Page 29

I ’m standing in a cozy bedroom, morning sunlight streaming across a bed with blue cushions on it. An armchair sits in the corner of the room with a small wooden table beside it while pale blue curtains waft softly at the open window.

It’s peaceful. So quiet. A breeze rustles through leaves in the distance, telling me there must be trees outside. A bird calls a cheerful sound.

My moment of disorientation vanishes as I brush my hands down the loose jeans I’m wearing and plant my hands on my hips.

I’m not sure why I was off balance for a moment there.

I came up here to collect my sweater, but the bed wasn’t made, so I straightened it, and now I’m ready to head downstairs again.

Mentally shaking off the remnants of my confusion, I scoop up my sweater from the end of the bed and turn back to the door.

“There you are.” Striker’s voice is a low rumble as he appears in the doorway with a smile on his face. “We thought we lost you.”

He angles inside the room and then straightens to reveal the little girl propped on his hip. She has the biggest brown eyes I’ve ever seen, the softest-looking brown hair, and the sweetest smile. My heart jumps to see her.

She holds out her arms to me, her little voice wrapping around my heart. “Mommy!”

“My darlings.” I hurry toward them both, twining my arms around them, the sweater tangling between us. “I wasn’t lost. Well, maybe my sweater was lost. But I found it.”

I tip my head back so that Striker can brush a kiss on my forehead.

“We found you,” he murmurs.

“You always will.” I sigh against his shoulder, letting my head rest there for a moment before I extricate myself far enough to reach over and smother my daughter’s cheeks in kisses.

Oh, she smells like flowers, her cheeks warmed from the sun, her soft giggles pulling laughter to my chest.

“Ready for our walk?” Striker asks me, even though he seems perfectly content to stay right where he is.

Before I can reply, a new voice sounds behind him. “You know, if you wanted a little alone time, I’ve got plenty of freshly mashed banana just waiting for a certain ravenous child.”

Striker edges to the side to reveal a smiling woman with long, straight caramel-brown hair and warm, brown eyes who leans against the doorframe. She’s wearing miniature roses in chains through her hair and a baggy T-shirt and jeans that are decorated with living vines.

“Lucinda,” I greet her with my own smile, but I’m too happy staying right where I am to hug her. She knows I love her.

She arches her eyebrows at Striker and me. “Baby girl can eat in the garden if she likes. There are plenty of doting aunties and uncles to watch over her.”

A glance at Striker’s open expression tells me the choice is mine.

“Okay, then,” I say, planting another three kisses on my daughter’s cheeks. “But we won’t be long.”

Lucinda seems to hold her tongue, taking our daughter and sliding her onto her hip. “Come on then, mashed banana for you, yes?”

“Nana!” my little girl exclaims before reaching for the flowers in Lucinda’s hair.

Within moments, they’ve disappeared down the corridor.

I’ve remained in Striker’s arms, but I find my forehead creasing. “What is her name?” I glance up at him, suddenly fighting an unsettling sense of fear. “Our daughter. What is her name?”

Concern immediately floods his features, and his arms tighten around me. “Hey,” he says softly, “It’s okay. The memory lapses happen every time you flicker. It’s better for your mind if you allow your core memories to come back on their own. You’ll create stronger memory pathways that way.”

I’m stuck on what he said about flickering. “What do you mean, every time I flicker ?”

“It’s why we’re here.” The way he speaks, it feels as if he’s told me this before, but there isn’t a hint of impatience or annoyance in his tone. Only sadness. “Lucinda can help. This place can help. You won’t be Unknown forever.”

I tip my head back to search his eyes, reading his sadness but also his determination.

“But I’m not Unknown,” I say. “I know what I am. I’m a?—”

I’m a…

My brow furrows, and I free my arms from his hold to rub my temples. What am I?

“You’re safe,” Striker says, his entire body calm, not a hint of fear or tension.

“The Magical Magnate can’t get to you in here.

And we have powerful friends now. Hunter, Slade, and the other Master Assassins.

” His smile returns, endearingly wonky. “Not to mention all the monsters here who would die to protect you.” His expression becomes serious. “Including me.”

I chew my lip, trying to process what he’s telling me. “My flickers… Have I ever hurt you? Hurt our daughter?”

“Never.” His voice is intense, his gaze unwavering. “You didn’t flicker once while you were pregnant. Not for the first two years after, either. The flickers have only come back in the last month. So we relocated here.”

I breathe out my tension, rolling my shoulders. “Okay.”

I’m okay.

I’m safe. There is no danger here.

I look up at him, aware of the way I moved out of his arms. “I’ll take that hug again now.”

“Always.” He wraps me up in his arms. “I’m here for you. No matter what.”

My remaining tension disappears as I soak in the warmth of his embrace, all the love and trust I feel in it. All of my worries drain away.

I’m safe.

Pulling away just enough to plant my hands on his shoulders and rise onto my tiptoes, I brush a kiss on his lips. “Time is precious, and I don’t want to waste any of it. Okay?”

