Page 42 of Sweet Nightmares (Wicked Mirrors #2)

Chapter Thirty-One

Nightmare

Eleven Days Later

G avriil Wryte paced his mirror impatiently, waiting for his bargain with Jane to disappear. His eyes tracked to the hourglass, which represented the timeframe of their deal. It was about to run out.

He’d kept his end. He hadn’t stalked her, checked on her, or even sensed her in the last eleven days. A considerable feat because the girl was his obsession.

He didn’t love her. He barely even tolerated her. Gavriil possessed no ability to feel. It had been stripped from him ages ago. But she was his obsession, and one day she would be his end. She was destined to destroy him, and he should have killed her from the moment he met her.

He should have killed her every day since.

But he couldn’t, and he didn’t understand why.

She wasn’t any prettier than any of the other women he’d bedded.

She wasn’t special, or unique, or all that tempting— not like the ancient witch courtesans of old, or even Helene.

Jane was just a normal, mortal girl, albeit it with powerful potential lying beneath the surface.

She was an Ash Witch, after all. However, she was still mortal and had barely received any training.

She was nothing in the grand scheme of immortals.

So, he shouldn’t have been fixated on her, but to him, Jane was all those things and more.

When she was around, no one else existed. She was beautiful, unique, and the most tempting thing he’d ever seen.

And he couldn’t reconcile it.

Because he also hated her and everything about her.

She was his curse.

So, he shouldn’t be impatiently awaiting her return because she meant nothing to him. She would always mean nothing to him.

And the fact that their bond was broken, and he couldn’t even feel her, even when he tried, angered him because she was nothing. Only a plaything that he would eventually discard because he didn’t care.

But since she had been gone, something felt off—wrong.

He was more irritable and unstable, and his mind was beginning to fog, just as it had been for ages prior to meeting her. Jane Whittfield-Wryte was his anchor, but he was starting to realize that not only was she his anchor for travel outside the mirror, but she was also the anchor to his sanity.

But their bond was gone, and even more concerning was his heart. Gavriil placed his hand on his chest, feeling it beat beneath his fingertips. It had started beating again on its own, without her touching him, twenty-one hours after she had left his mirror. And then it never stopped.

For the last ten days, his heart beat on its own.

Without her, and he didn’t understand why.

So when the last grain of sand fell through the hourglass, and the time limit ran out, Gavriil immediately searched for her. Using his magic and his mirror to see through the whole city, he could spy on anything in New Swansea.

When he found her locked inside a freezing chamber at the University Square morgue, her lifeless body cut open and dissected, he fell to his knees and roared. His fury caused the earth to shake violently, an earthquake splitting cracks into the roads and buildings of New Swansea.

She was dead . His Jane, his light, was gone, his anchor gone.

Everything was gone, and he vowed he would make them all pay, from the one who killed her to the one who cut open her body and dissected her. He would kill them all, slowly and torturously.

A roar shook all of New Swansea City again, and twelve words left his lips: “I will burn the world down to get you back, little witch!”

The End… for now

The story isn’t over. To find out who actually murdered Jane read Gilded Wicked Mirrors and continue with Nightmare’s revenge in Cruel Ghosts.

Next Books in the Series:

GILDED WICKED MIRRORS (out now)

CRUEL GHOSTS (coming 2026)