1. Summer
Chapter One
Summer
F ear. Fire. Fury. To know is not enough.
Fear. There is none anymore, only frigid numbness encasing me. A layer of ice that keeps me from crumbling, holding me together, but keeping me apart.
Fire. The darkness coils inside me, with no light left to oust it. It burns within me like the hottest inferno. A midnight flame of despair that consumes me until I’m just a charred cinder.
Fury. Absent. I don’t have the will to rise to fury, to anger?.?.?. to anything.
Morningstar House looms in front of me, betraying nothing of the emptiness within.
Pain pierces my heart as my eyes roam over the place I used to feel safest. No, that’s not true.
Connor’s arms . The only time in my whole miserable life that I felt safe was when he was holding me. And now?.?.?. there’s nothing.
The house looks the same. It is the same pale blue color with the white porch wrapping around it like a hug, yet it’s different.
The light has gone. The garden is still teeming with flowers and shrubs.
They’ve been maintained, yet death still clings to the land, a pallor hanging over the structure, the entire realm.
He’s gone.
Max’s words echo through my mind as they have over the past three months, and like always, the sadness permeates fucking everything, making my limbs heavy with the weight of it.
Alice moves to stand beside me. She doesn’t touch me, doesn’t even look at me.
We both just stare at the house, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to see their faces.
I count the painful beats of my fractured heart, longing to see Luke waving from the window, the twins bursting from the door arguing about something stupid, Rafe broodily walking behind them, and then?.
.?. his devastatingly beautiful smile. His skin would start to glow as his bright blue eyes met mine.
I can almost feel the phantom warmth of his touch sending tingles over my skin, another cruelty forced upon me.
The boys are gone, all the angels are. Removed from Annwn by High Archangel Michael following the brutal and unjust murder of a future warrior.
Of one that showed so much promise that he would have had his very own Legion by the winter.
Of one with completely gilded wings by the age of thirty-two.
A marvel. A natural. A triumph of the species. Gone almost completely.
My nights consist of nothing but reliving the past, yet there is a fraction of a moment every morning when I wake up and think that maybe it was just a bad dream. But it wasn’t. The nightmare is reality.
“We should burn it down,” Alice says quietly, the vitriol in her tone betraying her sincerity. Another spear of pain shoots through me, devastation drowning everything else.
Slowly, Alice slides her hand into mine, a quiet show of support and the catalyst that allows a tear to track down my cheek.
She squeezes my hand fiercely. “We don’t have to stay.”
“We do,” I reply immediately. My voice is hoarse, pained, and strangled, my vocal cords protesting the unexpected usage. When was the last time I spoke out loud?
Alice glances at me, her concerned gaze caressing my cheek. “We could go back to Dr?culea,” she offers. We’d spent the last three months there, despite how hard it was for her to be surrounded by those who hate her. But we’d had nowhere else to go.
I shake my head but don’t shift my gaze from the house.
The now--familiar grief grips me tightly, twining around me and forcing exhaustion into my body.
I need to sit down. Lie down. Sleep. Never wake up.
I swallow the sob caught in my throat and start down the path I have walked countless times before.
Alice is at my side, her hand still in mine as she keeps pace with me.
I step onto the porch, and the door stares back at me, waiting to be opened.
We stand in front of it. We stare silently at it for a long moment .
“I changed it,” Alice says, breaking the silence. “Inside.”
Another useless tear slides down my cheek as Alice raises her hand to push the key into the lock.
The door swings open, and a whimper leaves me as I’m hit with the new interior of the house.
The smell of them is gone. Gone are the scent of clouds and rain, the remnants of Farrah’s cooking left over after the boys heated a meal she had stocked the freezer with for them.
Alice leans into my side, her small body pressed to me as she takes in the changes with me.
She must have done it all remotely, which makes sense.
She’s barely left my side since it happened.
Everything is different. My knees buckle, but Alice catches me, looping her arm around my waist to support me.
She waits, allowing me to make the first move.
No rushing. No pushing. She’s hesitant to go inside too.
Her reluctance practically radiates from her.
