Each memory rips through me, and although I stow myself against the emotions, I can’t prevent the pain that accompanies each image. Pain for a love never acknowledged, pain for a friendship now gone. Pain for a loss I can’t possibly endure.

The questions push me further into the space in between, the place where my madness lays waiting for me. I struggle with each question, determined to extract some sort of answer, an explanation for everything that has happened so far. But no answers come and I’m forced to acknowledge the feeling lodged between my two worldsTerror.

My mind is quiet now. There is no fire or ash, no sulfur or shattering glass. Only silence, empty and cold.

My thoughts are quiet, but not calm. There is a terror on the edge of the silence, a terror fed by my burning flesh and the stench of death.

Ien stopped her voice with more kisses, more promises of a world filled with only them.

She opens her eyes as the fury continues, pinning me with her glare. Her gaze reached into my soul as I spin the music back to the simple melody at its core—our melody. A moment of recognition washes over her, followed by regret, fear, terror. An entire kaleidoscope of emotions exists within a single heartbeat.

He would die in this room, buried alive by the weight of his life.

Forever. He carved the word into his soul. Kiera was his forever, deformity or no deformity.

Cass pulls from my embrace, her mind reaching into my heart. Pain, anger, confusion pass through her eyes. My pain. My anger. My confusion. She swallows hard. “Because?”“Because I traded it all, my heart, my memories, everything. For her.

Every spot his mouth touches closes the empty spaces inside.

I’m not certain what I notice first, the bright flickering light that illuminates the darkness underneath my eyelids, or the shrill screams that pull me form the dredges of sleep. Either way, I’m awake. And afraid.

There are few things I hate more than feeling weak. Needing help or failing top the list. The worst, however, is knowing that all three just happened.

A hand in mine.. hot. Breath on my neck... sweet. The feel of lips on my own... forbidden.

I press my lips hard against hers, tasting her desire, her pain, her love, her confusion. At once I’m in two lives, two worlds, two places.

I never mastered anything. I am damaged. Broken. And I always will be.

She slips into the seat at our table, refusing to look up at me. I reach for her hand, sending a shiver through me when our finger tips touch. She glances at me, her eyes filled with a feral fear that reaches into my depths, pulling on emotions I refuse to acknowledge. Things I can’t feel now. Won’t feel ever again.

She smiles and snuggles into me as we wait for our table. I inhale her scent. Vanilla and something else. Something different. Smokey almost. Sexy. It drives me crazy with need and I have to move away while I can.

A pang of deep longing ripples through me. I’m torn between my promise to send Aydan to the Abyss and my need to keep him safe. The opposing forces fragment what remains of my mind, breaking me down once again.

What is love, Mikayel? Isn't it the most irrational of all human emotions? And the one most forbidden?