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“Oliver.”
Her familiar. The human. I want to leave the room immediately so I can seek and destroy the mortal. He has no chance. She can see it.
“Please don’t—don’t harm him. I love him. I always have. I just didn’t want to admit it.” For the first time this evening she reaches over and touches me. She puts her small hand—so tiny, really—on top of mine. I flinch, as if her fingers were engulfed in flames. So this is pain. So this is wretchedness. So this is misery. I never knew.
I have nothing to say. I can feel it—the truth. The truth of her love for him, it shines all over her face, and I can sense his presence on her very skin. Such is the way with the familiars—their blood brings us life, but they are not meant for us in this manner. I am sickened by jealousy and rage.
“Leave me.” I am ashamed of the strangled cry that flies out before I can control myself.
“Jack... I...” She is standing by the doorway. I have hunted down the Croatan, I have endured the tortures of Hell, and yet I cannot find the strength to meet her eyes. I have to force myself to do so.
Her hand is on the door handle. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I lied to you all this time,” she whispers.
“GO!” It is a roar from my throat. I cannot contain myself. I am transformed. I am Abbadon. Transformed into the demon I am. What does she see? What am I doing?
I see the fright in her eyes, taste her fear, revel in it, and with brutal effort I catch myself before I get carried away. I am dangerous and flailing. It is I who needs to leave. I am gone before she can close the door.
From the street I watch as she leaves the building. I need to go back. I want to destroy that place. I want to destroy every memory it brings. I want it obliterated from the landscape. But when I return to the apartment, I am not alone.
Mimi is here.
When Schuyler left the building that evening, she thought she would feel at peace. Instead she felt more conflicted than before. The lie she told Jack had worked because she had wrapped it around the truth of her love for Oliver. Because it was a lie. She still loved Jack. She loved him so much that seeing him sitting there alone, in the dark, waiting patiently for her, made her love him even more.
She almost hadn’t gone through with it. She didn’t know what he would say or if she would be strong enough to see it through. It hurt her so much, seeing him look at her that way. She had never seen him so lost or confused.
I take it back! she’d wanted so much to say. I take everything back. I love you. Let’s go away. Just the two of us, together.
But she’d had to do it. She had to let him go. Or give him a reason to let her go. It was the best choice for the two of them.
And it had worked.
She should feel relief—maybe even victorious.
So why did she feel so dead inside?
As if she had killed the best part of herself.
She walked slowly up to the avenue to catch a cab. She was moving back to Riverside Drive. She would not return to that town house on Fifth Avenue ever again.
FAMILY RECORDS:
LLEWELLYN
Due to the sensitive information contained in this file, most of it speculative in nature, this record is classified CONCLAVE LEVEL ONLY.
The Llewellyn family has risen to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the Coven. They amassed a great fortune by their monopoly of the New York and New Jersey seaports. A branch of the family moved to Houston during the oil boom during the late nineteenth century, and the majority of the family has been based there since.
BLISS LLEWELLYN
Azazel, the Darkling, Lupus Theliel, Angel of Love, Wolfsbane
Birth Name: Bliss Eugenia Llewellyn
Origin: November 9, 1991, Houston, Texas
Known Past Lives: Margaret Stanford (Newport), Mary Brewster (Plymouth), Giulia de Medici (Florence)
Bondmate: Unclear. Bliss has no heavenly past, but she does adhere to the cycles and the earliest record of her existence is {DATE REDACTED}.
