Page 111 of All the Devils are Here

My vision flashed dark and light, the pain lessening as I slipped away. Not asleep, but to the place of magic. Light glared down on me from both forward and behind. And there was confusion and aggression pulsing through the pearlescent air. Misery, melancholy, and desperation.

“Please,” I begged it. “Please stop.”

This time it didn’t feel like it was listening. I didn’t feel like it knew me or recognized me like it had before. Just blazing flames in front of me and behind me. No matter where I looked, they stayed in front and behind, in front and behind. But they were getting brighter now, eclipsing everything.

I opened my eyes, and I was still on the bed, now laying across Trin. Laurent saw me open my eyes first. “Hey, sweetheart.”

The pain was gone. Or at least it was less. It was nearly impossible to tell. “It’s confused. Or angry. I don’t know.” They knew about the other dreams, and none of us knew how to interpret them.

“I’m going to sit you up to show you something, okay?” Trin asked. He guided me up to sitting, and he didn’t have to tell me what it was. My skin was violet all the way up under my breasts and the other direction creeping both up and down my neck and below my shoulders.

A spike of fear went through me. It was so easy to push it aside and focus on everything else. But I couldn’t ignore this. From the two bonds I had, I felt steely resolve and calm. They were holding back their own fear for me.

“How much time do I have?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Trin said. “But we know one thing that could help.”

I smiled even though I wasn’t exactly feeling in my prime. “You sure know how to seduce a girl.”

“I know.” he wrapped an arm around my ribs. “I know. But—”

“It’s okay, Trin. I’m not going to say no to sex, of all things, if it’s going to save my life.” Still, I felt regret and sadness from my bonded mates.

“We’re going to check on Prospero,” Ariel said. “I want to see how close he is to death.”

“And to give us something to do.” Laurent was closing and flexing his hands like he needed something to grip.

This whole situation was awkward, but I nodded. “Okay.”

They left, and Trin shifted beneath me, the rest of his arms curling around my hips and legs. “I’d like to take you down near the Island’s heart,” Trin said. “To see how close you can get, and if anything changes for you when you’re near it.”

The way he said it, and the way they left, there was something that set me on edge. “What aren’t any of you saying?”

He met my eyes in the mirror. “Sex won’t be enough. We need the power of mating to drive this back. It’s moving so fast.”

But the expression on his face… “Why do you look devastated?”

“Because I don’t want to force you into it. It’s not the way this should happen between us. Or with Laurent, when it comes to it.”

When, not if.

I felt better, so I turned to him. “Did you think it wasn’t going to happen?”

“Of course I did, and of course I want it to. But I wanted it to be natural.”

Staring at him, I was suddenly annoyed weweren’tbonded because I couldn’t feel what he was thinking. “Why do I sense that’s not the only reason?”

A wry smile came to his face, and the atmosphere lightened instantly. “I suppose I should get used to not being able to hide things. To bond you, I have to use my spikes. And using my spikes will make you like you were that first night.”

“Out of my mind with lust? Doesn’t seem like a bad thing.”

“It’s not, and I look forward to using that particular talent on you again. But I also want you without.”

It dawned on me then. He was the only one of my mates who hadn’t truly fucked me. On top of that, our only sexual experiencehadbeen under his influence.

“Trin.” I finished turning to him and kissed him. “If you think that I somehow don’t want you without your magical siren aphrodisiac, you couldn’t be more wrong.”

One hand came up to cradle my face. “I didn’t—or I tried not to. I just don’t want to bond you to me for eternity before we’ve beenonlyus.”

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