Page 29 of All Your Deadly Truths (The Filthy Duet #2)

Xeraphine

M y eyes flutter open, and I’m so thankful I’m back in his bed. It’s been a fight with my brain every time I know my heart is going to stop to try and bring me back here. I’m unsure why, but it’s like something is trying to block me from coming to be with him.

“Kai?” I whisper, pushing through the pain that ruptures through my chest as I prop myself up onto my elbow. Shifting the blankets, I find him not here with me.

Fear rips through me, and I throw the covers off the bed in a frenzy, even moving the pillow, though I know he won’t be under it. My aching heart slows, and I shake as I push myself into a seated position.

Everything hurts, and I just know it’s all because it’s reminding me I’m not to be comfortable. I’m not to be safe. Not to be content.

A sharp cramp grips my stomach and I quickly wrap an arm around myself. It can’t be here, not in my dream. Let that piece of me stay in reality, don’t come here and ruin this.

“Little demon?” My head shoots up at hearing him call for me. He steps through his bedroom door and immediately my nose tingles as heat builds behind my eyes. He looks so fucking good, dressed in that same suit he had on the night of my birthday.

Reaching my hand out to him, I try to shift from the bed, but my body protests, telling me to fuck right off and stay put. Unfortunately, I can’t fight it, and I just drop my head.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” I know I sound so pathetic, but it’s how I feel. Pathetic. Weak.

His footsteps go unnoticed; it’s his large hand wrapping around the side of my neck that makes me refocus to look at him.

“I wasn’t expecting you.” His thumb draws across my jaw. “You can’t be here, baby.”

“Why are you kicking me out?!” Tears stream down my cheeks. “Of all the times to get rid of me, why now?!” My words carry force, but they are laced with the relentless suffering I endure day in and day out.

He releases a breath and leans his forehead to mine. “You have no idea how badly I want you back with me.”

“Then why are you forcing me to leave!?” Guiding my hands over his neck, I grip onto his hair. “You are blocking me from this place… Why?” Now that I want him to keep me, he’s trying to throw me out. “Asshole… Fucking Vampire prick!”

My jaw clenches as his soft hands cup my face. “You can’t stay here.”

“Please don’t kick me out, Kai. I don’t want to fight!”

“Shh…” He draws his hand down my back and pulls me into his chest. “I’m sorry. You don’t deserve this pain, but you can’t stay right now. You have to fight, even if it hurts. Even if it isn’t what you want.”

“Damn you! Damn all of you! I fucking hate you! I hate everyone!”

I can feel that familiar pull away from him and my entire body shakes with my scream.

I’m not sure which is worse—coming back to life, or the fact that when I do, I can breathe.

I glance down at my legs, still buried in the sand to keep me from drifting anywhere near the bars. I release a sigh so forceful it sends bubbles clouding my vision.

“You are a fucking pain in my fin, you know that?”

Silence would be more enjoyable than this.

Since meeting this Siren, she’s been here every time I’ve woken from my death. I typically don’t engage, which gets that same shrill shriek and her removing this mucus creature from my throat, allowing me to die.

I think I’m falling into a depression or something.

A feeling of fatigue is weighing on me, and this strange sensation of emptiness my head and chest are succumbing to is foreign.

Not to mention all I want to do is just die, but that is far beyond me being depressed.

I just want to see Kai; to berate him for pushing me away.

“Do I have to beg? ”

It wouldn’t have the same effect. She can’t get on her knees for me, so I don’t respond.

What did he mean I couldn’t stay right now ? How does he expect me to fight when my hands are fucking bound, chained in a cage at the bottom of the Gods forsaken sea?! I swear I am going to find the strength to punch him in his face next time I fall into that dream.

“My name is Sinnix.” With my chin dropped, I shift just enough to peer over my shoulder at her holding onto the bars.

“Mine is ‘I don’t give a fuck’. Let me die.”

The rapid beating of her fin pushes a current right against my back, sending me face-first into the sand.

She hisses. “What is your fucking problem?!”

Groaning, I pop my hip back into place and jerk my head in her direction. “Mine?! You are the one begging like a bitch. I said no on several occasions. So, fuck off !”

She bares her teeth at me, and I hear them grinding together. The high-pitched, grating screech instantly sends shivers down my spine.

“Go hunt a fisherman. It’s not that fucking hard. Mundanes are stupid!”

