Page 60 of Our Sins in Silver (Coven of Sin 3)

My entire body went lava-hot when my own voice echoed all around, sending me back to that night in the attic.

“You belong only to me now, Sterling,” I had said. “And I’m never letting you go.”

I’d been caressing his cheek, and he’d tilted his head to catch my fingers with his lips, kissing them.

“Promise?” he had asked. Sterling of the present mouthed the word, perfectly in sync with his memory.

“I promise,” I mouthed back as my voice echoed the words in the memory, feeling all aglow despite the fact that the vampire king was hunting us down.

But that was the magic of my princes.

I didn’t fear the darkness anymore. Because I knew, deep down that I was made of tougher shit.

Chapter twenty-six

Gem of the Past

“Almostthere,justalittle further,” Sterling said in a strained voice that filled me with apprehension. His fingers tightened around mine as he led me through memory after memory. In the direction he took us, the atmosphere grew colder. My breath came out in clouds in front of me with every shuddering breath.

“If I was in control of this shit, I’d make myself a sweater.”

Sterling held me tight against him. He wasn’t putting off much warmth, considering he was the coolest of the princes, but I was happy for the excuse to burrow closer.

After a few minutes of silence, he came to a stop so abruptly that I crashed into him. He was a lithe man, but bloody hell was he sturdy. And his muscles were so tense that it almost hurt walking into him.

“Wha—? Why are we stopping again?” Anxiety bubbled up inside me, making my voice raise an octave.

With how the vampire king’s energy was setting in like a dense and disorienting fog, he was gaining ground faster than us.

Then I saw what had Sterling frozen in place.

We stood in front of a long tunnel that was so cold, the chill of it stung my skin. Tendrils of magic shaped like brambles sprouted from the tunnel walls with sharp barbs sticking out in every direction. It reminded me of a movie I’d seen once as a kid where a girl had gotten lost in the dark woods, and creepy eyes blinked at her from the thickets. And I knew exactly what monster lurked behind these ones.

These had to be Sterling’s memories of my father.

My hands fidgeted with a torn piece of my nun’s habit as I gazed into the yawning darkness that stretched before us. “We’re going in there?”

Sterling gave me a sidelong glance, silver brows knitting together. “There’s no other path, I’m afraid. Not while your father has control over my mind.”

“This is where your darkest memories are stored, aren’t they?”

My silver prince’s lips curved into a forlorn frown that made my chest sting as if the bramble had wriggled around my heart and encased it in its barbs. “This was where my monster was birthed, hence the scars. I’ve tried to bury these memories to the best of my ability. You won’t see anything—unsavory. Though I will ask you to cover your ears.” The ache in his voice made the vine wrapping my heart squeeze tighter.

“And the memory we’re luring the king into is in there?”

“It lies just beyond it.”

A disquieting feeling settled in my belly like sediment as I placed my palms over my ears. My mate then swept me into his arms and carried me into the tunnel.

There was so much overgrowth that none of the details of Sterling’s darker thoughts were discernible. I heard only the occasional scream, muffled by my hands, and the shimmer of various auras peeking through the vines. Even with specific scenes hidden, the priest looked gray around the edges. Like he was going to be sick.

I held my cheek to his chest, my hand pinned between us and pressed a light kiss to his scarred crucifix tattoo. I wanted to remind him that he never had to walk through this part of his mind alone again. He dropped his eyes, his moonstone irises glittering as he drank me in.

The moment we were out of the tunnel, he set me to my feet. When my hands dropped from my ears, he pulled me close and feathered his lips over my brow. “You are the salve to old wounds, Ruby Renada. The answer to old prayers. And the light to a man who has only known darkness for a thousand years.”

“Always so poetic.” I chuckled through a twinge of a smile, feeling my cheeks pink. “Even when shit hits the fan.”

His hand smoothed over the small of my back as he guided me to another compartment in his psyche, where yet another memory played. “Shit hasn’t ‘hit the fan,’ as you say. Not yet. We might still have the upper hand.”

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