Page 25 of Sweet Nightmares (Wicked Mirrors #2)

Jane honestly did not want to know if that was true.

Moments later, she had to avert her gaze again.

The sounds of slapping flesh and ancient spells drifted through the space between them, and Jane groaned.

It felt a little like torture watching the man she cared about sleep with someone else over and over again, watching this rotten woman toying with him over and over again.

Helene wove the spell while she rode him.

Although Jane couldn’t see it, she heard all of it. From the pounding flesh to the frantic moans.

It was disgusting, but Nightmare seemed to be enjoying himself, and he no longer seemed coerced—if he ever had been to begin with.

Helene’s voice died out, and all that could be heard was wet gurgling. Jane finally looked back at them. At some point they must have changed positions because now, Nightmare was on top, crimson spilling from him.

Jane gasped, holding her hands to her mouth.

Helene had slit open his throat, and blood poured onto her naked breasts. She let out a moan as if she were enjoying Nightmare dying on top of her.

An evil smile painted her face.

When the light left his eyes, she pushed him off of her, and she stood up, her naked body covered in crimson.

Jane wanted to run over to him and help him, do something. But this was only a memory. She couldn’t do anything. He couldn’t be dead, though. He still had to become Nightmare.

Nightmare jolted awake and sat up. The first thing he did was sink his newly formed fangs into Helene’s neck.

Unlike when Nightmare had fed on Jane, Helene did not get aroused. She got angry. When she managed to push him off, she cursed at him, called him an abomination, and banished him from her side and her court.

The memory shifted, and Nightmare was back in his realm at Castle Wryte.

But vampirism looked good on him. He smiled more, laughed more, and his general demeanor was that of contentment and peace.

And he looked healthy. His black hair shone with life.

His muscles rippled beneath his black tunics and suits.

He was thriving, and the people in his town were thriving as well.

He was a lord the people loved, and if it were a little strange that he drank some of their blood from time to time, none of them seemed to care because he was good to them.

A lord with honor, integrity, and joy.

Nothing like the man Jane knew today. Although, to be fair, he was still mostly honorable and indecently honest.

He lived for hundreds of years as the lord people loved, until she arrived once more at his doorstep.

Helene was an envoy to the human lands, and she had heard about the powerful and merciful wizard at Castle Wryte.

Upon learning it was Gavriil she marched into his castle and ripped out his heart with her bare hands.

“I curse you from henceforth to be a man with no heart,” Helene hissed. “You will not know empathy, passion, or love for as long as you have no heart.”

“Why?” he sank to his knees. “What have I done to you to deserve this?”

“It’s not what you have done, but what you’ve become.”

The memory shifted again, and it was another hundred years later.

The memories flickered rapidly from one to the next.

, and Jane gathered that with revenge in his heart and mind, Nightmare had enacted a plan to hurt Helene where it mattered to her most. Nightmare was going to steal her lover from her and turn him into a vampire like himself.

He kidnapped Draven Darcy Hawthorne and his twin sister, distant cousins of his, and turned both of them into vampires, starting the first vampire and witch wars.

Over the wars, many vampires were created, and their power and strength became something that could rival that of the witches, causing the wars to last until all the witches were eventually destroyed.

But during those wars, Nightmare was captured, and fifteen of the most powerful witches in all of the realms, including Helene, used their magic to bind him within a mirror—at the cost of their magic.

Draven and his twin had managed to escape being captured and turned into mirrors, and they continued the war as the leaders of the vampires.

The memories came to rest on Nightmare inside his mirror, looking out at a world that was not New Swansea.

It was something different. Something new.

A land called Transylvania. Nightmare lured a beautiful blonde woman to his mirror and made her his bride.

Together, they established Castle Dracula in Transylvania, creating vampires, making love, and living a life of grandeur.

Jealousy cut through Jane, and she rubbed her chest. Nightmare wasn’t capable of love, but with the blonde woman, he was at least content. Over time, they brought in two more brides, a brunette and a redhead—although Nightmare seemed to have very little interest in ever touching the redhead.

It hurt Jane to see how unimportant she was. She was just like all of his other brides. Used to allow him to leave his gilded prison. Pain ricocheted through her, and she sucked in a strained breath.

