Page 34

Kit

I t was dark and I was cold.

Voices swarmed around me.

Some were familiar.

Others, I’d never heard.

“ Come here, Kitasa .”

I tried to isolate that one. I knew that voice. I’d heard it before, but when ?

My throat clogged when she called me again and I knew.

“Mama.”

She emerged from the dark, tall and beautiful and golden, with eyes the blue-green of a tropical sea.

“My little girl.”

“ Mama .” I threw myself at her and her arms came around me. She was warmth, sunshine, safety and love. She smelled of cinnamon and clean air and the oil she used to polish her blade—

No. It’s my blade. Isn’t it ?

Only, I’m dying. Aren’t I?

“Is that what you want?”

“Mama?”

She drew back from me and cupped my face in her hands. “It’s up to you. If you want to pass on, you can. You can be at peace. You can rest.”

“I…”

The darkness at my back intensified and the cold grew until my bones began to ache.

How could I be cold, though? If I was dying…or already dead?

“You aren’t dead.” Trisera Colbanari reached up and brushed my hair back, just as she had a hundred times when I was a little girl. “But you are dying. You have to choose. You can move on and be at peace. Or you can go back.”

“Go back.” I laughed and the sound was a touch hysterical. “I’m not even sure this is really happening.”

“You know it is.” My mother hugged me again. “And you know what you want. My brave, strong daughter. I never wanted your life to be so hard.”

Tears flooded my eyes. “I miss you so much. Every day. Even though I hardly remember you.”

“Love never fades, my strong girl. And you’ve made your choice, haven’t you?”

I clung to her. “There are people…family. And Damon. I love him. He’s…”

“I know of your man, my beloved.” She eased back and reached down.

I gasped when she pulled my blade from the darkness.

“This blade—it’s a bond between us.” She gave me a secretive smile. “Nobody but the blood know of this.”

A sick fear curled through me as I thought of Lemeraties. “Mama, you’re not…” I touched the gleaming surface of the blade.

“It’s just a bond, Kitasa. We’re the whole of our people, Kit, and we pass the bonds down through the generations, beloved. You’re not alone—you’ve never been alone. And when you go back…you won’t be alone then, either.”

My head swam with what she was saying. I couldn’t process it.

The cold was worse. So much worse.

“Go. Your man and the boy…they need you.”

I grabbed onto her. “Mama, wait—”

She pressed a kiss to my brow.

Light exploded.

Dead eyes stared at me.

The face was frozen in a rictus of fear and pain, creating a macabre mask, and those dead, dead eyes looked on my face as if in a plea for help. Blood dripped from a torn stump of a neck and a male's once-beautiful face watched me. I know him…

Azazel. He's dead.

Somebody was crying.

A woman…?

And the ground against me was shaking. Hot, wet splashes fell against my skin. Rain?

No. That wasn’t right.

The sky over head was clear.

I felt skin against mine.

Hot, bare skin.

Damon …

The shuddering was coming from him . And he was crying.

I tried to say his name.

Everything hurt.

“Let me see her!”

The voice echoed.

The crying woman stopped crying.

But Damon, he still rocked me back and forth and shuddered with silent sobs, his tears falling to sting my skin.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

My ears popped and a name came to me. Frankie.

That was Frankie talking.

Damon…

I tried to say his name again and failed.

Darkness swept over me.

Shit, I better not be dying.

My mother had told me I could choose. And I didn’t want to die. Not yet. Not now.