The Dark City Chronicles ⁓ Book Three
The apocalypse looms ever closer! Steamy romance, heart-stopping action, seductive vampires, magic that defies nature, sprinkles of dark-humor, and, as always, the everlasting bonds of friendship.
Hannah's strug...
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The shed groaned with every onslaught of evening wind pummeling its wooden siding.
He wasn't a wuss, even if he acted like one. He could take pain. He'd been trained to endure it since he turned nine years old, and Gabriel decided he was old enough for corporal punishment.
But this was different.
To hurt himself with intent was a whole new experience he'd never thought he'd have to stomach.
Since learning about Eliot, he'd been spiraling. The voices grew louder each night.
Tonight, their dark song was exacerbated when Rowan came to sit with him on the couch and nestled against his side. She always fit against him so perfectly. They'd talked, and he'd almost forgotten his madness.
But his whispers were hard to ignore.
They'd become so oppressive in her presence that he swore he'd felt a wintry chill and a shiver of dark euphoria. Giving in to their twisted whims had become so tempting that he nearly did, and it terrified him.
Because they wanted him to lay his hand against Rowan's slim throat and force the truth from her by any means.
What truly happened with Azrael? Was his uncle a replacement for Eliot, too? How did she escape Shadow Peaks? Did the night they shared mean nothing to her?
But he couldn't do it, not even because hurting her was the last thing he ever wanted to do.
He was a coward, afraid of the answers.
Pain had always worsened the whispers, but after sparring with Kenneth, a terrible idea had formed in his mind. Every hit of those sticks gave him a warped excitement and ached his fangs, flirting with his vampire side, but his mind had been quiet.
He had been giving in to their whims without realizing it.
Before, the pain had been a senseless attempt to relive his childhood trauma. Now, it felt like he was feeding the dark aspects he tried to repress, and the voices were lulled into a slumber, sated.
When they returned, they were louder, nearly overwhelming. But if he let them in just a bit, he hoped he could keep them from taking over entirely.
That was why he sought out Lucas tonight. He wanted to ask the man to hurt him and quell the whispers. But then he'd been under Lucas's fond regard and knew he couldn't use the man like that.
Not again.
He'd messed up in the bedroom earlier this afternoon. The whispers had taken over. He'd been aware of every kiss and touch, but he'd been moving as a puppet to their dark whims, in a ravenous trance, desire overshadowing logic.
He'd have to tell Rowan what had happened. Even if they weren't officially together, she deserved honesty when he told her what they had was over.
In the rickety chair beside a wooden cabinet where guns hung on the walls, bathed in shadow, he sat with a sheathed dagger in his lap.
