12. Chapter 12

Itried to slip from the room without talking to Andy, but of course I wasn"t that lucky. I could feel her trailing behind me, sense her in my aura and in my body as the bond between us urged me to turn around and take her in my arms.

The wraith that shared my mind chuckled darkly, urging me to do the same thing.

Disgusting.

"Dyre," her voice was like a healing balm to my soul, but one that stung too, astringent and reminding me of the raw wound it touched. "Fuck"s sake, slow down," she huffed.

I automatically slowed my pace, letting her shorter legs catch up, despite my need to run away. "What?" I demanded. My voice was too flat, too cold and irritated. But I couldn"t help it. It was the only way I could maintain any distance between us. I was a fucking monster, and she didn"t seem to get that.

I had seen her initial reaction when I told her about the locket. I knew she was as horrified and repulsed as I was by the truth of her origins and our connection. And yet, she had quickly started pretending that everything was normal again. How she just took all the bullshit she delt with in stride like that, I would never know. I"d had hundreds of years of practice, and I still struggled with that particular skill.

The only thing that worked for me was to turn it all off and disconnect from the soft, vulnerable, feeling parts of me. And Oleander Lovell was not capable of that. She wore her heart on her sleeve. So, I had to do the distancing for both of us. I couldn"t allow my evil to taint her any further. I was a corpse-like abomination who practiced black magic and, apparently, lusted after his blood relatives. Andy was far too good for me, even before I realized the true depths of my depravity. She was the one bit of light in her entire cursed family line—a line that I had apparently created. No wonder the Lovells were such monsters, if they had me for a progenitor.

We reached the French doors that led to one of the side courtyards and I stopped, but I refused to turn around and look at her. I couldn"t. If I looked into those wounded gray eyes, my resolve would weaken, and I"d do something stupid. We were relatives now. I was the progenitor of her entire fucking family. The sick yearning inside me was just that… a sickness. I was a walking disease, eaten up from the inside by the darkness that lived in me.

You"re being overly dramatic, Sunshine said dryly inside my skull. Mortals are so infuriatingly strange when it comes to mating. Why does any of this matter?

I clenched my teeth so hard that I risked cracking a tooth. It was no good having a one-sided yelling match with a person only I could hear. Especially one who was the very definition of evil and had absolutely no sense of right or wrong.

"I saw the look on your face back there," Andy said, either oblivious to, or flat out ignoring, my discomfort. "You don"t think Bella was the one who sent that letter, do you?"

I sighed and tried to put my emotions away, stuff them down and turn them off the way I always used to before this maddening woman came along. "I think it"s very obvious that it"s her," I bit out. "That she"d be the only one who can get anything past the wards and to you through the distance that spans realms." I could almost hear her protest, so I spoke before she could. "And I think the fact that it"s that obvious is itself extremely suspicious. Is it her? Or is it the SA or some other entity we don"t know about in this whole mess trying to make us think it"s from her because that would be the logical assumption?"

She groaned. "Leave it to you to think in devious loops. But what would be the point of making us think Bella was speaking out against the SA?"

I shrugged. I wanted to pick that puzzle apart, but my mind was a mess. I hadn"t been able to think straight since I saw that damned locket. "I don"t know," I said honestly. "Which is why I said nothing. Maybe they want you to think it"s safe to come back? Maybe they want to lure you into going back to Magea to plead your case with the magic world so they can grab you when you do? I have no idea what the Alliance"s current motives are. I just think you should be wary of taking anything at face value right now."

"Noted," she said, with no hint of her usual snark. She was taking my advice, heeding my warning. It was shocking.

I risked a glance at her, lifting one eyebrow. "Are you feeling okay? Blood sugar issues? Fever? I really expected more arguing about your sister"s shining personality, and the power of Lovell rage, and how I"m a paranoid bastard."

She shook her head at me. "I"m tired," she said flatly. "And at this point, it"s way easier to believe that someone is fucking with me and trying to trick me than to believe that someone, somewhere, might actually try to help for once."

I turned away. "You just wore yourself out with the boogeyman and the water weaver," I found myself saying, appalled at the bitterness in my voice. "You"d think you"d be far less bitter after they finished fucking your brains out."

She gripped my arm and yanked, forcing me to turn back to her if I wanted to keep the limb attached to my body. She might look all short and soft, but Oleander Lovell was strong when she was riled. "Dyre," she growled, her gray eyes narrowed as she glared up at me. "You will not take cheap shots at me then run away, you bastard."

I sighed. "I"m sorry. But don"t you have other people to bother right now? Goddess knows there are enough dicks around this place to keep you busy if you"re bored. Why follow me around?"

There I went again, spouting off bitter nonsense like a jealous bastard. What the hell was wrong with me? Although, judging by the rising color in her cheeks, I might just piss Andy off enough that she"d stop trying to talk to me. Then I could avoid thinking about the whole mess altogether. Silver lining and all.

My chest hurt at the thought.

You"re an idiot, Sunny chimed in helpfully.

