Page 81 of Sweet Nightmares
“I know, it only started after you killed my first husband.”
He grunted. “I will leave you fully alone. It will be like you don’t exist to me, as long as you are safe. Drop your investigation and stay out of trouble.”
Jane laced her fingers through his. “I promise I will not investigate my parents’ murders without you. I just want a week outside of here. A week to think and figure out who I am.”
He sucked in an audible breath. “Alright.” Then he leaned in and sealed their deal—like their very first one—with a kiss.
The effect was immediate, a cold splintering inside her chest. It felt like someone had pierced their claws through her skin, muscles, and tissues and pulled out a chamber of her heart.
It was awful and empty.
Nightmare gritted his teeth and stood up, removing his hand from hers and turning his back to her, and walking out of the room, his back muscles bunching as he moved.
Jane was hit with the feeling that she had just made a terrible mistake, and an even worse feeling like she should have told him she cared for him, that she loved him—in a way.
She wasn’t in love with him, she didn’t think, but it was the closest she’d ever come. to a romantic love and now, stupidly, she’d made him think that she didn’t want to be with him.
She’d begged him to let her go, and he had essentially begged her to stay. But she believed this was what they needed.
Right?
Jane lifted herself out of the bathtub and placed her dripping feet on the rug covering the tile. Grabbing a towel off a rack, she dried herself off and walked back into their suite.
Nightmare stood with his back to her, fully dressed and tying his cravat.
Jane inhaled sharply and walked to her wardrobe, and as quickly as she could, she dressed for Royalle Ballet practice, which thankfully didn’t require a corset. When she was all finished, she unclamped her necklace, curled it into her palm, and walked over to Nightmare, who still had his back to her.
She ran a hand along his lower back before twirling around him with ballerina-like grace. When she reached his front, shecupped his hand with hers and furled the necklace into his palm, closing his fingers around it.
“Gavriil, I—”love you. Then, on pointe, she grazed her lips across his, for a soft moment. “I’ll be back.”
She didn’t know then just how wrong she’d been. Jane would never be back… At least not like this.
Not alive.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Age 29.
Jane didn’t know who was more nervous for Quinnevere’s Mirror Rite, her or Quinn.
Jane was an utter mess. She had been all day. Earlier at Quinnevere’s Royalle Ballet auditions, not only had Jane let it slip that Blood Mirrors existed, but she’d also asked Quinnevere about her necklace.
The last thing Jane needed was for her sister to get wrapped up in the dark underworld of New Swansea City.
And now they were standing in front of the Mirror of Midnight, waiting for Quinnevere to get enough confidence to enter it.
The only problem was that Jane didn’t think her sister should make a deal with The Mirror of Midnight—aka Periwinkle.
No one else thought she was dangerous. They all thought Periwinkle to be a harmless, quirky, sad mirror, but Jane knew better. She was the most clever of all the mirrors, and she always had a nefarious scheme up her sleeve. If there were a true puppet master of New Swansea City, it would be the Mirror of Midnight.
So, Jane couldn’t let her sister bargain with her.
Quinnevere gulped and clutched her necklace for comfort, taking another step toward the Mirror of Midnight.
She visibly shook and reached out a hand for comfort. Jane instinctively curled her fingers around her sister’s, trying to be comforting.
Quinnevere took another step toward the swirling galaxy surface of the Mirror of Midnight. She reached out and touched the liquid nebula, flinching back from the mirror’s icy cold
