Chapter 33
Agirl stood before him. Her long brown hair blew wildly in the harsh winds, coated in red.
Blood, Dominic noted as he scanned the carnage around them.
Mutilated bodies lay in pools of scarlet all around him, the grass below tainted and unseen.
A wave of nausea sluiced through him, causing him to hunch over, bracing his hands on his knees.
The putrid smell of death had him gagging, forcing himself to take labored breaths to contain the bile rising in his throat.
Panic gripped him by the neck, squeezing.
He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t stand.
Warm liquid soaked his clothes as Dominic hit the ground, gasping for breath.
Undiluted horror overwhelmed him. He had no clue how he got to this place, where this place even was.
With blood-slicked hands, he struggled to push himself to his feet, staggering as he rose.
His head swiveled back and forth, searching for a way out of this massacre.
Shadows surrounded him, darkness seeping into the corpse nearest to him. The darkness surged. Wisps of the body’s black hair swirled in the wind. The boy’s pale skin was consumed by smoke. His dark, lifeless eyes stared up at Dominic, pleading for help.
“Run!” someone yelled. The voice was a rough rasp, like they hadn’t spoken in days. Or they’d screamed so violently that their vocal cords were ripped to shreds.
Dominic turned toward the voice, suddenly remembering the girl who’d been standing before him.
She kneeled on the ground, blood covering every inch of her.
Something told him most of it wasn’t hers.
Sprawled on the grass before her was another body.
It belonged to a young girl with bright orange hair splayed around her head.
Her chest had been shredded open, flesh and bone pouring out of her skin.
“Go,” the brown-haired girl sobbed, her voice a whisper. A plea as she held the orange-haired girl’s hand.
Dominic stepped forward, drawn to her despite the gore around them. He felt that he knew her.
Darkness continued to swirl around them, feeding off the carcasses.
A chill ran down his spine, and the hair on the back of his neck stood.
Dominic frantically searched for a weapon as the bodies charred, turning to ash.
Kneeling to the ground, hands blindly searching through the dark, he came up short.
A shuddering breath came from his lips as Dominic realized these people were unarmed.
Defenseless and slaughtered within seconds.
The world shifted, like it was speeding back in time.
Soldiers who moved like shadows, killing innocent citizens. More blood and death painted the land. A girl with dark skin and curly black hair fought valiantly against one of the armored knights, but soon perished. The world was moving again, spinning faster than Dominic could comprehend.
When it settled, he saw the brown-haired girl from before kneeling over a boy, her hand clasping his lifeless one. Tears ran down her face, landing on the blond-haired boy’s cheeks. Gold glinted between her fingers.
“Cal,” she sobbed, cupping his pallid cheek with her bloodied hand. “Callan, please don’t go.” When she finally released his hand, a gold key was clutched in her palm.
He moved toward her, his foot colliding with something.
Something sickening churned in Dominic’s stomach as he glanced down to see another corpse lying among the carnage, a knife protruding from its chest near the shoulder, shirt torn to reveal tawny skin.
Not exactly a fatal wound, but enough to kill if left unattended long enough to bleed out.
He ignored the body and the dread sluicing through him as he continued to watch the scene play out like he was nothing but a ghost.
A scream tore through the land. The girl scrambled backward as the corpse before her moved. No, the bodies hadn’t been reduced to ash. They became shadows of death. Silhouettes of the dead rose all around them, circling them like vultures waiting for their next meal.
“Run!” the girl bellowed to the remaining citizens and soldiers still locked in battle as she stood on shaking legs.
Taking the girl’s advice, Dominic turned to run, but he found himself surrounded by shadow monsters, slowly closing in on him.
He closed his eyes, accepting his fate. He’d been in the dark for so long he’d grown used to it.
But instead of being consumed by agonizing pain, the shadows passed right through him.
They pursued the girl instead. He whipped back around to see them advancing on her.
Hope glimmered in her blue eyes, but not for herself.
For him—for the remaining citizens—he realized. It was hope that they could take their chances and run while the shadows were targeting her.
The girl was surrounded with no way out. She stood still, paralyzed by horror. Slowly, the shadows enveloped her.
“RUN!” she screamed again, voice trembling with perpetual terror.
The last thing Dominic saw was her blazing sapphire eyes before she disappeared within the shadows.
He ran.
An explosion of light blinded him, throwing him to the dirt. Lifting a hand to shield his eyes, Dominic pushed himself up and glanced back. Blue flames crackled and thrashed inside the writhing shadows, but the light did not escape.
He turned and ran. Ran and didn’t look back again as the girl’s screams faded into oblivion. As if she never existed.
Dominic jolted awake in a sweat. “Adara,” he breathed warily.
His fists bunched around the bedroll beneath him, tight enough that his nails threatened to tear through it.
He’d never seen anything like it before.
Shadows coming to life, draining the soul from anything it touched.
