Page 158 of The Cruelest Undead

“I know you’re hurting. Let me help you,” she said. “You need to heal, and the best way is to just relax for a bit.”

Cerise was honest.

“I don’t want to heal. It’s been a horrible week. I lost Tobias, my family left me behind, and now I find my mate, but he’s happy with someone else. This is the worst week of my life. I don’t know what I did to deserve this. It couldn’t get worse.”

Cami tried to reassure her.

“I understand.”

Only, Cerise was angry at the world, and she needed a target to vent it.

“You couldn’t possibly know. You have a mate and beautiful babies. I’ll never see that. I’ll just know what could have been.”

Cami shared her past.

Oh, she knew pain more than this woman could even suspect.

“I was forced to bear children to populate our family,” she said. “I was a prisoner and nothing but a vampyre used to breed for my family. I know what hopeless feels like. I never believed I’d have a mate, or that I’d hold my own children. Mine were birthed and given away.”

Cerise just sat there.

She was slowly healing thanks to the mark and being a vampyre.

“If you won’t drink the tea, how about you go swim in the grotto? The water there helps. It’s magical, and Rinnon lets us use it when we’re not well.”

Cerise knew the woman wouldn’t stop, and she didn’t blame her.

If she was in the same position, she’d try to save her too. There were few of their kind left.

“You don’t have to worry. I can’t die,” she whispered.

Cami understood that feeling too.

“But you can suffer.”

“Good. I want to remember what pain feels like, so I never feel anything but it. Love hurts worse. It’s more painful and terrible.”

Cami ran her hand over her leg.

“I’m sorry that you’re going through this now.”

So was she.

Cerise’s only sin was that she dared to feel.

And now, she’d die alone.

* * *T u e u r A n t i q u i t i e s* * *

Cemetery

Same Time

They needed a plan, and they needed one soon. What it came down to was that they were between a rock and a hard place.

If they didn’t have someone who could help them with this, they were going to be in some big trouble at the next battle.

Flynn couldn’t walk around with Rinnon out all of the time simply because the other creatures out there would feel him and come for them.

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