Page 31 of Guarded By the Nightmare

She crossed her arms beneath the breasts that he enjoyed. “I’m going to give you one chance to apologize.”

“For what?”

She didn’t answer him. “I’m counting down from ten. Ten. Nine.”

He made a baffled face. “I assumed this’d be a quickie.”

“Eight. Seven.”

“What the fuck, Mina?” he said and laughed.

Her counting was undeterred. “Six. Five,” she said, and my anticipation mounted, hoping I knew where this was going. “Four.”

“Are you threatening me?” he asked. “If so—with what?”

“You’ll see,” she said. “Three.”

“Does this mean you don’t need my library access anymore?” he asked, then showed her the object he’d brought. It appeared to be a chair cushion. “I brought this for your knees.”

“Two!” she almost shouted. “Do you really think you don’t have anything to apologize for?”

“I was helping you out!” he protested, like she was the unreasonable one. “I told you I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I didn’t! You wanted access to the vaults, I had it, sheesh.”

“No, Bradley.” I heard her swallow beside me. Mina looked around her, presumably for me, and I felt a flash of pride. “Sylas?”

“Yes, my queen.” I made sure to say the words so that he could hear them—and his fear piqued in an instant.

“He’s yours.”

I condensed into a very visible creature of claws and violence, letting myself see the glowing threads of irrevocable fate picking up between him and I at once. “Oh, we’re going to have so much fun.”

There was a delicious pause wherein he realized what was happening, and then he started howling as I advanced. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!I helped you!” he said, throwing the sad little pillow at me. It bounced off my side, and then caught on fire, because I wanted it to. “You’re not through counting!” he sobbed, and I paused mid-lurch, waiting on Mina’s behest.

“Oh, I’m fuckingdone,” she said. “Because if you’d really wanted to help me out, you could’ve just loaned me your access card, like a person.”

That was all I needed. I swept him up inside my smoke and made him disappear.

24

MINA

And suddenly Iwas alone in the alley behind the library sciences building on campus, with a flaming chair cushion.

I checked my phone for the time. I’d been responsible for three deaths in roughly forty-eight hours. I couldn’t remember if that made me a serial killer or a mass murderer, but whichever it was, I was owning it.

Then Sylas reappeared, looming nearby again, his hands full of claws and mouth full of teeth, looking pleased with himself.

“You may not feel it, but I was gone for quite some time—and I came up with a gift for you. Close your eyes.”

I gawked at him, and then did what I was told.

“Now, open them,” he commanded, a millisecond later—and my hand flew over my mouth.

“What—is—that?” I whispered at a high pitch. He’d sliced up Brad’s liver like a strawberry at a fancy restaurant, splaying it out like a magician offering someone cards, over a sigil of intestines in the shape of a?—

“Itisan eggplant!” he exclaimed, floating slightly above the fragrant mess.

“Yeah, it is,” I squeaked. It was one percent sweet, and ninety-nine percent disgusting.

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