She’s been trying to hide how affected she’s been, trying to be strong for me, but I hear her crying too. Every night. The last time we were here was on that day?.?.?.
Alice tightens her arm around me, and we walk into the house together.
We both stop, just breaching the door, and once again, the pain surges through me at the sight.
The walls have been painted a neutral cream color with pink and blue accents.
The furniture has been switched out, and even the flooring has been changed.
Area rugs litter the space, none of which were here before, and on the coffee table there is a vase with blue and white -angelonias.
I recognize them immediately. They’re from his funeral, runed to be eternal. Eternal. Like he was supposed to be.
“We don’t have to keep?—”
“We do,” I reply, my voice sounding raw again. I am grateful for the changes, but I also resent them. The house was perfect before. It was perfect when five boisterous, loud, annoying Morningstars lived here. When Connor lived here. The flowers need to stay. Connor’s memory needs to stay.
“I had them change everything over the summer so it’s?.?.?. less.” I’m not sure what word she wants to use. Perhaps she doesn’t know either. “I changed the bedrooms,” Alice continues.
My stomach twists at the thought of strangers in Con’s?—
“Except Connor’s. His room is untouched,” she says quickly, interrupting my thought. I’m not sure if she could see my distress or sense my discomfort, but she knew exactly what I was thinking and eased my concerns. “I set up Rafe’s room for you. ”
Next door to Connor’s. Next door to the room I slept in countless times. Next door to my dead fiancé’s room.
“It doesn’t feel right. None of this feels right,” I whisper, having to force the words out.
Alice’s worried gaze hovers over me as I move deeper into the room and look around, welcoming the house’s grief, allowing it to merge with my own.
My gaze is drawn to a framed photograph on the bureau, and the sadness eclipses me as I meet Connor’s blue eyes.
I lift the photo and a sob lodges in my throat as I glide my thumb over him.
A pained whimper tears from me, and I crumble completely, falling to my knees.
I hug his image to my chest, desperate to feel like he’s here, like he’s holding me.
Arms wrap around me, but they’re not his strong ones.
Alice holds me fiercely, as if she can piece the shattered parts of me back together with sheer will.
Sobs explode from me, my heart breaking all over again.
I have no idea how long we sit there on the floor, both of us crying into each other, but after minutes, hours, days, the tears run dry, and I end up lying on the floor, my head in Alice’s lap as she strokes my hair softly and hums a lullaby.
This has been our norm for months. Alice pulls cushions and a blanket from the couch and gets us both comfortable, careful to always maintain contact with me.
It’s as if she knows that without the grounding of her touch, I might just decide to float away. Eventually, everything turns black.
The damp scent of the cave burns my nose, the ropes painfully chafing against my wrists and ankles. The blindfold is ripped from my face, and light sears my eyes. Then she is there in front of me, her catlike smile wide and menacing.
She plays with me, toys with me for hours. Every pierce of her blade is agony, my body unable to forget the pain, but that is not the root of the terror. That comes when he appears at the mouth of the cave?.?.?. Connor.
“No! Get out! She’s going to kill you!” The scream rips from my throat, the horror clawing down my spine.
Nothing helps, nothing changes it, and I scream and scream, trying to drown out the wet, sickening noise as she plunges the dagger into ? —
“Summer! Summer, it’s okay. I’m here.”
My shoulders shake from some sort of invisible force, and I frown at the sound of Alice’s voice echoing in the cave.
“Summer! Summer, it’s okay. I’m here.” Alice’s insistent voice pierces the nightmare, yanking me out of it. I open my eyes to find her over me, gripping my shoulders. Her worried gaze bores into me, and her claws sink into my skin as she shakes me.
The ghost of the terror is still there, still lingering, but then the sadness slams into me, shoving it into oblivion. The weight of that never-ending sorrow eclipses everything.
“I’m here,” Alice says again, loosening her hold on me to cup my cheek. She looks tired, exhausted. How long have we slept? Why does exhaustion still claw at my bones?
The sunlight streams through the windows, filling the room with a happy golden glow, but it’s a lie. It’s all a lie.
“We have an assembly,” Alice says, still watching me with concern. She glances at the clock on the mantel. “In just under an hour.”