Temperature, colour, and taste.
Three things that I’d always taken for granted but now were the three most important things to me.
My senses shook off their atrophy and craved more stimulation.
More!
Please, more.
I basked in the treasures.
I was grateful and in awe, but I was also greedy.
Greedy for sight and sound and touch.
For her.
Eleanor...please.
Slowly, the berry taste faded, the ice melted, and the redness around me snuffed out. The ladder I’d formed vanished from beneath me, sending me hurtling back into the starkness.
NO!
I couldn’t go back.
I couldn’t die down there.
I couldn’t detach myself from every precious gift that a body could give me.
I needed to touch again, laugh again, swim again.
I needed to marry the goddess I was fated to meet and get on my knees before her and offer her everything.
I owed her everything because I knew these flashes of awareness were thanks to her.
She was the one interrupting the midnight.
The one throwing me lifelines and trying to pull me free.
I didn’t want to let her down. I didn’t want to leave her alone.
Give it to me again!
The blackness thickened.
I slipped.
A diving belt lassoed around my middle, complete with weights and anchors, yanking me into the deep.
...
...
...
Blue lit up my world, drenching me in periwinkle, teal, and cobalt.
I was ready this time.
I charged toward the pigment. I harnessed a body I could not see and used colour as my instrument to feel it.
To slip into fingers and toes.
To focus on the softness along my back and the faint throbbing in my legs.
I gave up on swimming toward a surface that didn’t exist and instead fought to regain ownership of something that would have the power to keep me from the black’s grasp.
Ice returned...smeared gently along my lower lip before inserting just a little onto my tongue.
Flavour smashed through me, vicious and all-consuming.
It tasted like summer and sunshine.
Blueberries.
Ambrosial medicine making me want more and more and more.
I moaned with greed.
I tried to stick out my tongue for a bigger serving.
Nothing moved.
Why can’t I goddamn move?
I couldn’t do this anymore.
I couldn’t be trapped here any longer.
I wanted to open my eyes.
Open my eyes!
Open my eyes!
My furious heart pumped hard, filling the void with rapid drumbeats.
I lost it.
My heart had killed me, yet it was the only part of me still alive. It’d deleted me as its host and now existed in an empty chest, keeping an empty body the prison for a broken mind.
I couldn’t accept that.
I won’t!
It’s mine.
I went wild.
I sank into violence and beat up nothing and everything.
...
...
...
Another taste of ice.
Along with a fourth gift.
A gift that I’d had at the start of my incarceration but had lost along the way.
Hearing.
“...so hard, seeing you like this.”
That voice.
Like stardust and sand, like raindrops and satin.
Eleanor.
I stopped my endless war.
I hung in the darkness to listen.
“I’ve tried everything, Sully. I’ve argued with Louise about what I’m doing. She tells me I could kill you. That I might choke you by giving you a taste. But...the first night I ran my finger with berry smoothie along your bottom lip, your heart spiked. Did you feel it? Did it mean anything at all? Can you hear me, or are you fading, just like she warned?”
Silence slipped between us.
Speak again.
Please, for the love of everything fucking holy, speak to me.
“Three nights I’ve repeated myself. Three nights, I’ve made you a smoothie and fed you just the essence of it, knowing how dangerous it is to put something in your mouth when you can’t swallow. By trying to save you, I might just kill you, and you know what...I’m beginning to think you might want that.”
Her voice cracked, but she heard my plea and kept talking. “Jess is awake, by the way. She woke up over a week ago. Dr Campbell let her move into Cal’s villa yesterday. Her wounds are healing. She’ll never have children, but she’s alive, and I’ve never seen her so happy. She said you’re aware Cal had finally seen how she felt about him. Well, they’re taking things slow...obviously with them both wounded, but they’re together.”
A quick slash of blueberry on my tongue before her voice dropped with painful secrets. “I can’t be around them for long. Does that make me a terrible person? I’m happy for them, of course I am, but seeing them laughing together, touching...it breaks my heart, Sully.” Her voice was as tragic as I felt, heavy and hitched with grief. “I just wish...I wish you were here. I mean, you are here, but you’re not. I have your body, but without your soul...there’s nothing.”
I’m so fucking sorry, Eleanor.
“Almost six weeks you’ve been hiding. Six weeks of sleepless nights and endless hoping. I hate myself that I’m complaining when you’re the one trapped in there, but...it’s so, so hard. So hard not knowing how I can help. So hard thinking I’m not helping enough. So hard just letting time either cure you or kill you.”
I’m here.
I’m not going to die.
I give you my word.
I’ll find some way to get back to you.
“Louise said if you stay under much longer, your body will start shutting down. She keeps trying to talk to me about the end. Whether or not I’m prepared to sign documents that allow you to fade peacefully, or if she needs to have life support ready to drag out your catatonic existence forever.”
A sliver of ice danced over my lower lip as she ran her thumb with blueberry smoothie.
