Page 53 of Sinner's End

“Another lie, Kaleb?” she asks. “She took your heart. You love her.”

“I do. But that doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“It does!” she says angrily. “You were supposed to loveme. Only me. The bond between a mother and her son is special, and ours was more so than most.”

“No,” Kaleb chokes out. “You did things to me that no mother ever should. I didn’t think I would ever be able to love someone the normal way. You broke something inside me before I even knew what that was.”

“I loved you,” she replies angrily.

“You abused me!” Kaleb cries out.

I feel the thing inside me doubt herself and I push. I push against the hold she has on me. I won’t be held captive in my own damn body. The moment I feel her grasp on me start to slip I push even harder.

“Mana!” I scream, my voice my own once more.

I see his face just beyond the graveyard’s gates, a dark blade pressed to Lethe’s throat.

“Come to me, Addi,” he calls out. “If you can make it here, you will be free of her.”

I force myself to move, putting one foot in front of the other, but it is slow going. Kaleb’s mother fights me for dominance, holding me back. My feet feel like they are filled with lead, making it hard to move them and win any ground.

“Let her go,” Kaleb says, trying to pull me to Mana.

“Never!” the distorted voice erupts from me once more before I am able to fight back.

“You fucking bitch!” Mana roars. “If you weren’t dead, I would kill you myself.”

The entity shrinks back at his rage and I win a few steps before she tries to stop me again. I am two or three steps away from Mana and freedom from this bullshit.

“Lethe!” I cry out.

Mana glares at the angel on his knees. I know he can help me. Don’t ask me how, I just do.

“Please.”

Mana removes the blade from his neck and within the blink of an eye he stands before me. Gently, he swipes my hair out of my face.

“I’m sorry I did this to you,” he whispers.

My heart cracks for the big man in front of me. There is so much I want to say to him, explain that I know in my heart he was only trying to keep me safe, but I can’t. Inside my head, the entity shrieks long and hard at his touch. The tenuous grasp she had on me slips and I push past Lethe, jumping into Mana’s arms.

I feel the last vestiges of her melt away the moment he catches me. Somehow, I know it has nothing to do with Mana but where he is standing. I breathe him in, enjoying the dark musky scent that always clings to him.

“I am so fucking done with all of this,” I say a moment later, pushing out of Mana’s grasp. “My sister tried to kill me, a succubus used me to get a free meal, and now I’ve had a dead woman in my head. I. Am. Fucking. Done.”

With each word I poke Mana in the chest, driving my point home.

“I don’t give a single flying fuck what wording you put into our deal, or whatever the fuck you did. I want out.” I turn in a circle to glare at each of them in turn. “I am going home and I swear to everything that is holy if any of you show up in my house, in my room, I will fucking end you. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Addi,” Lethe breathes out my name.

“Don’t,” I say holding up a hand. I pull the blanket tighter around my nudity. “I need time to figure out what the fuck is going on and having one or all of you around is not going to help. You all just keep distracting me with great sex.”

Mana chuckles and I turn my glare on him. He holdshis hand up in surrender. “You weren’t complaining a couple of hours ago.”

I shake my head sadly. “It’s becoming more and more apparent that you aren’t human, Mana,” I say softly. “Or you would understand that sex is not enough. It’s fun, but it’s not something I consider when I’m making life-changing decisions.”

He looks like I slapped him.

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