Page 44

IRIS

In a trance, Remy drives into me. His obscene pace slaps against my skin.

I cling to anything I can as my toes curl—Vhex, the sheets, my last thread of sanity.

I bounce between their overwhelming souls and my blissed-out body. Too much of either is dangerous for my heart.

“Ruined,” Remy murmurs against my throat.

“You are?” Or am I?

I can’t tell if his cock is twitching or his shadows are fucking me in waves, but the rolling motion rocks me to my toes.

“Everything,” he whispers. “ Ruined .”

The empty ache in his voice doesn’t match the determination in his hips. Vampire-fast, he fucks another quaking orgasm out of me.

“Re—my~ ah! ”

Vhex drags my moan to his mouth.

“So fucking pretty when you come,” he rasps. Flames of adoration dance around his cotton candy soul.

“Come for me , Firefly.” His slick, hard fin flutters at my clit. “Only for me. You like it right here.” The ridge flicks low and to the right. The sensitive spot melts me into a mist. My spine arches. My legs rattle.

Vhex’s smoky chuckle seeps through my gasp. “See? I know what you need.”

I kiss him to shut his mouth.

My body quivers between them. Even my tongue is weak.

Vhex nips my lower lip, and a hot bead of venom burns so good .

Remy moans at my throat.

Sparks crackle through my blood. Together, we spin toward the point of no return.

“Firefly.” Vhex shakes like electricity is wired through his spine.

Remy thrusts one last time.

Shadows vibrate along his shaft, milking his release and turning me to stardust.

Arms and hands and silks coil me tight.

We come together, spasming and shaking.

I latch their silks, showing them how badly I want to make them mine.

I just want them to stay.

Someone. Anyone. Please stay with me.

They are mine.

I just can’t say it out loud.

Remy collapses first.

His weight melts me into Vhex, who comes so hard he falls back spent. Even passed out, he grips my throat, and his fin pulses, dragging out aftershocks that shake my thighs.

My lower abdomen feels full and swollen.

“Remy. I can’t breathe.” I wiggle, trying to nudge him off. Wedged on both their cocks, the motion is too much.

I come again, in a hot, fast spasm.

Stars in fucking heaven.

It’s so much.

“You must breathe. For me,” Remy whispers as his shadows comb my hair. He kisses my neck and gently pulls out. Shadows help the motion, pressing down the spring-loaded buttons that would leave me pinned on Vhex’s cock until he wakes.

I fall onto the sheets, muscles trembling.

An instant flood heats between my thighs.

Remy pulls me to face him. His grip finds my waist. He caresses my skin at the same pace his shadows feather between my thighs, licking away the wetness.

I was fucked hard enough that I deserve to be spacey for days, but my senses are surprisingly clear.

I feel the smooth sheets rubbing my bare skin.

I taste the sweet smoke leftover from Vhex’s kiss.

Most vividly, I sense the flows of my Sentinels’ souls.

Vhex may be out like a porn-star after a shoot, but his power runs as smoothly as rocket fuel.

The rat’s nest in Remy’s head is much less tangled—more like a rat’s office now. His thoughts feel fully human, but also weirdly blurred.

With superhuman effort, I remember how to speak. “Did the venom hurt you?”

Remy strokes down to my knee and hitches my leg over his thigh. He pulls me flush to his pale chest and wraps me in his arms.

His silks feel… softer?

They drape me all over, plucking at my soul, ticklish and clingy.

I’m not ready to snuggle.

Before I can push him away, Remy giggles.

Not laughs. Not chuckles. He full-on vampire giggles as he sniffs my hair.

What the hell?

I tilt his chin. His ears hold a slight point, flashing a strip of metal from the hidden helix stud on his right. But his black veins are gone, and his eyes shine the clear crimson of his human form.

If anything, the red is a touch lighter than normal.

Almost a little...

Pink?

“Remy. Are you okay?”

“No.” He grins with both fangs. “I’m delightfully unstable.”

“Let me see.” I push our foreheads together and cup his jaw while I read his energy.

