Chapter 11 #3
All the times she’d chosen lies over truth.
To survive, her conscience screamed.
Liar, the voices from her old selves spat out from a throat full of ash.
The weight built inside her, unescapable and damning. Breathing was hard, so hard. Her vision whitened at the edges. The truth of what she’d never let herself grieve was too vast, too monstrous; it took up every inch of her soul and left no room to stand.
She was lost in the pain, in the splintered, jagged pieces of the reality she’d built.
She was nothing but lies.
Nothing but the emptiness of her broken heart.
Nothing but shame.
And it hurt.
It hurt.
She might as well let herself go into it. Lose herself in it, be swallowed and consumed until it didn’t hurt anymore.
I love you. Hunter’s voice slipped in like a golden thread through shattered glass and slammed into her like a new heartbeat. I love you, he repeated. And she felt it, felt his love pouring through the bond like warmth cracking through frost. Just enough to keep her from slipping under the voices.
Me, she whimpered. Not them. I buried them. I built over them.
She had. She had for a reason.
Temper. Pride. Need. They flicked their tails, coiled like memories with teeth.
One foot planted on the ground. Then the other. Her body shook with the strain, but she pulled herself upright. Like she always did.
Words clawed their way out, ragged and shaking. “I buried you,” she screamed. “I buried all of you for a reason.” She turned to where she knew he waited. And there he was, standing, tall and strong and safe. “That’s why you love me.”
She was expecting him to argue. To soothe or deny. “Yes,” he said instead. “I love you.” He nodded toward all those figures, kneeling. “I also love them, though. Each one of them.”
Horrified, she just looked at him. And he had the nerve to shrug. “What? You think I’m in love with the polished version? Please,” he scoffed. “I love you, sweetheart. It means all of the yous you carry inside, like it or not. The hunted, the broken, the scared. Want to know why?”
She only shook her head.
“Because they all made who you are today.” He walked closer, but didn’t touch her. “You wouldn’t be you without them.”
No.
NO.
He was supposed to understand. To side with her. Even to help her. Betrayal was an arrow to her already shattered heart, and the scream was the one from a wounded spirit. “I’m not them!” she gestured wildly to the figures surrounding her like the trees had. “I’m me in spite of them.”
That’s when she saw it. The same gesture from the figures, like a twisted choreography. Her hands went to her head pressing. And so did the other women’s. They wore the same clenched jaw, the same trembling legs, the same shallow breathing.
“I’m scared,” one said.
They all said.
With her voice.
All of those faces, all of those eyes, spoke with one voice.
Her voice.
Moved with the same movement.
Hers.
They were all her.
They were still all her.
And her spirit emptied within the space of a breath.
She would never love them.
She would never be grateful for them.
But she couldn’t fight them, not any more than she could fight how tall she was, or how much she weighed. She could fake it with heels and different cuts of dresses, but what she was would never change. That was how she was. Who she was.
And so, what if she let go? Of fear, of shame.
What if...
Slowly, tentatively, she stretched a hand, looked with fascination as the younger version of herself did the same, mirroring her movement. When their palms connected, it was peace she felt.
Utter, blinding, quiet peace.
She closed her eyes and sighed.
We’ll always be with you, she heard them whisper. But this time it wasn’t ominous. It was a reminder, but not of how weak she’d been because she didn’t save her mother, because she didn’t fight her father. It was a reminder of how strong she’d been to not sink.
When she opened her eyes, she was alone in the same forest, but the trees were just that. Trees. No need for mirrors anymore. All those women were inside of her. It felt a little tight, a little uncomfortable. But peaceful.
“It will take a moment to get used to the weight of it. Of them,” Hunter said, hands casually buried in his pockets, then shrugged. “You’ll be fine, Daphne.”
She dropped down and sat on the hard ground. Exhausted. Lightheaded. A little empty and too crowded at the same time. But for the first time in... ever, there was a morsel of something new. Hope. She didn’t know how to accommodate it in her life, but it was good. Good indeed.
When Hunter sat at her side and pulled her into his lap, she burrowed there.
And smiled.
~*~
His face was the first thing she saw when she woke up. It didn’t matter that her eyes were gritty and hurt when she opened them, or that the room was dark. She saw his face. The straight line of the nose. The corner of his stubbled jaw. The full lips. The eyes. Blue, full of love.
He brushed her hair off her forehead. “Welcome back, sweetheart.”
“Are we dead?”
“We can’t really die, but I get what you’re saying. So, nope. Very much not.”
She let those words dance in her brain. It was all so slow and muted that it took her a second to find the implication of his words. Another good one to formulate her next question. “We won?”
“You did. All the nightmares kind of imploded, and Dorian is securing a very clean Dreamscape as we speak.”
“I did.” She closed her eyes. A memory fluttered in, out. But then...
I love you, he said through their connection.
And I love you. She opened her eyes–it cost, but she really wanted to see him–and touched her fingers to his cheek. “I love you,” she repeated.
He took her hand, kissed it. “How are you feeling?”
“Groggy.”
“Melisandre said you would. Here,” he said, reaching for a glass of water and giving it to her. “Drink. She said it would help. She, or the elves, or someone else, spiked it.”
She pushed to sit–that cost her, too–and drank, and yeah.
Whatever they did with that water worked fast, because she felt her mind coming back to her at the speed at which she gulped down the glass.
“This is amazing.” And with that, his words came back.
Rather fast. “Wait. Did you say we can’t die? ”
He scratched his head. “Technically, no. There might be some magic somewhere able to end us, but mostly, no, we can’t.”
“By us, you mean you and Dorian?”
“And you, and Amelia.” An idea landed on him, one he liked a lot, judging by the smile. “We can totally double date.”
“What do you mean I can’t die?”
“I mean that you’re my fated mate. Magic grants you my life expectancy, which doesn’t have an expiration date.” He looked at her, confused. “How did you not know this?”
“Mostly because I’d never met a damned demon before.”
“Are you freaking out? After all you’ve done, all you’ve gone through, that is what freaks you out?”
“Yes, Hunter. Yes.”
“Oh, okay. Maybe talk to Amelia? She may have, you know, a few pointers for dealing with that.”
Her brain simply ignored what he said. “We’re together forever. Literally.”
“Yes.”
“Then we have to get married.”
He looked at her, frowned. “I’m struggling to see the logic, but if that’s what you want, then yes.
Let’s get married.” He sat on the bed, pulled her into his lap.
“Let’s get married and live a long and happy life together.
” He kissed her, and it felt like both the most reckless joy in the world and the first moment she’d ever truly been home. “One condition,” he said on her lips.
She would have said yes to literally whatever, but she also remembered who she was dealing with. She loved this demon. But she knew better than skipping the fine print of his requests. “Which is?”
“I’ll have to take your last name. I’ve gone without one for so long, it’s time you make an honest demon out of me.”
Her heart melted a little. “Well, if you must, then...”