That’s right. You. Are. Fucked.
I startled at the thought. It didn’t sound like my “voice”—the way I heard my own thoughts in my head. Though I’d just said the same thing to Mom and Owen, this was not me. Was it?
Who the hell else would it be?
Again, the voice sounded different, strange. But it was definitely in my head. It could only be my thoughts.
Of course it is. This is the real you. The one you’ve finally been letting out recently. The one who knows the truth and isn’t afraid to say it.
I didn’t understand myself. What the hell did that mean?
Think about it, Alexis. Who are you really? Some miserable wench who can’t get over herself? Too afraid to do anything? Come on, you know what you really want to do. Why hold back?
Again, I didn’t understand. Because I really didn’t know what to do.
Yes, you do. You know you can put an end to all of this. No more suffering. No more choices. No more council or Amadis at all, for that matter. And you won’t have to deal with any of it. You’ll be gone.
What?! I covered my ears with my hands, as if they could shut out the internal voice. The thoughts sounded too much like suicide. I had never been suicidal. I couldn’t do that to Dorian, to my mother, to the Amadis…to Tristan. Even if it were just a thin thread, I really did have hope.
Oh, give it up. There’s no hope. No hope for anything. Like we just agreed, you are fucked. All of you.
I would never kill myself!
Then don’t. You have other options, you know. You do have other family…remember?
I nearly screamed. Holy shit! What the hell was happening to me? This was a bigger mind game than Swirly had ever played.
Hell. That’s what’s happening to you. It could be your home. We hold your desires right here. You can have it all with us. With them…nothing. With us, everything. Your soul-mate. Your son. You don’t have to worry about having a daughter with us. We’ll love you and worship you anyway. You can be our queen. Your king is already here, waiting….
“Stop it!” I gasped aloud.
You know this is what you want.
“No!” I said, louder this time.
But the voice wouldn’t shut up. It kept taunting. The evil blood—that of my sperm donor, Lucas, the Daemoni’s most powerful warrior—coursed like an icy stream through my veins. I could feel it trying to take over. I curled into a ball, my hands still over my ears, my eyes squeezed shut, my body shaking uncontrollably.
“No. No, no, no!”
Yes.
“This is not what I want!” An electric charge filled the air. The hairs on my arms stood on end and I heard a crackling sound around me. Again, the pendant heated against my skin.
You know it is! Let go, Alexis. Let it all go. Find comfort with us.
“No! Please, God, help me!”
The voice fell silent.
I trembled so hard, the bed shook under me. My pulse thudded in my ears, but at least I heard nothing else. I opened my eyes and remained in a ball, staring at nothing and praying for the voice to stay away. The energy in the room settled, as did the pounding in my chest. My blood finally warmed and the shivering stopped.
But fear still wrapped itself around me. Nothing like this had ever happened before. I was half Daemoni, but not evil. Rina assessed me every time she saw me and said the evil was repressed, virtually non-existent. So what the hell just happened?
Was the state of my mind bringing out the worst of me? That was certainly possible, I supposed. I suddenly remembered the lights in Dorian’s window—the two little fires. Had those been my own eyes? I shuddered again.
This afternoon and evening with Dorian had been good. Too good. Almost as if I’d swung into a maniacal state from the chaos earlier in the day. And now I had to pay for it. The conversation with Mom and Owen…the realization of just how bad everything was…an Evil Alexis trying to push her way out…. I would really lose it at this rate, if I hadn’t already. I just hoped the good side would win, that Mom would lock me up before I did anything… bad.
I couldn’t move. I felt drained of all energy. I lay there, with the light still on, and squeezed my eyes shut. I needed to see the beautiful face. I just wanted to go back to the way things were, when I could count on the same dream, seeing him every night. I had my miserable moments then, but I was mostly just foggy and I missed the fog. If I never found Real Alexis again, I preferred Foggy, who was a hundred times better than all these other alter egos.
The memory-dream tried to replay but even my subconscious mind couldn’t focus—couldn’t make his face clear. I woke up at 3:39 sobbing and my body burning. It didn’t ache with soreness from the running. It actually burned as the muscles repaired themselves from the strain I’d put them through. When I finally fell back to sleep, the memory-dream didn’t start again. The slideshow on the mountain played instead…and every time Tristan’s face started to surface, Owen’s pushed it away. And the images of Owen weren’t really memories. They looked more like…possibilities. No, no, no! I’m not only forgetting… Oh, hell no! He can’t be replaced!
Awake at 5:28. I lay in bed, though, the aberration of last night still frightening me. The state of my mind seemed to be deteriorating and the council’s demands had apparently been too much for my fragile psyche. I felt even closer to the edge of that abyss—my toes curling over its lip, my body leaning forward for the fall. Only Dorian and that wispy thread, frayed and in danger of snapping, kept me from the plunge. That tiny bit of hope.
Please, baby, I need you. I need you, not anyone else. What if they…? I couldn’t bear to complete the thought…but then I couldn’t help it. Would they force me to mate with someone else? Could I do that? Could I ever be able to tuck this part of me away and force myself? I didn’t think so. Not without undeniable proof that Tristan was…gone, really gone. But what if proof never came? Time alone seemed to be enough proof for the Amadis. When Rina joined our souls, though, during our wedding ceremony, she said nothing and no one could ever sever our union. Not distance, space or…time.
The more I thought about everything, the less any of it made sense. Rina said we were made for each other. The Angels had specifically created our souls to unite with each other. How could there ever be anyone else? Such an idea went against everything the Amadis had been banking on since I was born. Were they wrong? Were our souls not really one?
Physical pain shot through my chest, taking my breath away.
The pain answered my questions. Of course we were meant for each other. Of course our souls were united. There could never be anyone else. So…what on earth went wrong? Why was I here, alone with no daughter and a son who supposedly shouldn’t exist? Why did I feel like I was losing our connection, my love’s memory? Why was all of this happening?
Nothing made sense and I would drive myself even more insane trying to figure it all out, so I stopped trying. At least for now. I literally rolled out of bed, nearly falling to the floor. I glanced at the bag containing my new running clothes and shoes, untouched since I bought them. They held no interest for me now. What a waste of money. I knew that urge to run was a fluke. Yesterday’s strange burst of energy had dissipated, but my mind felt wide awake.
So I trudged into my office, turned my laptop on and plopped into my chair to wait for it to boot up. As soon as it did, my email opened. I didn’t want to even look at my inbox. No one emailed me but my agent and my editor at the publishing company and right now, their emails would only be complaints or demands for new chapters. Chapters I still didn’t have. I moved the mouse to click the X and close the email program, when something caught my eye. A new message from Rina.
Very strange. I couldn’t remember ever receiving an email from Rina. She wasn’t exactly the technological type. I knew she used email out of necessity with Mom, but only rarely. So this must be important. I double-clicked the message.
“Alexis, I understand it is difficult for you to try to move on and I truly wish your situation was different. I
