Page 133 of A Dusk Of Stars

“What’s the plan, Serra, huh?” I demand through gritted teeth.

She keeps looking, waiting. My eyebrows pull down. Will she just bewaitingfor the fourth piece to come to life?

“The plan, my dear,” she says as she comes closer, “is to make you…” She leans into my ear. “Shift,” she finishes as blinding pain sears through my side.

A knife. There’s a knife in my stomach.

The past, the present and the future — they’re all colliding in my brain into an explosion of destruction, death and pain. Summoning the ultimate evil. All of which I will have caused myself,again, by avoiding facing hard truths and trusting the wrong person.

I shut my eyes, desperation filling my entire being and making a single image come into focus in front of me.

Jericho.

I squeeze my eyes tighter while they fill with tears. I pushed him away. But now it’s all becoming so clear to me. I don’t care about anything that’s happened so far. I just want to be with him.

I hear her cackle in my ear. “We’re crying now, are we?” she asks mockingly. “Oh is this about your little shifter mate? He won’t be able to hear your thoughts, the bond isn’t complete.

Fuck you.

Pain sears through me, making me close my eyes shut, my teeth gritting as the blade enters deeper into my body.

“Shift, I said,” she spits out.

As I feel the knife get pulled out and hot blood pour out of me, I open my eyes and I give her a venomous smile. “Oh you think a little bit of pain will make me give in?” I ask, determined despite struggling to stay in control of my voice.

There’s a flash of surprise on her face.

My jaw clenching, I narrow my eyes at her. “You’ve no idea who I am or what I’ve managed to go through without evenflinching. So bring it on. You’ll kill me before you make me help you.”

“I’ve let you stall long enough,” she comes to whisper in my ear, making my breath turn shallow and my nostrils flare. “And he won’t be coming to save you, you’ve made sure of it yourself.”

With the corner of my eye, I spot her lift her hand and I feel the blade’s edge press into my neck. “Shift,now. Or I swear on the Holy Word, Iwillmake you suffer.”

“On the Holy Word, you say?” I ask with bitterness in my voice. “As if there’s something you findsacred.”

“I do,” she says forcefully, getting in my face. “You know what it is? Power instead of weakness.”

But her words are drifting to me as if through water. Slowly but steadily, the paralysis is starting to spread to my neck and I find myself in a growing haze, barely keeping my eyes open as my heartbeat starts slowing down.

Am I dying?

I no longer seem to see her or hear her. I’m turning blind to the world around me, my mind filling with images of Jericho.

This is it. I’ll never get to see him again, touch him again, smell him again. I’ll never get to find out what it would be like, to be with him for real. The very thought rips through me, more devastating than anything I’ve ever felt, its echoes alone strong enough to make me fall apart.

My heart breaks into a million pieces.

Then my mind fills with images of past lives, of all the things I’ve had to go through as the Aurora only to find myself failing all over again.

Then again, what does it matter…

In every lifetime, I try to take on all their pain.

In every lifetime, they only choose to create more of it.

It’s with that thought that I let go. The paralysis now spreading to my jaw, I let my gaze drop, my eyes filling with tears I’ll never see fall to the ground.

Still, at least I’ll finally get it — the promise of absolute nothingness.

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