eyes, even if it wasn’t there in his mind.
When he’d healed me with his blood in the Shadowrealm, I’d connected to his past, sensing the memories of his former life, seeing them play out before me like a dream. It was as if he’d transferred them to me through the blood bond.
I didn’t know what that meant, or how—if at all—that could help now. But there was something to it. I could feel it.
The memory eater demons had stolen the memories from Darius’s mind. But maybe they weren’tgone. Maybe there was a backup copy.
My blood was the key—I was sure of it. I just couldn’t figure out how. The solution was there though, like a dream you try to chase into the waking hours, losing it at dawn only to get it back in flashes later on.
Right now, I was pinning my hopes on Deirdre. On my so-called super special Silversbane magic.