“I told her that it’s your choice. It’s always been your choice, and I have no power to make you choose, but...if you can hear me, I need to say something. I need you to know. After all, you can only make a choice on informed facts. You don’t know what I’ve done. You think the world you left is still the one you’ll wake up in, but...it’s not.”
What do you mean?
What did you do?
“Before I tell you, you have to promise me you’ll forgive me. Then again, if you wake and hate me, I can accept that. Wake and send me away and I’ll go. I’ll leave and I won’t come back because I’d rather live in a world where you’re alive and not with me, than a world where you don’t survive.”
You’re scaring me, Jinx.
What did you do?
“I keep wondering if I’ve gone too far, but...I did it because it was the right thing to do. And something tells me...you were ready to do the right thing.”
Tell me.
She paused and darkness crept from the shadows. Cloying and deleting, blackness came for me.
Speak, Eleanor!
Keep me with you.
“I went through your emails.” She stopped for a moment before continuing, “I cleared out anything that could be read as suspicious and saved correspondence from your company. Cal has been in contact with Peter Beck and your scientists are working as normal. And as far as your corporate life is concerned, your requests to your lawyer were wise. Cal is aware you’ve left Sinclair and Sinclair Group to him—not that he’s accepted that you’re gone, of course—but he is looking after your investments.”
She saw.
She knows I bequeathed—
&
nbsp; “You gave me Goddess Isles.” Her voice cracked with tears. “You gave me Pika and Skittles.” Something thumped against my chest. A feminine fist. A bite of pain. “You chased after me all while knowing you wouldn’t come home, and I hate you for that. I curse you for putting me first because it was never meant to be that way. We were equals, Sully. You are not my master with the obligation to keep me safe. You are not my husband with vows to protect me in sickness and in health. You were meant to stay alive so we could be happy!”
Christ, Eleanor.
My beating heart splintered down the middle. Her sadness kept me shackled, not allowing the blackness to claim me.
“Anyway.” She sniffed back tears and kept going, “The police came back two days ago with a search warrant.”
What?
“Cal and I gave them free access to your databases, your laptop, and your office. They swarmed the island from the guest villas to the goddess villas and every pool and restaurant in between.”
Holy shit.
I would wake—if I could wake—in handcuffs.
What was the fucking point in leaving one jail for another—
“They left with a profuse apology. They wished you a speedy recovery and are satisfied that Goddess Isles is a simple respite for married couples who come for some sexual counselling and relationship advice. That was my idea, by the way.”
Her soft laughter undid me.
“I could wipe your emails clean and destroy any files that might have hinted at purchased goddesses, but I couldn’t hide the abundance of accommodation and the aura of paradise and perversions.”
Her lips pressed against my ear. “I stayed with the police as they did their tour. I grew wet as I led them through my villa and looked at the sink where you took me. I wanted to touch myself as we walked on the beach where you fucked me on all fours in the shallows. I answered their questions as we stood in the same place I watched you appear from the sea and strode half-naked toward goddesses who wanted you. I escorted them around the restaurant and onto the terrace and recalled every vicious thing I said to you after you made me sit on your fingers. So many places you’ve corrupted me, Sully, and now, all those sins are washed away. They found nothing incriminating because there is nothing. Not anymore. A fresh start.”
How?
How did she hide the goddesses? Were they still on Lebah? What about the girls’ files and their real names and—
“Cal burned almost every piece of paperwork in your office, and together, we sent the goddesses home. I memorised the files before they went up in smoke. Sailor, Trinity, Jewel, Diamond, and Blossom, also known as Danielle Scott, Selena Narce, Baylee Sharp, Alana Black, and Ashlee Colt. All five girls are free. They’re being watched, don’t worry, and they were paid their usual fee, but they are no longer prisoners, and you no longer have the curse of being a procurer of women.”
I hung in the darkness.
I couldn’t process.
I couldn’t reply.
I was blind to the ever-lightening grey around me.
“So you see, Sully? You can wake up because you’re no longer that man. You might have done things, you might have hurt people, but...I know in my heart that you aren’t that person anymore. You honour all life, not just wildlife. You love me, and by loving me, you can’t hurt humans because we are human. I have to believe that, and if you believe that too, then...you don’t need to be afraid of waking up anymore.”
I was dizzy.
Drowning.
Things swirled and collided, bouncing me around in the grey.
“While I’m confessing, I might as well tell you everything.”
Another slice of sleety blueberry on my bottom lip.
“You told Cal to burn the Euphoria villa, but I stopped him. The animals that survived on Serigala have been relocated here. They’re currently housed in Euphoria’s villa and being tended to by the two vets you’d sent for—one large animal and one small—along with Etti and Johan, who survived the bombing. The shipment of cows and donkeys that you agreed to take on is due to dock next week. I’ve contacted your usual feed suppliers and took the liberty of asking Peter Beck to replace the medical equipment and drugs that were lost in the bombing of Serigala. A clinic is due to be built when locals can source building materials.”
I couldn’t breathe anymore.
I couldn’t cling to one thing because she’d given me everything.
The greyness kept swirling, pinpricks of light spearing through the shadows.