The memory shifted, and Nightmare was lying on a couch with his blonde lover, watching a revelry. Suddenly, it all came to a crashing halt. Three tall male figures entered the room: a pair of black-haired twins and a man with golden-brown hair who looked to be related to them.

“Gentlemen, how may I help you today?” Nightmare asked, tone dripping with sickly sweetness.

One of the twins stepped forward. “You were recently visited by Jonathan Harker, an associate of ours.”

“Why yes, we remember him.” A vicious smile crept across Nightmare’s face. “And who are you?”

“We are the Lords Ashbrook. Sent to retrieve the English Ladies.”

“Ah, but they have no interest in being retrieved.

“Because you have ensorcelled them.”

“Have I?” Nightmare disappeared and reappeared behind the second twin, but as he reached out to grab him, his hands slipped right through the man as he had become a ghost. Translucent and uncatchable.

“As you can see, we are monsters much like you,” Lord Ashbrooke said. “Now, release the girls to us or begin a war.”

A war did ensue, and all three of Nightmare’s brides were brutally murdered.

Nightmare held his limp blonde bride in his hands, a stake plunged into her heart.

It didn’t make sense to Jane because all vampires in New Swansea had Blood Paintings, which protected vampires from dying this way. Was that not the case in this other world?

Nightmare growled and met one of the dark-haired twins’ gazes. He held up an amulet almost as if taunting Nightmare, who growled louder. And as he was distracted, the other twin appeared behind him and plunged a dagger into his back where his heart should have been.

Nightmare looked over his shoulder as if not bothered one bit by being stabbed. “I don’t have a heart.”

As the words left his mouth, his form began to disappear, his body being forced back into his mirror. Without an anchor Nightmare was forced to abandon his castle and return to New Swansea and the Looking Glass.

The memory shifted once more to show Helene entering Nightmare’s mirror.

“Being a dark Lady does not look good on you,” Nightmare said, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. “It’s very brave of you to enter into my mirror where you hold no power.”

Helene looked terrible. Her eyes were sunken, her skin pulled far too tight, and shadows rippled under her skin, protruding from her veins. She had been so infuriated about losing most of her magic that she turned to dark and tainted forces to restore her magic. It corrupted her.

“I always hold power.”

“To what do I owe this pleasure, Helene?” His words were poison.

“I want you to make me the most powerful within all of the lands, far more powerful than the Ashelles.”

Nightmare narrowed his eyes. “And what is it that you would give me?”

“My soul.”

A flash of disgust flashed over his features. “I do not want that tainted thing.”

“I can tell you a vision of your future.” She wiggled her nose. “I know you’d love to know.”

“That would not be worth the prize.”

“Fine, then give me the ability to read minds, and I will tell you the prophecy I saw when I first fucked you.”

Nightmare paused for a long moment in thought. “I will grant you this magic, but no more. And you will never return to my realm.”

“A deal is a deal.” Helene held out her hand Begrudgingly, Nightmare took her hand, and indeed, they did shake on it. Then Helene said, “Thousands of years from now, a redheaded Ashelle witch will replace the heart I stole—and she will destroy you.”

The memory was wrenched away as real-life Jane was suddenly thrown off balance and pinned against the wall. In the process, she dropped the memory stone to the ground. Blinking up at a furious Nightmare, his hand around her throat.

“How dare you?” The vein in his forehead bulged, as did the ones in his jaw and neck. Fury dripped from him like spilled ink.

“Nightmare, I—”

“Somehow, I forgot that you were designed to destroy me.” His hand tightened around her throat. But the pressure was forward, not up. He wasn’t strangling her—at least not yet. “I shall not forget again.”

“Nightmare,” she breathed, a tear stroking down her face. “Plea—”

“Never call me that,” he snapped. “What you have done is unforgivable. You have infected my sacred halls, and stolen memories which were not yours to have.”

“Alexei, I am so sorr—”

“Sorry will never be enough, little witch. Get out of my sight,” he seethed. “I am done with you. Leave my rooms and find another. You are no longer my bride. Only my prisoner.”

“What?” The word was raw and full of pain. She felt like she had been stabbed in the heart with a venomous blade.

A strand of her hair fell in front of her face, and as it did, all of the colors leached from it, turning it into the color of liquid silver. One singular strand of silver in her red hair. But it wasn’t out of fear. It was out of belonging.

The mirror was claiming her, just as Nightmare denied her.