Page 12 of A Sweet Destruction

“Are you serious? You’re taking her side?” I asked Shadow, shock evident in my voice. My jaw was so tight, the words barely made it out.

Neither responded, simply twisting their massive bodies around to investigate a cluster of flowers under a nearby tree. Sky flicked me in the face with his tail before he took off.

“Jokes on him,” I grumbled, watching as Sky nuzzled into his mate’s neck for a moment, “I can barely feel that side of my face.”

That fact was evidenced when I ran my hands down my face in frustration, the left side feeling distant and far away. My scar tingled, fighting for sensation, but also with distant memories.

Five years ago. Almost to the day, actually.

Five years since I’d been captured and tortured and, apparently, since Esme started taking those fucking pills.

I would deal with her reason for taking them later. Though the fact that it was the reason she was still alive made my hands curl into fists at my side.

I wasn’t an idiot—I knew that it had something to do with the fact that she’d rescued me. I remembered little about those days, the trauma blocking out chunks of my memory. It had left me in a haze for weeks after, the same haze that had bogged me down for the early days after I’d been drafted.

As horrible as that torture had been, at least it had been simple. By the time the stitches had been taken out and I realized I had more mobility and eyesight than expected, the relief and gratitude made the healing easier.

The pain I was still sorting through was from those early days. From the memories of being seventeen and working my ass off trying to support my too-young sister after her boyfriend abandoned her with two kids. Realizing that there was a way to offer her more stability, if only I enlisted—special unit, fast track to Muli.

Discovering that not only had I managed a Match that allowed me to travel across worlds, but that I was apparently an anomaly.

A treasured gift from the Goddess, someone who’s soul seemed worthy enough to find its twin in another.

I would never forget what it was like to blink away the blinding pain that had ripped through my body when the priestesses pulled out my Mark, my jaw slack as I looked in the mirror and found a snake curled around my entire body, from the back of my hand, around my shoulders, down my back and to my hip.

I’d barely heard them when they told me that my paranima would have the same one. I was hardly conscious over the next few days, my body feeling itchy and foreign, the Mark burning every time someone touched it.

And before I knew it, I was in a caravan into the desert with some general yapping in my ear about how she was waiting for me.

My eyes had just adjusted to the harsh desert sun, so different from the cloudy gray skies of the Deveraux islands where I’d grown up, when someone barked, “There she is!”

The entire room went silent, watching me like I was a skittish animal as I prepared to meet my Soul Mate.

Then she happened.

Esme had stepped out behind Peter, looking so small, even with her limbs long and her hair flowing.

I wasn’t sure what happened next, I nearly blacked out from the sheer terror that flooded my veins.

I remember thinking that she was going to get me fucking killed.

Either protecting her or because I failed to and followed her into death—that little side effect had been reiterated over and over in the seven hour drive to the Bridge.

Apparently, I’d said, “No. Not her.” I didn’t remember that part, but I remember Esme straightening, looking me up and down with carefully observant eyes.

“I think the damage is done,” she’d said, nodding her chin at the snake head on the back of my hand, the black standing out harshly against my bone white knuckles.

We stood there, in silence, until someone from the crowd whispered, “Do you hear it yet?”

“Hear what?” I snapped at them, my voice too harsh but my mind too tired to care.

“The Bond!” a yell from someone else, too giddy.

“I don’t hear or feel shit,” I said, sneaking a glance at Esme. No, nothing. Other than the terror, always the terror.

She was looking at me still, like she refused to turn away until she figured me out.

That’s what I’d always thought it was, anyway.