Due to my absence in the middle of a semester, I had to repeat those classes, but after my stint in the Court of Darkness, I had no desire to return to school. Like, ever. I had more important things on my agenda, which were best kept to myself… for now. The last thing I wanted was to give my dad more gray hair. The man looked as if he’d aged ten years, but who could blame him. He had lost his only daughter for months.
“I know. I’m just not ready to go back,” I admitted, my shoulders slumping.
“Maybe it's best she takes the year off, Devin.” Chloe stepped in, being the supporting stepmom she always was. She patted Dad’s hand, offering him an encouraging smile. “She’s been through a traumatic ordeal. A few more months at home would do her good. Do us all good.” She turned that smile on me. “We love having you at home.”
“You are always welcome here, Lexi, but it might be healthy to get back into a routine.” Dad voiced his thoughts. “However, if you think you need more time, I support your decision.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I let them both think that there was hope I’d eventually go back. There wasn’t. I had no intention of ever returning to college. I’d make it up to him somehow.
That was the end of the discussion about school, and the conversation moved to lighter topics, like work, the impending snowy weather, and what was on TV. I did my best to listen and nod when appropriate, but it was too easy for my mind to wander. My eyes shifted to my glass of water. The clear liquid inside rippled like someone had bumped the table. I stared at the ripples, watching them settle, but within the water, I saw a sparkle, a single star twinkling. That silver light brightened, and behind the glowing star was a face.
My breath caught.
I’d recognize those features anywhere, even distorted by water. Ashor, my heart sobbed. His violet eyes pierced into my soul, and my fork slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the table.
I jolted at the sound and blinked.
That was all it took; one split second and he was gone.
I ran my fingers over the glass, drops of condensation gathering on my skin. Had I really seen his face? Or was my mind conjuring images of him?
“Lexi?” Chloe’s soft voice pierced through the haze of my bewilderment. Her gentle hand touched my cold and clammy one, giving it a squeeze. “Are you okay, honey? You look a little pale.”
My eyes shifted away from the glass, and it took a few seconds to focus on Chloe’s pretty, motherly face. Concern and something else shone in her green eyes. Fear? Not of me, but for me?
“Perhaps you should go lie down,” she suggested. “I can bring you up a cup of hot tea in a little bit. Your skin is so cold.”
I nodded, scooting the chair away from the table and standing up. My head spun. I was grateful for the excuse. I needed to be alone, to understand what just happened. If it had been real or if I was hallucinating now. “Thanks for dinner,” I said, carrying my plate to the sink before I headed back up to my room. Another dinner ruined by my dejected mood.
2
“Ashor?” I called out in my mind.
I didn’t expect him to respond, seeing as he hadn’t the million other times I tried. I had given up trying to summon him in my head, but after seeing his face, I didn’t want to believe it was a coincidence. It just couldn’t be. I didn’t put stock into happenstance, not anymore. Fate had paired me with this demon, had intersected our paths; I had to believe fate would also bring us back together.
Somehow.
Perhaps all of that hopeless romantic stuff wasn’t completely gone from my heart. It only took a droplet of water to nourish a seed.
“Ashor.” I tried again, sending my call to that link within me, the one that connected my soul to his. I had no real reason to believe that he would be able to hear me, just a hunch. Angel and Chase didn’t possess telepathy, but on some level, they each still always knew when the other was in trouble.
Shouldn’t it be the same for us?
Chase and Angel were the only couple I knew who’d completed the Triplici—a bond of heart, soul, and body. Angel being my best friend, I was privy to inside information, sometimes too much. She was married to my cousin, after all, who was more like a brother to me. Some things I just didn’t want to know. But however intense their bond was, it could also be scary. They felt each other’s pain. If one got hurt, the other felt it. Their emotions were linked up. Chase always knew when Angel was sad or pissed off at him. It was a two-way street. Their hearts beat as one, in perfect unison. One couldn’t live without the other.
“Answer me, you prick!”
Silence. Never-ending silence.
It reminded me of the endless darkness of Brimstone, the sector of Hell in which Ashor primarily lived when his queen bitch of a mother didn’t summon him to her fortress.
With a heavy sigh, I slipped my feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers, grabbed my heated blanket, and climbed out the window. Some people might be leery of hanging out on the roof or frightened of heights. I was neither. It helped that I wasn’t as fragile as most humans and our roof wasn’t pitched to a point, but flat over certain levels before inclining downward. It was on one of the flat surfaces close to the window that I sat down, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders like a fluffy heated cocoon.
Cool, brisk wind kissed my cheeks, settling the turmoil within my stomach. The night was a perfect rendition of the Court of Darkness: black skies, the moon shielded behind a cluster of thick, dark clouds, and just a sprinkle of stars. If I concentrated hard enough, I was transported back there, to my room in the princeling’s home, gazing up through the glass ceiling above the bed.
It was ironic. I spent the entire three months I’d been in the underworld plotting my escape, and now that I was home, I thought of nothing else but the demon who had stolen me from my home.
I told myself over and over again that I didn’t care for the demon, but it was all lies. I might not know the depths of my feelings, but I also never got the chance to find out if I could fall in love with him.
He had been ripped away from me.
Mate or not, I wanted to know—needed to know. The not knowing was driving me insane, making me irrational and miserable. I wasn’t myself.
The longer we were separated, the less I felt like me. I was losing pieces of my humanity, of what made me, me.
I stayed up on the roof, bathed under the night sky, until I drifted off into sleep, thoughts of the violet-eyed demon on my mind.
It wasn’t the first night that I dreamed of Ashor, but it was the first time the dream blurred the lines of reality. If you could call what happened dreaming, because it felt like so much more.
My head hung forward, dark strands of hair curtaining my face. Both my wrists were shackled to the wall, keeping me upright. I was shirtless, and my eyes grazed over the ripple of abs on my lower abdomen, where a V of dark hair disappeared.
I blinked, a groan of pain escaping dry lips.
Not my lips. Not my chest, not with the black ink tattooed into my skin that appeared to swirl and dance like living art.
Ashor’s.
This was like no dream I’d ever had before. I was seeing everything through his eyes instead of gazing down at him like a movie. The aches and pains were real too. My wrists stung from the twisting and rubbing against metal that burned. Not my wrists. Ashor’s. It was hard to differentiate between him and me.