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Aria was standing in the black with me, looking soft and sweet as her arms opened for me. My instincts screamed for me to fall into them, but I didn’t move. It was just a dream; she was busy playing happy family with fake-me, anyway.
“I miss you,” “Aria” tried.
I just snorted. “Pick someone else, Lucifer.”
I got a tiny shock in response, so I sighed.
Everything around us began to spin and warp. All of a sudden, she was again standing with Auren when the Upper Council attacked.
Despite knowing that it wasn’t really her and that she couldn’t actually get hurt, my heart thundered when the witch raised her hand toward them. My body moved on its own, lurching towards her when the fire shot out, and her screaming wasreal. It was real, and I wasthere, and—
“Terrible,” Lucifer tutted, and the shock that rocked through me turned me into a spasming heap on the ground. “Let’s try again.”
This time, it’s Michaelson being held underwater. When I dove in to save him, I was stopped by vicious-looking mermaids.
Then it’s Lucy, who’s standing beside an irate Azazel, and he tore her head clean off.
Auren, begging the fallen-blood wolves to let us go, yet dying anyways.
Round and round, shock after shock, Lucifer kept me trapped in the black vortex of my mind.
“Stop,” I wheezed when he was done punishing me for failing to save Johnny from the Paras. “Please, I can’t take anymore.”
“You can,” he crooned. “I would know. Torture is my whole shtick, remember?”
I lost more of my friends and family than I saved, but eventually, it stopped being as horrifying. While their deaths were always brutal, I grew numb to it. The worst part was Lucifer shocking me until I thought I was going to die, then laughing when I stumbled to my feet to continue on.
Iwantedto die, actually. But maybe that was the point.
I was ready to give up by the time he tossed me back into my cell, aching and in tears; Lucifer didn’t do anything more than click his tongue in disappointment before Aria appeared all around me again.
When I closed my eyes to block out the scene unfolding, flashes of death circled through my mind again, and I was forced to peel them open.
“Do you think Auren would let me go shopping? Not that I’m not grateful for the clothes they loaned us or anything, but….” Aria grimaced, and Barimuz smirked. “I’m just tired of the same thing over and over. Is that materialistic?”
“A little,” he admitted
She whacked his arm with a laugh, shaking her head. “Okay, so no clothes shopping, then. Got it.”
My mate. My beautiful mate.
My mate, who was flirting with a man wearing my face and didn’t even know I was gone.
The abyss in me opened impossibly wider with that thought.
Aria’s eyes cut to Barimuz again, lips pursed, but other than rubbing absently at her sternum, she didn’t notice my pain.
I’d thought there was nothing worse than losing my brother. That memory had lingered and festered, leaving behind a wound that I could never dream of fully healing, my days spent agonizing over how to avenge him—but this was worse. Knowing she was not only happy with him but couldn’t sense me at all was worse.
“Don’t give up.”
I was shocked to find Michael sitting atop my cage when I rolled over to face the ceiling instead. He’s just staring, leaning back on his palms with his head cocked to one side.
“Lucifer will tire of this game eventually, so you need to hold on until he does.”
“Game?” I barked out a bitter laugh, and he grimaced. “It’s not a fucking game. It’s ourlives. Lucifer and that damn demon of his—”
“He’s an Archdemon, actually—”
