God, I’d been so wrong.
So. Wrong.
The dream haunted me, fragments, bits and pieces of Hope’s smile invaded my consciousness. Maybe a side effect of the demon bite was that I was wishing for things that could never happen.
“You haven’t sought out sex.”
“Nope.” My body jerked at the thought, screamed at me to do something about the pain slicing down my chest, cutting me open, filleting me alive. My heart felt like it was going to explode. And maybe it would — maybe that was what had happened to the rest of the sirens in existence. Without sex, without love, they simply ceased to care, and they lay rotting in a bed until their hearts just… burst.
“Damn, I’ve never heard such depressing thoughts from you.” Cassius had the audacity to laugh.
“And yet he smiles.” I clenched my eyes shut as another wave of pain hit me between them. Oh good, a new location for the lust to pulse.
“It’s easy you know… the answer to this puzzle, simply go have sex with something.”
I clenched my teeth together. “I want Hope.”
“Do you deserve her?”
“No.”
“And yet you still want her?”
“Yes.”
“Can you protect her?”
“I can try.”
“I’ll ask you the same thing tomorrow… try to get some sleep.” Cassius stood and walked out of the room, leaving a trail of white frost behind him.
I tried to sleep.
It had to be night, right?
Ethan and Mason took turns making sure I wasn’t dead — their words not mine, and while I didn’t deteriorate, I wasn’t getting better. The wound wasn’t healing, but neither was it festering.
I was in a constant state of arousal and pain.
And the only way to stop it was to do what sirens did — get laid.
And in the cruelest joke of all, every time I thought about jumping in my car, or in my case hobbling toward the door, I saw her face.
A sick feeling would invade my stomach until it felt like I was going to puke all over Mason.
And I’d close my eyes, only for the torture to continue.
Her. I wanted her.
I just wished I knew why.
Why I was compelled, why it felt like I had lived an eternity without her — and was only now realizing how empty it had been, especially since the dream felt so real. Like I’d lived that life with her — but instead, it was a cruel joke from Cassius, or maybe just a cruel joke from the universe, once again reminding me, that even if I had her.
I would never deserve her.
I was bad.
I would always be bad.