“I can’t!” she spits, and rushes around the cage, planting herself in front of me. “You think I’d waste my time with the likes of you if I had any other option!?”

Shrugging, I don’t respond.

“No, I wouldn’t. I’m a runt, Succubus. Do you see how small I am?” She pushes herself back slightly, and I have nothing to compare her to, so how would I know? I’ve never met a Siren before, and she looks to be the same size as Sydni, who is about five-and-a-half feet.

“No,” I answer honestly.

“Look closer,” she demands.

Truly, I don’t want to, but what am I to do? I can’t kill myself. Can’t sit in silent misery. Can’t do shit but entertain this creature in front of me.

So, I look closer.

Her head does appear small, but it could just be her wide shoulders.

Then there is her fin; the tail only has one fluke, instead of two.

Her scales look oily, which I can’t imagine is right.

Then there are her hands that are coming back to grab the bars.

It’s now that I notice one is significantly smaller than the other.

Our eyes meet, and nothing in my cold, dead, heart cares more or less than I had before.

“I gain nothing from helping you,” I say without kindness.

“And even if you promised me something, I wouldn’t believe shit you say.

” I can’t smell anything, and I don’t sense any auras surrounding her.

Plus, I think everything that has happened has mentally fucked me up, because even with Tali and the others, I couldn’t distinguish their truths from their lies.

“You’ll have a long sleep.” She counters my reasoning. “I won’t put the Dreb back in your throat and you can die for a long while.”

It’s tempting, but… still…

I look down at my chest.

“It will come back…” she continues. “Every part of your kind does, and that includes your heart.”

Squeezing my eyes tight, I put my metal-covered hands up over my face and shake my head. “You don’t understand, I can’t…”

“You can’t, or you are unwilling?”

“Both.” My tone is slipping from the strength I know I have, to that weak girl in my dream. The one I want to be because I’m so tired of being strong.

Sinnix’s voice raises. “It will come back!”

“It isn’t mine to give you. What don’t you get?!”

“Selfish—”

“I am!” I scream and begin pulling myself from the sand.

“I couldn’t protect anything else! My body!

My mind! Everything they’ve taken from me!

EVERYTHING !” My tears blend into the water, my muted sobs bubbling out of my lips.

“They don’t want my heart, and it’s the only part I’ve kept from them. It’s the last part of him I have.”

We stare at one another, my body just far enough away from her that she can’t grab onto me through the bars.

“I am not sorry for trying to protect what little I have left of him.”

Sinnix hasn’t allowed me to die again, but I’m sure in no time I’ll starve to death.

“How long have I been down here?” This is the first time I’ve initiated a conversation with her, but I’m curious enough to ask the question.

“A full moon cycle.” She is resting on the seabed; her shoulder pressed against my prison bars. The constant berating for my heart has stopped, and I think she’s just hoping that I’ll give up one of these days.

My desire to see Kai, even in my dream, is beginning to make me think I will inevitably give up, but I’m hoping she’ll die before me, or I will under some sort of duress .

“Twenty-seven days?” I ask, needing clarification.

“Thirty-three moon risings to be exact.”

“Can’t you just fucking say days?”

“We don’t call them that down here,” she hisses. “You understand what I mean by moon risings.”

I do, but I am hoping to irritate her enough she’ll slip and take this Dreb out of my throat. “Thanks. They’ll be coming to get me soon, surprised they haven’t yet. I’ll tell the shark dude you’re around, and maybe he’ll eat you.”

When I look at her, she has her eyes at half-mast, staring at me with disgust. “Why are you like this?”

Shrugging my shoulders, I look up and watch my hair float around above me. “No one showed me kindness when I needed it the most. When I screamed for help, no one cared, and I’ve lost the ability to be what no one was for me.”

Sinnix doesn’t respond, and I just hold my gaze upward.

It’s eerie down here, but I’ll admit it’s better than being buried.

I can confidently say that because I can breathe right now.

I’m sure I wouldn’t feel that way if I were constantly dying of suffocation.

Even if truly, that is all I want so I can be with him.

“I’m sorry.” Her soft murmur catches me by surprise, and I look down to her. “That no one answered your call. Not for what you went through.”

I release a pfft , but before I can quip, she continues, “Because sorry does nothing. It doesn’t express anything other than us not having anything else to say.”

“Poet, as expected,” I say sarcastically.

“Did you get your revenge?” She brushes past my snarky remark.

“Almost.”

“Is that why you are down here?”