He shuddered at the thought of her being consumed by her greatest fear.
The dream felt so real. The sound of her terrified voice, the reeking smell of the rotting corpses, the blood-soaked ground beneath his feet. He could have sworn he was awake. The fright in Adara’s eyes—
No, it wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. A memory that completed what the Whisperer had begun to show him.
He ran a hand through his hair in distress, rising to his feet on wobbly legs.
Then he carefully tiptoed through the desert.
Sand shifted beneath his feet as he tried not to step on the others in the dim moonlight.
He scrambled through the darkness until he was a short distance away from the others camped in the middle of the desert.
He heaved in the chilly night air, swallowing back the bile rising in his throat.
What kind of Hel had he and Adara been through that left him reeling so terribly to have thought he’d be better off not remembering?
That he’d been driven to enough agony that he’d rid himself of the memories instead of living with them, leaving a gap in the timeline of his life where he knew nothing.
But there had always been that one feeling he couldn’t shake. That no matter how strong of magic he used, he would never forget that he had fallen in love with a girl who never reciprocated his feelings. That no matter how many keys he stole, no heart would ever truly belong to him.
A deep sense of dread sank in his chest, weighing him down, collapsing his lungs.
Dominic stumbled. The world tilted with each jarring movement.
Something inside his chest strained, a deep, unending pain that had only been suppressed, never healed.
His breaths came out in shallow pants. He collapsed onto his knees, hands braced against the ground.
Sand sifted through his fingers just as her love had slipped right through his grasp.
As much as he wanted to deny it, Dominic Nite had been in love with Adara Rhyes.
And she loved Callan.
Because she believed Cal was her soulmate.
Because Dominic was never good enough. Because he was a heartless monster who could not love or be loved, no matter how badly he wished for it. He had let himself fall to the darkness—Adara’s worst nightmare—which kept her at a distance as he desperately reached for her light.
The gods Adara was so desperate to believe in had given her the love of a boy who was not even made for her. And she’d given her love to a boy who died. And with him, her love died too.
And Dominic? He’d never get to experience that.
Because there was no way in Hel that—even if they were meant for one another, even if Adara found it in her heart to love again—she would accept it.
He’d seen it before. People had rejected Calandra’s choice in partners.
Yet he found himself hoping for a future that would never happen, not with this war.
There was no future where they both continued on after this.
He’d take her key, take her power, and crush her life within his hands.
He had no other choice.
In all his years of manipulation and deceit to make others love him, Dominic had never failed. In all his years of wishing for one of those keys to turn into a ring around his finger, none ever did. No soulmate. Just another life to take for his own, another key to add to his collection.
But Adara . . . the echoes of her heart could not be erased from his mind.
He didn’t know until now, but with every person he’d manipulated, with every key he’d taken, it was hers that he was searching for—even before he met her. Even with the magnitude of a thousand lifetimes, Dominic could not shake the feeling her soul left imprinted on him.
Dominic Nite did not believe in the gods.
Sometimes, he even doubted the power of the keys—if they truly did identify one’s soulmate.
But in that moment, a teardrop, the wetness a foreign chill, slid down his cheek as he contemplated the repercussions of his actions.
Of draining the keys of the lives tied to them.
Of carving out his heart and tossing it into the ocean.
All the dark and heinous crimes he’d committed weighed on his soul with such force crashing down on him.
Another tear rolled down his face, stinging like acid, the feeling so unusual that Dominic wondered if he had any shred of humanity left in him. He loathed the sadness tearing apart his mind, the wetness streaking his cheeks.
Perhaps this was his punishment for everything. Unrequited love from the only soul he wished it from. To be damned by the gods to never experience having someone made for him and only him.
Or maybe he’d ruined it all by himself.
Footsteps sounded lightly behind him. Dominic angrily swiped at his face, soaking up the dampness with the sleeve of his tunic. Although the tears stopped coming, the ache in his chest never halted.
“Dominic?” Ace said cautiously, inching toward him, gently laying a hand on his shoulder.
Dominic didn’t look at him.
“Dominic, what’s wrong?” his second asked, worry instantly overtaking any other emotion.
He didn’t reply. His mind was too occupied with churning new schemes to fix this mess.
He’d fallen in love before Adara, and he’d killed that girl all the same.
He could still win this war. He could still win Adara’s key and kill her in the end.
No matter how much it broke him. It was better than the death that would consume him if he failed to drain the life of another’s key.
His heart had already been broken, tossed into the sea.
There was nothing for Adara to worm her way into.
Nothing but an abyss of darkness that would swallow her whole with no remorse.
The corner of Dominic’s lips twisted in a sinister smile.
“How can I have a soulmate—” he said, rising to his feet, jaw set with determination.
His voice cracked along with whatever sliver of humanity was left inside him, shattering into knife-like edges.
The words came out sharp and full of malice. “When I don’t even have a soul?”