Page 34 of All Your Deadly Truths (The Filthy Duet #2)

Xeraphine

K airhyse hasn’t shown back up in bed, and I’ve been laying here for what feels like a lifetime, alone .

He finally figured it out; that I gave my heart to that Siren, and he hates me for it. He probably thinks I’m powerless. Incapable of saving even the most protected part of my body.

I feel the same way.

Weak .

Fighting feels so fucking useless. This cycle is going to be endless.

Do I save what I have left of my sanity and just do as she asks?

I just want to forget everything that has brought me to this point and go braindead.

I’ve never thought of my Amoro as anything beyond an extension of myself—something woven into my being, functioning without conscious thought.

But now, I wonder if that disconnect stems from me being Hybrid.

Tali can wield her Amoro effortlessly, summoning it as though it were a separate creature, ready to do her bidding.

Whatever the connection between my Demon and me is, there isn’t a part of me that doesn’t appreciate it. It has shielded me in every way imaginable, and I couldn’t love it more.

Just like I love Kairhyse.

Just… like I love Sydni, and Mister.

Rolling onto my back, I look up at the dark ceiling.

I’ve never felt so alone, and I hate myself for feeling sick knowing that when I wake, Sinnix won’t be there to berate me for my heart. I won’t have a Dreb to keep me alive in the darkened abyss. I’ll be back to dying, over and over again.

Endless fucking suffering .

Stretching out my arm, my fingers shift slowly, as though reaching for something, and I let the tension drain from my body.

“I miss you, Syd…”

It’s like I can see her bright smile looking down at me and in that high-pitched, caring voice, saying, “Phiny-bear! You missed me ?!” The name rolling off her tongue with ease as though it was given to me at birth.

“Yeah, I miss you.”

A weight presses against my stomach, slowly moving up my chest, and when I look, it’s Mister. “Now you ,” I say through a laugh, dropping my hand to stroke down his back.

Murrrow.

“ You always were hard to find. ” I don’t know why I can hear Mister speak. It’s very aristocratic, and definitely what he would sound like if he could talk…

Maybe I’ve already gone insane.

Tragic.

“I’ve missed you, too.” Scratching above his tail, he claws at the blanket. “Are you with them now?” I ask, not entirely expecting a response, so I’m surprised when I get one.

“ No, but I’m looking for you and them.”

“Pfft, good luck. They’re dead, and so am I. ”

“I very much doubt that.”

“Optimistic… You’ve been around Sydni too long.”

Dropping my head back onto the pillow, I close my eyes. Before I speak, I take a long, healthy breath of air in.

“Belial, if you can hear me…” I haven’t reached for him in nearly six years—not since those train tracks—but now, a desperation I can’t overcome creeps into my still heart.

“Take me away from this place. Bring me to Kairhyse… I don’t know if I truly deserve happiness…

but I want it. I want him more than my revenge.

I’d give you anything.” I pause, feeling the dread of my words rolling over my body.

“Just as long as I can be with him for eternity. Alive, or in the Beyond. I don’t think that is asking for too much. ”

As suspected, silence.

It’s so damn quiet. The deceptive comfort of temporary death.

A laugh bubbles from my lips, catching on my sob. “Fuck you… Because just like everyone else has, you’ve abandoned me.”

My eyes shoot open, greeted first by the darkness of the sea and the bars of my prison—but those aren’t what I fear most. It’s the sudden rush of water choking my throat and the realization that I’m alone. No Dreb. No Sinnix.

They put me down here as punishment, not because they succeeded. Tali said that between their “breaks” this would be my place of rest.

I need to get out, because I know Sinnix won’t be here to help me ever again. I’m on my own, as I’ve always been, and I’m tired of being that weak girl. In death, with Kairhyse, I can be the woman I used to dream about.

The one that didn’t want to spend forever alone.

The one that wanted to fall in love. To be cared for. To be treated like glass .

But not in this world. I am Xeraphine motherfucking Nora, and I will fight until I no longer can.

If not for him, then for myself.

“That’s my little demon.” Gods, how I miss his voice.

I know I have only a minute, maybe a little more, so I work quickly.

The weapon I hadn’t possessed the last time I was down here might now be my only salvation.

My hand, once again trapped in the metal cuff, moves with urgency as I lower my head, the sharp tip of my horn cutting into my wrist, and I curse—a mistake that lets more water flood into my already burning lungs.

But I don’t stop. I refuse to.

I drive the horn beneath the cuff digging into my flesh, and pull. Pain sears through me, the strain tugging at my head. A silent scream rips through my mind, muffled by the water, as the sound of tearing skin echoes in my burning ears.

But I keep pulling.

Adrenaline surges through me, pushing me past the pain. The moment I feel the crack of my bone and hear the creak of bending metal, hope swells in my chest, rising like air I desperately need.

The instant I try to move my head back, I’m unable to, and it’s because my horn’s stuck.

It’s then the tightening of my lungs begins, strangling me as the natural instinct to try and draw air into them hits .

No, no, no . I’m so close.

Ignoring the blistering pain, I jerk quickly back, and feel the point where my horn meets my forehead tear from its place. It’s a raw, agonizing feeling that is immediately worsened by the salt water. It at least draws me away from my throat constricting.

It’s now the sensation around my wrist gives, and the full, round cuff shifts. I press it between my thighs and yank my arm back.

My hand comes free, but I don’t savor the victory. Because, deep down, I know I’m losing. The hypoxia has kicked in, disorientation of which way is up and left or right, hits me hard.

Black creeps across the edges of my vision and I know I’m going to die soon.

I reach out for my blood that is floating around me, but as before when I try, the water dilutes it too much for me to grab onto it fully. Either that, or I’m just that weak right now.

Swallowing water, I look up through the bars of my enclosure like I’m some type of animal. Then, I close my eyes and reach out high, as if grabbing onto the bars will do anything.

I’m bound at my feet, and now my left arm. I can do this three more times, and then I can try and break myself through the bars… just as long as that Shifter doesn’t come for me during my death.

A violent jerk of my body tells me I’m fading.

As I had in my dream, my fingers twirl around, as if stretching to somebody that is here to save me, when there is no one. The dead can’t come for me, and Sinnix wouldn’t even lie to give me hope that she’d return.

The pain of suffocating has ebbed away, my brain only functioning enough to make me aware that I’m spasming. It’s like I can feel my heart slow.

Thump .

I can think between the beats.

Thump .

I won’t stop fighting.

Thump.

A promise to that eighteen-year-old me it all wasn’t for nothing. That my suffering wasn’t for nothing .

Thu—