Page 70 of Snatched By the Sandman

Chewing on my inner cheek, I don’t let myself wander in my thoughts. Instead, I weave a pen because it’s time I answer. She showed me my life, my past, and pieces of my near-present.

Time for the future.

A stargazer lily—white symbolizes the rejuvenation of the soul and the balance of life and death. I don’t know how to yet, but Iwantto meet her halfway.

My whole hand prickles like light needles. I slip behind fog but it’s light and delicate—like invisible strings connecting me to my hand so I may still feel it moving.

ECLIPSE

I front…and write—“My name is Eclipse. Ask them about the Trials.”—and end with the image of a shield so she doesn’t forget what I am.

Chapter 24

Zenya will see this through. I will not leave her, Father.

NYXION

“War of Hearts” by Ruelle

“Save Yourself” by My Darkest Days

“Come to Me” by Sebastian Erkstrand

“Savior” by VoColor and Sebastian Erkstrand

“You’re not a black hole; you’re a void. Empty and desperate for anything to fill you. And the next time you try to touch Zenya, it will be on your knees, groveling, kissing her feet, and begging for the right to breathe her air.”

Her words still echo in my mind. No one has ever matched my monstrosity. While I’d reset my bones, the fallen angel slipped away, and Zenya returned.

Morpheus tightens and bulges the sinew in his wings, his shadows practically seething around Zenya’s form. A direct warning, a command for me not to interfere as she opens thejournal. His glare might as well say,Stay there and brood like only you can.

Suffering in not-so-silence, I reset another bone and gnash my teeth. Pain fills my wings the most, the reavers having slashed them to tatters.

Zenya’s attacks don’t feel the same—so wild and full of dark spirit. No, this…Beastie is different.

She strikes with a chilling precision, the eye of a quiet, eerie storm that unsettles me to my core, chilling my very soul. She is sinister grace.

Zenya has no method to her madness. She is and does.

Beastie has mapped every possible method. She plans. And executes when she must—in more ways than one.

Little wonder her execution causes me more pain than Zenya’s.

When I look up from my bony hand, the beauty of my little killer’s tears paralyzes me. Then…they unravel me thread by thread.

Never in all my wildest nightmares have I seen such beautiful tears—as if she is weeping silver blood from her heart. From dark solemnity to deep reverence to whimsy to somber intensity.

Her beauty and ferocity when she cracked the skull and pushed out the needles sutured all my fractured skin, fused my bones, and pumped life back into my heart. When she fell for me, I rose for her.

Awe overwhelms me at the force of her emotions from the pages of a simple, little book. Does she even realize her tattoos are stiller than ever?

Her essence whispers through the tether binding us. It’s within this whisper where I find her, see her…where Ifeelher most. The raw power of her vulnerability and utter humanity.

Here and now, I know I would crawl into the Abyss itself and sell my soul to its infinite black heart if it granted her another sweet dream bereft of my nightmares.

The blackness of my depravity creeps in like a thief, attempting to steal this moment. For the first time, I war with it, this blood force. It rises like ten thousand corpses prepared to drag me into their graves when all I wish to do is share her breath.

Centuries of torment and malevolence, of darkness and danger, of fear. How I’ve preyed on those who fear.

---