“Very okay,” he says, his gaze heating.

Our kiss deepens, his hands stroking me through my shirt, tugging the base of it. I help him remove it, nudging the door closed behind me before I pull him toward the bed.

The blanket smells like him, the scent of cedarwood and balsam filling my chest as I sink into it and soak up the kisses he plants on my cheeks, my chin, my forehead, my neck, delicious kisses trailing down my chest, finding the curve of my breasts before he descends lower.

“Let me love you,” he says, lifting his head, his gaze drinking me in.

As he speaks, there’s an echo in my mind, the faintest sound.

You promised to hate me.

But in the next moment, his lips nudge my bare stomach, descending toward my pelvis, and whatever sound I thought I heard vanishes.

After working his way to the top of my pants, he raises his head again, this time with a question on his lips. “Is this okay?”

“Very okay,” I whisper.

The heat of his mouth against my skin increases as he tugs at the waistband of my pants and then my underpants, pulling them both to my knees before lifting my legs and fitting his head neatly between my thighs.

I nearly chuckle at the way we’re staying mostly clothed because who knows when a little person might need us? One day, we won’t need to snatch quick moments. One day, soon enough, I’m sure.

All practical thoughts leave my mind the moment his warm tongue finds my center and begins stroking me, working the sensitive nub until I’m moaning with need.

He responds to every gasp, stroking me softer, harder, lighter, faster, slower, seeming to read my mind as to what I want until the release is a precipice, and letting go feels like allowing myself to fall, knowing he’ll catch me.

I rock against him as the orgasm grips me, pleasure spiraling through every inch of my body, sating my need and filling me with warmth.

He eases me down from the high, stroking the outsides of my thighs, brushing kisses against my inner thighs, lowering my legs, and following my curves with his hands as he helps pull my pants back into place.

He stretches out beside me, wearing a satisfied smile on his lips, and when I reach for the waistband of his jeans, he catches my hand. “I want to enjoy this with you,” he says. “Right here. Right now. I don’t need more.”

“Later?” I ask, nestling against him, tipping my head back to bask in his smile.

“Later,” he replies, wrapping his upper arm around me and pulling me close.

It’s the easiest thing to fall asleep to the constant beat of his heart and the certainty that everything will be okay.

What feels like a heartbeat later, my eyes fly open.

The sunlight is gone. So is Striker, and the bed beside me is cold.

I shiver against a blanket that is no longer warm as I try to pull myself upright, pushing against a sudden weight within my mind.

What is this? What’s going on?

Pulling myself to the edge of the bed, I fall to the floor, landing on my hands and knees.

The armchair is gone. There are no curtains. Frosty moonlight shimmers across floorboards that are so rough I snag a splinter in my palm. After plucking it out, I finally wobble upright.

“Striker?” My heart hammers in my chest as fear takes hold of me. “Striker!”

Where is he? Where is my daughter?

Rushing to the door, I race along the corridor, barely registering the wide, glass windows all along one side of the hall—or the scorched, barren field that’s visible outside.

The door to Striker’s old room is open, but the space is empty. No bed, no desk. Nothing but moonlight.

“Striker! Daughter!” I race past Striker’s room, nearing the top of the stairs at the end of the corridor, when a figure steps out of the shadows.

With a gasp, I skid to a halt, my bare feet grazing on the rough wooden planks.

The newcomer has long, crimson hair and sharp, red claws. She’s dressed in a full black bodysuit while a golden snake twines around her waist like a belt. A russet-colored snake and a black snake meander through her hair.

Her features are my own.

Is she me?

A very different me?

“They don’t exist,” she says, her voice uncaring. “Striker. Your daughter. Your friends. They don’t exist in your life anymore.”

My heart pounds even harder in my chest. “What have you done to them?”

“Me?” Her eyebrows arch. “You chose your path. You turned away from love. You chose to live a life of vengeance. Never having to feel anything again. I’m simply the product of your choices.”

“No.” I shake my head, my voice becoming a snarl as desperation rises within me. “I would never choose a life without them.”

“Wouldn’t you?” She moves away from the top of the staircase, no longer barring the way. “Go look for them, then. If you chose them, they would be waiting for you. If not…”

She shrugs and says no more.

I race past her, descending the steps as fast as I can. Reaching the next level, I cast my gaze along the empty corridors, the open doors leading into empty rooms. “Striker! Daughter!”

Down to the next level, I race, finding it also empty.

Down and down past level after level after level, I scream for them until I find myself—impossibly—bursting onto the top level again.

My own self leans against the wall there, her whip in her hands.

“No,” I whisper.

“You chose this,” she says.

“No.”

Please no.

I don’t want this.

I want love. I want a family. I want to feel …

I stumble back from her, miss the top step, and then I’m falling.

Falling and falling until I crash against dusty ground, my head hits a rock, and darkness takes over me.