Page 67 of Worse Fates

Never should Golden have purple and yellow handprints impressed into his neck. His eyes swollen shut, lips busted. Laying on a bed, God, all of them are him in a bed, face tilted away, defeated. Ashamed.

T Shirt raised up, Golden’s chest a constellation of pain. A brutal story on his flesh of Jace’s warped version of love—or lust, more likely.

My stomach can only take so much and I slam the thing face down on the bed. Cradling Golden, I wish I could reach into the pictures and save him.

“I’ll kill him.” It’s a vow made between clenched teeth and one never to be taken back. Jace will die screaming, and without mercy.

“Do you want me to wake him, Luc?”

I calm myself by sucking in lungfuls of Golden’s sweet cherries, sea breeze and home scent.

“Do it.”

Rurik leans down and puts his lips to Golden’s ear—a flicker of possession whispers through me, but I ignore it. Rurik might’ve bedded Kai, but no one will ever get their hands on Golden again.

“Come back, Golden. Lucero is awake now.” Rurik’s whispering compulsion sneaks into Golden’s ear. Then he stands and leaves the room as my mate begins to stir.

Chapter Twenty-Three - Lucero

Rurik’s compulsion doesn’t leave Golden like a gradual waking as I’d prefer, instead he bolts upright. Frantic and searching me over with clawing fists.

“You’re bleeding!” His shaking hands press against my heart, attempting to staunch an already healed wound.

“No, I’m fine now. See?” I lean back, trying to prove I’m no longer in danger.

But his mind isn’t with me, or rather still on the side of the road and watching me bleed out.

“Oh God…I can’t save you.”

“Golden.” My tone is harder than it’s ever been with him, but it works and his haunted gaze snaps up.

I’ve failed him. With my other soulmates I ensured they lived comfortably, no matter the sacrifices I made. But so far all I’ve done is send Rurik to kill him, scared Golden into running away and now two blood mage attacks in so many days.

I have to do better.

“Look at me, love, I’m okay.” With a sharp tug of my shirt, I tear the material down the middle, laying bare my heart—always. “You see that, baby. All healed. I’m fine. Say that for me.”

Golden hesitates, tears suspended. I collect his thin, shaking palms and rest the tips of his cold fingers to my chest.

With heartbreakingly tender care, the tips of his fingers trace the ghost of a wound that would’ve killed me if I hadn’t already died over six hundred years ago.

He hiccups, then the first of his teetering tears drops.

“Oh God, I thought you died.” Golden’s face crumbles, his shoulders curling inwards as sobs shake him to pieces.

But if I only ever do one thing right, it’ll be holding him together in my arms.

“I’m so sorry.” Golden might deserve the world, but as he breaks down, all I want is to find some quiet corner of the Earth and become nothing but a memory to everyone else, and live for us alone.

He looks up, and I’m surprised by the ferocity in his eyes. “I’m weak. Fucking weak, Lucero. I couldn’t do anything to save you.”

“Stop,” I order, taken aback by my own urgency and not liking the path he’s heading down. “You aren’t weak.”

“You have to turn me into a vampire.”

The impact is a gut punch, leaving me breathless even if I expected it.

“Please,” I beg. “Please can we not talk about this now.” Or ever. “You need—”