His soul-silks flow so much more naturally than before. There’s still deep damage to be fixed, especially near his brain, but the tips and lengths of threads I’ve loosened can swim freely through his meridians.

Remy’s shadows hang thicker, too.

They’re so rich with darkness, they’re almost prismatic, flashing hints of purple and blue. His whole aura shimmers like raven wings.

All green lights.

But Remy’s thought patterns?

They’re running loopy as fuck .

“You’re venom-drunk?” I ask carefully.

“Blood-drunk,” he hmms against my scalp.

I shiver. “Same thing.”

“Not when it’s your blood.”

Great . How long does it take to sober up a vampire?

Do I feed him coffee?

Maybe let him drink a hamster?

While I ponder what to do with him, Remy’s muscles spasm.

His loopy thoughts crater, turning dark and twisty.

Frowning, I move my hand over his heart. “What are you thinking?”

Remy’s out of giggles.

He laughs a heavy, bitter chuckle. “Memories.”

“If you’re remembering, you’re healing. You can be the old Remington Azrid and help us fight the next battle.”

Remy covers my hand. His light touch flattens my palm against his chest.

Our gazes lock.

His heartbeat slows.

His eyes burn deep, deep, dark, but his tangled emotions settle as he stares into my soul.

My stomach flutters.

I swallow. “What? You really wanted to abandon your post?”

“I remembered something.”

“Something that can help us fight the monster?” Or did he dredge up another fun update on my menstrual cycle?

“If you keep healing me, I fear I’ll remember everything.”

“Would that be so bad?”

“ Iris .” His ragged whisper pebbles my skin. “That man will kill me.”

I stroke his jaw, trying to give comfort. Mostly, I’m confused. “Are we still talking about you?”

“Yes. The general. The soldier. He died so many times, I thought only the monster remained in this shell. When the darkness fades, I hear his voice.”

It’s normal for Sentinels to show different sides, depending on their level of spiritual corruption. I’ve never heard of one who considers his sides to be totally separate people.

But who am I to judge?

No other Sentinel would’ve survived Remy’s level of damage, let alone survived it multiple times through multiple lives.

My memory isn’t close to photographic, but I had a lot of time to read history books in the years I was ignored. The name Remington Azrid appears so many places, in so many eras, I kind of thought it was inherited.

Azrid is as cagey as the other ducal houses. They never share details about their bloodline powers with outsiders.

I’m not sure if Remy considers me an outsider now.

“How many times have you died and revived?” I ask as I caress his soul.

“Hundreds,” Remy answers dreamily. “My first death came at my father’s hands. Then in battles. At war. By my allies’ swords. By fire and claws. By?—”

“That’s enough. I— I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.” I guide his soul back on track, using my glow to burn off the toxic memories that weight his silks in tar.

No wonder he’s fracturing.

I’m a different woman after a bad breakup and a new job.

There’s no way I’d feel like the same Iris if I lived and died a hundred violent lives. “Whether you’re Remy or Remington or Sword Major Azrid, I’m still your Guide. If you don’t know which voice to listen to, listen to mine. I won’t let you hurt yourself.”

“What if the old Remington never returns?” He breathes shallowly. His thoughts jitter. “What if he can’t be allowed to return?”

“Honestly? I never met the guy.” I stroke his cheekbone with my thumb. “I’m tired of titles, anyway. Just be Remy and not a duke.”

Anyone else could take over the Farguard.

It’s most important that he be whole.

His sigh brushes my eyelashes. “But Remy is out of control.”

“Not anymore.” I press his slightly cool chest. “Not when I’m here.”

“Then you’ll have to stay with me.”

My stomach swoops.

I’m so weak to this kind of need—the kind that feels permanent and requires a whole lot of trust and responsibility.

The kind that screams long-term commitment.

“I wasn’t planning on leaving.” It’s never me who leaves.

“I must have fallen into a dream,” Remy whispers and caresses my throat. “I shouldn’t be allowed to touch you.”

“Says who?”

“The old Remington. He learned at my father’s knee.” Shadows darken his eyes. “We’re taught that all monsters are to be put down. Including ourselves.”