Something warm spread along my side as if she’d lay down beside me. Another lash of blueberry before her sweet, liberating voice murmured, “Oh, one last thing.”
She yawned as if her confessions had drained her into slumber.
“I gave the order to kill Drake. He lasted three days in his illusion before a bullet was lodged into his brain. He’s gone. I watched it with my own eyes because I wanted to be able to tell you, with all the conviction in my heart, that he can no longer touch you, touch me, touch your animals, touch anyone or anything you care about. Everything you’ve been fighting, everything you wish you could undo is undone. His body is in pieces and buried...just like I buried you...Sullivan Sinclair. The man you used to be is dead.”
I faded.
The greyness blended with darkness, threading with splashes of reds and blues.
“If you do wake up, Sully...you won’t wake up as you.” Her soft lips pressed against my cheek, her voice slipping into sleep. “You’ll wake up as no one. You don’t have to be who you were. If you choose to come back to me...you can choose to be whoever you want to be because...you’re free.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
EXHAUSTION FROM BLIND HOPE and bedside devotion finally knocked me out.
Three days since I’d been on Lebah.
Three days since I’d left Sully’s side.
With his goddesses gone, emails dealt with, animals tended, police mollified, Cal and Jess healing, and Pika and Skittles healthy, I had nothing else to occupy my torment.
I found no enjoyment on the island. I had no desire to go swimming in the warm tide or dive into refreshing Nirvana. Walks beneath palm trees and sitting in crystal sand held no appeal. I wanted nothing to do with paradise—even if that paradise had been bequeathed to me.
It was a forgery—just like Sully had said when I’d first arrived. Every perfect thing was fake because nothing had the power to bring him back.
I didn’t even have the willpower to cry anymore. With each hour that Sully continued to lie beside me, vacant and still, I withdrew into myself. I lost my spark, my faith. I sank into aching acceptance that perhaps love was a lie and our blistering electrical connection was the biggest con of all.
He’s made his choice.
And...I have to honour that.
I have to let him go...
Louise had pulled me aside this morning and told me my shock had most likely slipped into depression.
She’d offered me a few pills to take the edge off.
She’d told me to stop tracing Sully’s lips with berry smoothies because it could cause asphyxiation, pneumonia, and so many other complications.
She’d said I needed a break and suggested I sleep at my villa on the beach for a night.
I’d snapped.
I’d crawled out of my sloth-like sadness and thrown her and her two colleagues out. I’d told her to sleep in my villa instead. That I needed some time alone with Sully, even if our conversation and affection was completely one-sided.
I needed privacy to say a proper goodbye and tell him everything that’d happened without an audience. I wanted him to myself after having to share him with needles and monitors and oxygen tubes.
As exhaustion pulled me deeper, tears broke free.
I didn’t know if I cried in my sleep or if I was still awake, but fragmented images played across my mind.
“Drink.” Sully forced elixir down my throat and stripped away my clothing. “Let me see what I’ve bought
.”
I trembled and stood before him naked. His cruel collected visage crumpled as he drank me in. “Fuck...I’ve finally found you.”
He dropped to his knees and brought my clit to his mouth. “I’ve been waiting for you my entire life.”
The dream swirled and dumped me into another splintered fable.
“Are you ready, Jinx?” He grinned, naked and proud, his gorgeous ruthlessness taking my breath away.
“Ready for what?”
Strapping me into the Euphoria harness, he ducked to kiss me. “For the rest of our lives together.”
The dream popped and exploded into a new scene.
“Feel me inside you?” Sully’s teeth clamped on the back of my neck. A love bite from a mate. My perfect other half, hilt-deep inside me, mounting me from behind as I braced on all fours.
I moaned and rocked back, pushing him deeper. “I feel you.”
“It’s not just my body that’s inside yours, Eleanor. My soul is. My heart is. Every thought and fear, every hope and dream are now inside you because you’re inside me.”
Another switch, this one breaking my heart with longing.
“Do you, Eleanor, greatest Jinx of my life, Grace, take me, Sullivan Sinclair, as your lawfully wedded husband until death do us part?”
“I do. I do with everything that I am.”
“You’ve made me the happiest—” He clutched his chest. He fisted his heart. His eyes caught mine, widening with worry and pain. “El—”
I caught him as he fell.
I cradled him as he died.
I rocked over his body and SCREAMED.
Chapter Thirty-Five
WAKING UP WAS A mundane habit.
An inconvenience if you were a light sleeper, and a nightmare if you were an insomniac. Waking up happened automatically and spontaneously, so much so that most people took it for granted—just like they took breathing for granted, and blinking and swallowing and all the other mechanical parts of a body that didn’t require conscious thought.
Waking up for me wasn’t like that.
I didn’t slip from sleep to immediate comprehension. My eyes didn’t snap open and energy didn’t shockwave through my body.
Waking up happened gradually, slowly, so painstakingly frustratingly I wanted to slash at my face and pry open the heaviness of my eyelids.
Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5) Page 24
