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And mourn.
And here I was, the fool who thought grief couldn’t sting like this anymore.
“Fool.”
I spit it out loud because I have to hear it. Absorb it. See it. Right here in the bathroom’s mirror, an oval piece that once hung outside the water close in Aunt Louisa’s place in Capri.
“Fool.” I repeat it because of her. Louisa. The woman who became my mother in every sense of the word after I buried my own, unable to answer all the questions that burned from her eyes until the end. With Louisa, things were easier. My aunt knew my secrets because they were hers too—until one day, the burden was too much for even her to bear. She paid an assassin twice his usual fee to terminate her in the only way that would work for our kind.
I drop my head after using a gallon of mouthwash, pushing back that part of the past with a violent grunt. But maybe, in her uncanny way, it’s Louisa coming to my aid yet again. If I can just hold onto the agony and anger now…and then channel it into the right moments in the next room…
The moments that have to happen soon.
As in right the fuck now.
I turn and march back toward the music room. Adrenalin stalks my veins just as hard. Synapses flare in my brain. The preparations serve me well. I know what to do. Options appear in my mind’s eye, clean and complete. I won’t have to take out Quinn like that slayer did Louisa. This will be fast. Painless. Merciful.
The motivation is so ingrained that it takes over, driving every action like a personal workout coach. The voice is right there, steady and succinct, replacing free weight reps with directions that are almost easier to follow.
Guitar strings. That’s six easy restraints, just in case.
Cloth napkins make excellent gags.
And you already know what to do with that cheese dagger.
Which isn’t really a cheese dagger, as I already know when palming the thing. The knife’s ornate hilt, custom-carved to fit my hand for this occasion alone, is another factor as familiar as my own breaths.
The breaths that smooth out, a well-rehearsed rhythm, as I take the final steps toward my destined purpose.
One slash. It’ll start at her heart-shaped mark and end beneath the opposite ear. It’ll be one perfect stroke. The sweep I’ve practiced, over and over and over…
One stroke.
I’m ready. I’m ready.
The dagger tumbles out of my limp hand. It stabs somewhere near my toes, but the pain is nothing but a prick in the aftermath of the chaos in my senses. The torment in my soul. The disbelief in my mind. The jerks of my muscles.
The war that my heart has just declared on all of them.
No.
We’re not going to do this.
Another way. There has to be another fucking way.
I plummet to the floor, where the dagger has landed on its side and now takes an eager bite out of my knee. I still don’t care. Less than before. Not with the surge of hope that my thought has brought, tidal waving me to this position.
Another way.
Kaz and I stopped hunting for one after we deduced this plan. We never really talked about it, but I figured he’d come to the same conclusion as me. Since it took us so long to get to this solution, why put more effort into contemplating another?
But now, gazing up and down the form of this woman and nearly seeing the threads of energy that already connect us, I tie myself to a new decision. This time, not by mere threads.
“By the bond of my blood,” I whisper, proving it by yanking the blade out of my knee and swiping it across my palm. “I will find another way to be released from this scourge. Because of you, Quinn Lemarr. And for you.”
If it takes me another eighty years, so be it.
Because for the first time in over a hundred and fifty of them, I’ve found an awesome reason to be alive.