Andy"s nails bit into my arm as she gave me a squeeze before she released me. "What the hell is your problem, necromancer?" she demanded, hands going to the curve of her hips. "Seriously. Are you mad about me sleeping with Ambrose? I thought we were all on the same page there. Is it because Hisashi was involved? Did you want this to only be a thing between you, me, and Ambrose? I"m so fucking confused, and I don"t have the energy for any more damned drama right now."

I ground my teeth together. "There is nothing between you and me," I bit out. "Not anymore. So why the fuck would I care who you sleep with?"

She raised her brows at me. "Good question. Why do you care so much, if you supposedly don"t care?"

When I didn"t answer, she huffed at me. "Dyre. No one said there"s nothing between you and me. Sure, we"ve got some weird shit to work through. But we have a connection. I"m not willing to just throw that away."

I stared at her in shock. Hope flared in my chest, but I snuffed it out immediately, shutting out every last shred of warmth as I replied. It was just the stupid lifebond talking, making her say things she didn"t really mean. We needed to get rid of the bond. But I was hesitant to force the matter, for some reason.

No, there were reasons. Legitimate reasons to stay bonded to her that had nothing to do with the stupid ache in my chest. Like how us being tied together gave us a huge magical advantage against all the people in the other realms who were currently out for our blood. "You"ve got to be joking right now," I snapped, more irritated at myself and my stupidity than at her. "Even an evil Lovell wouldn"t fuck a family member."

Twin spots of bright red color burned on her cheekbones, and her gray eyes narrowed further. "You"re really starting to piss me off, dude."

I smiled coldly. "That was my intention. Go find some other willing cock to fall on."

She dropped her hands to her sides, clenching them into fists as she likely used every bit of willpower to keep from hitting me. Good. She should hate me. That was far healthier for her. Far more normal than any other response in this cursed situation.

"You"re just trying to make me mad on purpose," she ground out. "You"re being an obstinate dumbass. I"m not saying I want to fuck you, you asshole. I"m saying we should at least talk about the fact that we"re distantly related and figure out the logistics of our relationship. I"m unsettled by the whole mess too, you know. But I"m not dead-set on immediately shutting you out as if you mean nothing to me."

Her expression softened. "Dyre, I need to poke around some more, but from what I"ve gathered so far, calling us related is a stretch. You"re like, I don"t know eight or ten times removed from me? It"s weird. I"ll give you that, but why are you just so determined to throw away everything we had before we"ve even really looked into the whole thing and gotten more information?"

Her pretty gray eyes asked the real question she left unvoiced: how could I just toss her aside like she meant nothing to me?

I shoved down all my emotions and shook my head at her. "It doesn"t matter. Me getting close to you was a mistake, regardless. This is just proof." I was never meant to have what she wanted us to have. Feeling the warmth of another person, finding someone who wasn"t repulsed by everything I had become… that was a fleeting dream. One that I knew would never last. But a relationship? No. Something so formal and lasting was beyond me. Once we figured out this whole mess with the SA and could return to the real world, I would be leaving anyway. There was no need to cause either of us any more distress.

And besides, it was all just… too much. I got this clawing panic inside me every time I even tried to think about my past and my connections to the witch before me. I hadn"t had this sort of issue since I was a newly minted necromancer a couple hundred years ago, a teenager still reeling from my dark possession.

Pushing that all back to the dark recesses of my mind, I crossed my arms and looked down my nose at the angry green-haired witch before me and forced myself to speak as though I truly had no heart. As if my heart wasn"t standing right there, outside my body, begging me to see her. "Are you done whining at me now? I"ve got more important things to do than argue with you." Things like go find a quiet corner where I could lose what was left of my damned mind.

Andy stomped her foot. Literally stomped her foot. Like we were in some cheesy movie. "I want to talk to Sunshine."

I stared her down, ignoring my stupid reactions to those pretty dove gray eyes, and the way Sunny immediately tried to surge forward and take control. "Why?"

She glared. "I want to talk to Sunshine," she repeated firmly.

I didn"t argue. I knew she was every bit as stubborn as I was. We"d get nowhere. "Fine. But remember, this body belongs to me. Not Sunny. Don"t go fucking touching me when he"s in charge. I do not consent."

She flinched back slightly as if she"d been slapped. Then her anger flared again. Goddess, if she only knew how sexy she was when she was in a rage. But I wasn"t allowed to think that way anymore. I was damned.

"Send Sunshine out here right now, before I stab your precious body in the fucking eye with my athame!" she ground out between clenched teeth.

It was harder than it should have been not to let a bark of laughter escape. But that would be giving into her nonsense. So, I simply stepped away, retreating as Sunny surged forward, letting myself detach so far that I slept, unaware of their conversation as I let Sunshine take over completely.

I was tired. Tired of fighting to stay alive. Tired of thinking, time after time, that there was some hope for a twisted creature like me in this backward fucking world, only to be harshly reminded how foolish that was. I was tired of constantly struggling against what I felt and what I knew I should feel. I let the blackness wash it all away and took a much-needed rest while the wraith took over my body.