Page 21

REMY

The devil roars.

I fight his fire and the throb in my skull.

My throat rips.

My vision splinters into shards.

“Come back to me, Remy.”

That voice.

“I have what you want.”

I know that voice.

That whisper.

I feel it in my veins.

“She’s mine,” he snarls. “She already took my venom.”

He has to die.

I curl my fingers, calling out the shadows that twist in my head.

Before I can strike, the scent of blood pierces my throat.

Passion fruit punch.

I choke.

Where — ?

I inhale, follow the scent.

It leads to a rope of shadows. Leashed around my own wrist?

The tail of the rope connects to a pocket of darkness I forgot I was controlling.

Abandoning the devil, I wink into the shadows.

She waits for me.

Her energy seeks mine.

The touch of her soul is soft.

Familiar?

I feel my eyebrows pinch.

She seems to already be mine?

If so? Then why do her thighs reek of sulfur?

She licks the blood on her lip, spreading it like gloss.

I make a strangled noise as my throat tears. I can’t lunge for the kill.

Lifting her hands and taking small steps, she moves toward me.

Her unfocused eyes can’t find me in the dark. I try to pull my silks out of her reach, but my soul ignores my will.

My soul rushes when she calls.

Her coolness blows through the fog.

I sigh.

My Guide.

The fresh red on her lips mixes with the more complex aroma of dried blood clinging to her older wounds.

What a waste.

The blood-streaked beauty stops in front of my toes. Her pale, blue soul-silks stroke me familiarly—as if she’s petting her own lapdog.

“There you are.” She finds my face and takes hold of my jaw. “Did you remember my name?”

“Guide.”

She’s my Guide.

I’m certain.

Otherwise?

She’d already be drained.

A frustrated rasp feathers her breath against my throat. “Do you have any other words? Or just the one?”

“Mine.” I tilt my head and inhale her fingers.

She squints. “Can you say bowl?”

“Bowl.”

“Good, Remy. Now say cut.”

“Cut.” I don’t know why I’m mindlessly repeating, but it seems the thing to do as my shadows preen, begging for her care.

The Guide strokes my cheekbones. “Can you say both words together? Bowl cut.”

“Bowl…cut?”

“Yes. Exactly.” She pets my hair, digging her fingers into my scalp.

I inhale her bouquet.

Delicious.

She tries to peer into eyes that don’t exist in my shadow form.

“I don’t understand,” she mutters, “How do you regress so far so fast?”

“ Guide .” I swallow against the scrape in my throat.

“Sentinel.” She shakes her head. “Let’s get that memory back. I want to see your face when you realize who made this mess we’re in.”

She lifts to meet my lips.

The bloody kiss jolts my sluggish body.

I grab her shoulders.

Suck the wound.

Fucking divine.

My Guide gasps.

Her silks weave inside me, making needle pricks, then smoothing over the pain.

Burst by burst she picks me apart and washes away the agony.

I should care about the duties and obligations that crackle in fragments at the edge of my consciousness, waiting to be pieced together and taken up one last time.

And yet?

This taste.

This soul.

This woman .

Azrids don’t imprint.

It’s not possible for a Guide to be our match in both spirit and the flavor of their blood.

But Iris .

Now that she exists, why would I care for anything else?

“Iris.” I sigh the name that just returned. “You don’t understand what you are.”

“Remy? If you can talk, then?—”

“No.” I caress her throat. “I’ll show you.”

“It can wait. There’s a monster?—”

“ Guide .” I lick my pulsing fangs. “Let me show you.”