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This wasn’t Sullivan Sinclair—the perfect puzzle piece to my soul—who’d made love to me in Nirvana and sat beside me while two parrots completed our chosen family.
He’s a hologram.
A living, breathing man quickly fading into a flickering, disappearing mirage.
No.
I won’t let it.
I refuse.
Pushing onto my hands and knees, I went to him. I crawled across the bed with the large blanket still draped over me and kneeled beside him. “Sully…”
He shuddered as his head tilted to face me. His blue eyes rose. Our gazes locked. He gave me a heartbreakingly tender smile. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
Words formed a plug in my throat. Apologies and affirmations, violence and vows. I wanted to thank him for saving me, ask how he’d entered Euphoria, how he’d freed me and stopped elixir from killing me, and just how it’d come to pass that he was here, sitting on a bed with me in Switzerland when the last time I’d seen him, he’d been plummeting to the unforgiving sea below.
I wanted to demand to know what he’d done to make him so despairing.
I needed to scream at him.
I needed to love him.
So many things.
Too many things.
So…I ignored it all.
I focused on the only important part…us…and snuggled close to put my head on his shoulder.
He sighed heavily, his chin tilting to kiss the top of my hair. His body shuddered and his voice held a thousand daggers. “Fuck, I love you, Eleanor…the greatest jinx of my life.”
Fresh tears mixed with old. I nuzzled into his throat and kissed him.
His skin was cooler than I was used to, thanks to the missing heat of his Goddess Isles. He tasted salty and stale, as if he hadn’t had a shower since being plucked from the ocean and flying to find me.
I wanted to suggest a warm bath. To soak away the many bruises painting him and wash away his harsh misery, but my attention fell to his leg, and my insides clenched in a vice.
His stitched thigh looked angry and once again infected. His flesh was swollen and so much redder than the rest of him. Bumps and new contusions hinted he’d been hurt in his fall to the sea. Hurt enough to drain him of his final brutal reserves.
He inhaled, spreading his chest, revealing his tanned torso and powerful muscles slipping beneath pained skin. He looked pinched and at max exertion—an athlete who’d kept racing, even if it meant consuming his own body mass to convert fuel into energy.
“You need to eat,” I murmured, lifting my head off his shoulder. “And you need to see a doctor.”
He chuckled quietly, opening his palm that sat between his spread thighs. “I’m my own doctor tonight.”
I sucked in a breath.
A handful of pills had jumbled together. Some with white casings, some with blue. Round and oval, gel capsules and dissoluble. My gaze skittered to the bedside table and the numerous empty bottles of painkillers scattered there.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he whispered as he ran his thumb over the small apothecary he’d formed in his palm. “I’d hoped I could consume these and have them kick in before you did.”
“You can’t take that many, Sully. Your system won’t handle it.”
“My system?” He laughed under his breath. “My system can’t handle much these days.” Wiping his mouth with the back of his other hand, he continued staring at the drugs, a deliberation weighing on him.
I tried to claim them, to scoop them from his palm. “Let’s call a doctor. They’ll give you antibiotics for your wounds; they’ll give you a stronger painkiller than those you can find in a bottle.”
He jerked his hand away, shaking his head slightly. “Don’t have the time for that, my darling Jinx.”
Icy dread skated down my spine. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” His vibrant sapphire gaze met mine. “I’m in pain, and I want that pain to go away.”
Flickering images of the monster he’d been in Euphoria came and went. His pupils had been snake slits then. His handsome face fanged and scaled.
He’d been invincible.
And I had absolutely no doubt he’d won against Drake. He’d faced his brother in a realm of his own making and he’d come out an only child.
I didn’t need him to confirm that he was the victor. I felt it. I felt it in the peace he held and also the emptiness. I saw it in his eyes—the acceptance of finally ending a lifelong feud and the hollow aftermath.
He might’ve been a hellion within that nightmare, but now…now he was just a man.
A man I was desperately in love with, and one I couldn’t help because I didn’t have the skills necessary to heal him.
I stroked his cheek, forcing myself to touch him and feel his realness.
He’s alive.
And he’ll stay that way.
You’ll see.
His eyes snapped closed, his entire body quaking at my touch. “I’m sorry.” His cock hung heavy and thick between his legs, swelling rapidly with need. “I’m sorry that he took you. That he hurt you. That I was almost too late—”
