Page 2 of Haunted Nightmares
To breathe and function.
To move through the days and nights on autopilot, operating on muscle memory alone until something causes the insanity to flare.
Then and only then is there any change, and I know with one hundred percent certainty, that change is never good.
One does not survive losing their fated mate, and I’m too much of a bastard to put my time left on this earth to good use the way I should, in turn dishonoring her memory and descending into a madness that isn’t killing me fast enough.
“I told you we’d find him.”
My head turns ever so slightly at the sound of a familiar voice coming from my right, Orion’s whispered words echoing off the columns as he walks the front of the hall toward me.
“We foundsomething, all right,” Aries whispers back, an obvious question and hesitance in his tone. “Not sure what, exactly, but it’s been found.”
My lips twist into an empty smirk as I keep my back to them and widen my stance. “Gentlemen. To what do I owe the honor of this unwelcome visit?”
“We, uh… we stopped by the house,” Orion says as he slowly moves down the stairs. “Stopped by several times actually, but no one ever seems to be home.”
Aries follows him and clears his throat. “Declan said he hasn’t seen you in months.”
I roll my eyes as I reach down and take my knob in hand, aiming Excalibur at the base of the statue in front of me. “He hasn’t. I no longer need his services, which is also why it appears no one is at the house. I’m the only one there, and only when the sun is out.”
“So, you’re still going out at night?”
Shrugging one shoulder, I glance back at the males just as I start to piss on the broken pieces of a fallen shrine to my late father. “You could call it that, yeah.”
Orion steps closer as I turn back to make sure I’m hitting my target. “If you’re still going out, why haven’t we… Are youpeeingon that?”
“Yes,” I grunt, as I roll my eyes again. “It’s the only thing he’s good for at this point, pissing on the memory of the bastard who sired me. I’ve considered taking a shite in the prick’s throne but I haven’t eaten in…” I tilt my head as I try to remember the last time I ate real food or fed in any way, but I honestly can’t recall. “A long bloody time, which makes defecating at all rather difficult.”
“Look, Wraith, we need to?— “
Holding up my free hand to stop him, I give my dick a few good shakes then work up what little saliva I can and spit on the face of the male I’d gladly kill a second time, given the chance, then hiss my words in Welsh. “Rwy'n gobeithio y byddwch yn llosgi yn uffern.” And I mean that, though burning in hell doesn’t seem severe enough for him.
“Wraith. Please, we just want?—“
“What?” I bark as I spin on the couple. “You just want,what?”
Both males gasp when I face them fully, Orion’s jaw dropping as Aries takes an unsteady step back.
And I just start to laugh because this is all so incredibly fucked up.
“What? Never seen a Descendant after they lose their mate?” I look down at my naked body, taking in the bands of ink-blackened skin at each of my joints, the way the same ebony of my eyes spiderwebs and bleeds from my ankles, knees and hips, my shoulders, elbows and wrists into the porcelain white in between.
The tips of my fingers and toes are the same, an unnatural shade of decay marring my hands and feet, trying desperately to consume the stark white space of the top and bottom of both.
The center of my chest is the darkest part of me now, an ebony so dark it looks like a bottomless hole right over my heart. That’s where it started, where my body almost seemed to begin decomposing. To touch the blackened skin with eyes closed wouldn’t feel any different than touching the ivory, save for what could be described as scarring, raised though still smooth and taut, still cool, but it is decay.
I don’t expect my body is what has these two gaping at me in shock, though.
I lift my gaze to theirs, cocking my head as I tisk. “No, I don’t suppose you have. Most Descendants are either disgustingly mated, never mated,”—I smirk like a bastard— “ordead.”
Orion narrows his stormy gray eyes immediately and straightens his posture. “It’s nice to see you’re still an asshole. And you look like complete shit.”
“Sorry to disappoint,” I scoff as I push past them. “Next time we run into each other outside the abandoned Hall of VampireAffairs, I’ll make sure to dress in full uniform. Keeping up appearances, and all that.”
“You’re too thin,” Aries says as they start following me. “Still muscley as hell, but you’re way too thin. And those black marks. They don’t look right. Maybe you should see Lorna, I’m sure?— “
Losing my ever loving shite, I stop dead in my tracks and spin to face them again. “I’mrotting, you twat. Rotting from the inside out. My heart,”—I point to my chest—“is literally dying, and it’s carrying polluted blood throughout my body. And since I’ve no appetite for food and refuse to feed, it gets worse every bloody day. And this.” I motion to my face where the ebony webbing has started to spread from the corners of my mouth toward my lips and down to my jaw, bleeding in harsh lines from my eyelids up to my brows, down over my cheekbones, and toward my temples. Oddly enough, the normally inky-blue tips of my hair have gone completely white, but I give the shaggy mop a flip and glare at them. “It’s the icing on the fucking cake because I didn’t have a bloody clue how quickly the madness would kill me but I’m hoping that my appearance means it’ll be sooner rather than later, so, if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my nightly routine.”
