Page 114 of The Bonds of Indigo

On second thought—yeah. I think I’ll overreact and do just that.

I head back to the bedroom and grab my phone, immediately dialing him. Putting it on speaker, it rings… and rings… and rings. It goes to voicemail, and I tut.

“You’ve never not answered my call, little deviant. That’s strike two. The first was leaving without waking me to let me know where you were going.” I hang up and tuck the phone into my pocket.

I’m sure it’s fine. I’ll see him in a few hours.

Hours turn into a day.

A single day turns into a week.

A week turns into a month.

I’m not sure if waiting as long as I did hurt my chances of finding him up here or not, but I didn’t want to leave only for him to show back up. His phone disconnected a week after he vanished, and I didn’t want him thinking I’d left.

But now I can’t wait around any longer.

It’s why I’m back up at our mountain—the one where I met him, where we spent days, weeks, months together. Zuhara loves the freedom and isn’t pestered by Mundanes or other Dylox. Plus, it’s special to us, so why wouldn’t we want to spend time here?

I think that’s where my hope is coming from. That maybe something happened and he couldn’t come back to my place. Or maybe he thought I wouldn’t come up here, and I’d catch his ass trying to leave me.

Pfft.

Little does he know I’m infatuated, and he’s mine. He isn’t allowed to leave me.

But as my time up here stretches from minutes into hours, I’m starting to feel like maybe it was the latter after all. Maybe he was done with me. Maybe he’d had his fill.

The more I think about it, the more that night we overindulged makes sense. If he wanted to leave, he would’ve needed to be sustained for a while.

He did warn me he was transient. That his kind… didn’t hold onto love.

Godsdamn that Incubus.

“You’re far from the trail,” I hear an older man say just as I’m about to punch my tenth tree straight down the rocky slope.

I turn, seeing a man with wrinkles from chin to forehead, white hair with a matching beard, and a wide, friendly smile. He’s talking about me being far off the trail—what about him? How the Beyond did he even get up here?

I sigh, dragging my fingers through my hair. “You gonna need help down, grandpa?”

“Nope. I’m pretty spry for someone my age.” He clasps his hands behind his back. “What has you all the way up here?”

A deep, throbbing pit forms in my chest. “Delusion.”

“Such a powerful thing. Delusion,” he hums. “Can make people disregard logic.”

I nod and look away from him, out across the canyons hugged by snowcapped mountains and towering pines.

“Well… maybe it’s for the best,” he murmurs as his voice grows faint. “Good luck with whatever you’re seeking, son.”

I think… this is what heartbreak feels like.

It’s the same sensation I felt losing my dads, my siblings, anyone I’ve ever cared about, to that thing called mortality. Like a piece of me is gone, leaving me hopeless and shattered. Expected to put myself back together when it feels impossible because half the pieces are missing.

Did he really just leave me? Like we were nothing at all?

What the fuck, Lucifer…

I’ve been staring at the convenience store options for about ten minutes.