Long after I’d washed the demon stink from my mouth, I could still taste Haley on my tongue—her breath, her blood, the intoxicating scent of her desire.
It wasn’t desire foryou, asshole. It’s Jax she wants now.
My fist crashed into the bathroom mirror, spiderwebbing it.
I stared into a dozen jagged shards of glass. And a dozen broken versions of the same man stared right back.
I never should’ve come to Midnight.
I wasn’t talking about this time—no way would I have let Haley face this hell on her own.
I was talking about the last time. Thefirsttime.
If I’d ignored my instincts then, would she still be with me now? Would we be happy and warm and safe in Blackmoon Bay? Or maybe living the life we’d so often talked about in New Orleans, her with her bookstore and café, me with my club?
How many more nights, weeks,yearswould I spend playing this game?
I’d almost told her the truth tonight. The story she so desperately wanted to know but didn’t have the heart to ask. She had a right to it. It was her story as much as mine.
But seeing her in bed with Jax…
I clenched my fists. My hand fucking throbbed, slower to heal than it should’ve been.
Good.
I slipped a pill from the bottle and pressed it to my tongue. Held my breath, waited for the familiar tingle to set in.
It didn’t.
I popped another one. Stuck out my tongue and watched the Dream’s black whorls dance across it.
It took a few minutes, but eventually, I felt something. The whorls grew blacker, and the dark fae magick buzzed in my mouth, sliding down my throat and slowly working its way into my bloodstream.
Shutting my eyes tight, I yanked her panties from my pocket. Pressed them to my mouth. Inhaled. Tried like hell to ignore the agony tearing through my heart, but of course I couldn’t.
I’d never quite mastered that fucking trick.
Tears brimmed behind my eyelids, then spilled, my entire chest cavity about go supernova.
Sometimes it felt as if leaving her had hollowed me out inside. Carved the beating heart right from my body.
And other times, like tonight, I knew that heart still existed, because every time it fucking beat, a bright burst of pain reverberated throughout my entire being.
How the fuck was I even breathing?
“Touch me, Elian. Please…”
Her desperate whispers floated through my mind, unleashing a thousand memories just like it. A thousand other breathy moans, a thousand other nights when she belonged only to me. When I still had a right to touch her at all. To call her mine.
“Haley,” I ground out. Her name felt like razor blades in my mouth, but I couldn’t stop. “Haley,” I whispered. “Haley.”
I unzipped my pants and fisted my cock with the panties, stroking once, twice. I moved slowly at first, dragging the lace across my sensitive skin, imagining the scrape of her fingernails. Her teeth.
I was rock hard in an instant, my cock throbbing for her. Aching.
I tightened my grip and stroked again. Again. A little harder this time. Harder still. Faster, faster, the sweet memory of her moans crashing through my head, her fists tight on my shoulders, the taste of her breath in my mouth, the scent of her drenched pussy overwhelming me as the demon fucked her so hard she shattered…
“Fuck…” I shuddered into that black lace, coming in a fast, red-hot rush that left me trembling, my head falling against the broken mirror, breath fogging the glass.