The Azrids are all monsters.

That’s why they survived.

That’s why we survived—every pure human left owes the Sentinels that debt. “It’s time to update the Azrid family values. No one has thought that way since the first spawn.”

“My father was born in that era.”

“Remy.” I suck in a coppery breath. “Who’s your father?”

“Azrid Supreme,” Remy says the title matter-of-factly, like he’s reading off his grocery list.

The Azrid Supreme.

The first Sentinel. The first vampire. The legendary imperial general, who almost single-handedly held back the first monster hordes as a human, then offered himself as a test subject in the risky experiment to empower our species with magic before we went extinct.

In my mind, I’m already tearing down his statues.

There’s no innocent reason to kill your son. “Don’t remember him either. Only happy, stable memories.”

“I have none.”

Right . “Me neither. If we survive whatever escapes that seal, we’ll try making new ones.”

His mood darkens. In a blink, Remy flips me onto my back and pins me to the mattress.

His gaze is… not entirely sane .

Black rings grow around the reds of his eyes, totally at odds with his drunk and lazy smile.

When I swallow, Remy watches the bob of my throat, licking his lips. “Why take up this fight?”

“Someone has to.”

“Why you?”

Because you abandoned ship? “Who else can?”

“Anyone. No one. Let them save themselves.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

Why, why, why? “Because I’ll hate myself if I can stop people from suffering, but I run away instead.”

Remy chuckles, low and rich, but his eyes aren’t laughing. “Is that really the reason?”

I tense under the stroke of his silks.

Kevan never used our soul bond to read my emotions—or if he did, he didn’t care to do anything about them. I’m so used to guiding Sentinels who don’t give a fuck about me that it’s easy to forget the connection cuts both ways.

Remy can tell that I’m bullshitting.

My motives have never been that pure.

Not that I don’t love guiding Sentinels, defending Faervaine, and all that noble nonsense. But everything I do, I do at least a little bit just to prove that I can.

Because, if I don’t…

I remember my father’s revolving carousel of mistresses. They came and went, but ever since my mother became his wife and baroness, she’s never lost her position at the top of his petty heart.

She raised me to fight for favor, then dropped me on Kevan.

I don’t know if I ever really loved him.

I wanted to.

I needed any one thing in my life to feel stable. To feel real. For a long time, he was all I had.

I’m working on being better—not throwing myself into people and causes that’ll only take from me and never give me anything back.

But just this once…

I want to believe the Farguard is different.

Maybe Vhex and Remy can show me something new.

It’s not a thought I can speak, not yet.

I avoid Remy’s too-deep gaze. “I broke the seal. That’s enough of a reason to take responsibility.”

“If you say so.” Remy’s shadows tilt my head back to face his simmering gaze. He lowers himself, pushing me deeper into the mattress. Between the shadows, his silks, and the overwhelming power of his bare, muscled weight, I’m totally cocooned.

It’s possessive.

Protective .

I freeze everywhere except for my fast-beating heart. I know what to say to a Remy who’s empty and losing his mind, but I have no idea what he needs from me now. “If you don’t want to fight beside me, then?—”

Remy’s kiss crushes my mouth.

He drives my head back against the sheets with the plunge of his tongue.

So aggressive.

His deep exploration switches targets when he tastes Vhex’s puncture in my lower lip. With an intoxicated moan, Remy sucks the hole.

I can’t breathe.

I can’t think .

His saliva tingles, and whether it’s leftover venom, or pure vampire skill, the way he draws out my blood feels like he’s stealing pieces of my soul.

Remy works my lip until it’s healed. Then he sucks it between his teeth, biting down one more time before he soothes the spot with the softest kiss.

I sizzle from his electricity.

He fried me this time.

“If you fight, I fight,” Remy hums against my mouth. “Will you fix me when I break?”

“Always.”

“Then look into my eyes.”

Breathless, I can’t help but obey.

Remy’s pupils squeeze out the red of his irises until all I can see is endless night. Deep inside the mirror blackness, dizzying shapes swirl.

“Come and take what you need from me.”

His voice fades.

I go limp and disappear.