Page 111 of Beauty's Monstrous Demons

I’m all alone again.

BAST

I’m sitting on the bed next to Lorelei, all alone at the rental property today. Things feel desperate, despite what we’ve been finding out about President Christa or Lorelei’s blood.

Her blood has properties from all of her mates. We’ve managed to give her a part of each of us, and it’s completely changed her DNA as well. Her body is fighting the plague, yet she remains trapped in her mind.

It’s been eight months since she first closed her eyes. I need to see her, speak to her. Swallowing hard, I lay down next to her and take her hand. Following the solid rope between our souls, I close my eyes and slide into her mind. The screams are as loud as ever, but I have a plan.

Imagining a private lesson, I create the theater and sit at the piano as the spotlight shines on the stage. I can play many different instruments, just like I can sing. I simply prefer to teach instead of perform.

Opening my mouth, I sing to Lorelei. It’s a song I made for her, a duet written for the two of us. It’s not meant to be heard by anyone other than her, and so I use my words to bring her to me.

My mind empties of anything too heavy, no sadness touches me, despite how hard that is. The lighter I allow the music to make me, the easier it is to pull her into my created world. It’s a lesson that’s taken me an absurdly long time to learn, and even harder to master.

It feels false, as if I’m lying to Lorelei. Phenex told me it wasn’t like that if it gave her access to me. We should be willing to do anything for her, even if it means emptying ourselves of the living hell we are living in without her in our lives.

Her footsteps finally sound along the wooden stage as she walks across it, and then she’s standing by the piano.

“That’s pretty,” she says as the final notes echo in the new silence. “Is that new?”

“It is,” I admit. “I wrote it for the only girl I’ll ever love. It’s a duet.”

“Teach me?” she asks, sitting beside me.

Nodding, I mark out her part of the song on the sheet music, and we begin again together. It feels reminiscent of our rehearsals for the musical that feels like it happened a million years ago, her voice lilting with a longing I’ve never heard before.

Our girl is tired of being alone. One day she’ll snap and wake up. I just know it.

For that moment, I’ll walk through fire for her, cry when no one’s watching, and then pull myself back together. We’re fighting for our future and hers.

When she begins to disappear as we get to the end of the song, I reach out as if I can keep her with me, and place my hand on her thigh. Slowly, she seems to come back, her presence has a weight it never had before as she leans against me.

Lorelei stays for longer than she ever has been able to before, until she whispers, “The shadows are coming. Please come back for me.”

“I’ll always come for you, baby,” I croak out as I watch as her body breaks apart and is pulled away from me.

In this life and the next, I’ll follow you.

ALECTO

“Go see her!” Phenex yells at me, pushing me toward the bedroom where our sleeping mate lies. “I know you’re on all of these phone calls, late visits to the lab, yet you’re not really here.”

“It hurts,” I admit, swallowing hard as I look over my shoulder to where the sunlight hits her blonde hair. “The scientific shit I can hold it together with, even with the sound of her screams in my head. It’s when I sit next to her to create an image with her that I can’t get my head right. Why would she want to see me if I’m so fucking sad?”

“How do you know she won’t?” Samael asks, walking out of the kitchen. Fuck, I didn’t even notice him. Maybe he materialized, but I’m in a funk.

I could be the reason she’s not getting better. Ten months have gone by since her twentieth birthday, and President Christa has put in her resignation. She’s lost in the wind, free to fuck over someone else’s life.

“Her screams are different,” I whisper. “There is so much pain in them.”

“She misses us,” Bast says, slamming into the cottage I rented, and overhearing my last words. “It’s hard for me too. I’ve started leaning in creatively to be able to get through it. I sing, or create new music when I go to see her, that’s when she comes to me.”

“Create a place you both have a passion for,” Samael adds. “You have this giant brain and are shit at the emotional stuff. I have to go see my parents.”

“I’m going to get myself into trouble asking the obvious, but is that a good idea?” I ask.

“I need hellhounds who can track that bitch,” he says. “There’s magic in the shit she injected Lorelei with. It’s been corroborated by your doctor. Maybe if I find her and kill the twunt, it’ll lessen the hold it has on Lorelei.”

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