King Tomb (Forever Evermore, #3)(77)

Cahal snorted softly. “Just get your kid to drink it. After she does, mine will soon follow.”

Antonio’s head teetered from side to side. “You’re probably right.” His lips parted…and he made that gurgling sound I had become so accustomed to hearing from him. Golden eyes narrowed. “Just drink the damned thing.”

Carefully, I picked just one vial. I lifted it to eye level. I stared. “Why would Elder Harcourt do a memory wipe on us…only to give us the memories back?”

Antonio gurgled once more. Growled. Shook his head. “You don’t have time for this.”

My eyes met his. “What do you mean?”

“Just. Drink. It.”

I stared. Blinked. “What happens next in time?”

His lips pinched, not a word uttered.

Tearing my gaze away from him, I peered…at my husband.

He gazed back, his spring green eyes dead set on mine. “It’s your choice.”

Slowly my chest rose and fell. “Okay.”





Chapter Fifteen


With my eyes on my husband’s, who was a stranger still, I popped the cork on one of the vials.

Breathed in once deeply. Out came the breath just as gradually.

Then I closed my eyes and lifted the vial to my lips.

I drank it down in one shot.

My body jerked as corked spells and time washed through my veins in a chilling rush. Flashes erupted behind my closed eyelids.

Scenes…so many scenes.

Feelings…so many feelings.

My body convulsed as the missing pieces of my life replayed in a continual loop, invading my mind with reality. Everything I hadn’t known that was in my past. Every cherished moment I now remembered. Every heartache I had known was now a part of me again.

What radiated the most…was my love for my husband.

My heart broke time and again, then blistered with agonized adoration. It pumped deep within my soul. The blackness that had consumed me was flooded with nothing but pure, gut-wrenching love.

The vial dropped from my fingertips as I sucked in a harsh breath.

My eyelashes fluttered in the night breeze, while hot tears, which I hadn’t even known I had shed, were cooling against my cheeks. My chest ached with a new madness to embrace my husband and never let him go.

Ezra was mine.

Directly behind me, Elder Merrick sniffed the air, his words whisper soft. “It worked.”

Goddamn right it did.

My eyes shot open, a feral blue shining like a blaze of warning in the darkness.

Instantly, I lowered my eyes at the sight of my husband. I didn’t want to frighten him.

Ezra’s nostrils were flared, inhaling and exhaling deeply, scenting everything I was feeling. His own green gaze was just barely shining in a frigid wariness. Every muscle on his body was poised to flee from what he sensed from me, his body even slightly turned…but his feet were firmly planted on the moonlit grass. He was just watching me.

My wolf howled deep inside my mind…but I pulled back with steel mental gloves all of my desires to tackle him to the ground and shove a vial’s liquid down his throat. I had become the ice queen bitch this last year. I knew how to shut off my emotions now.

And he needed to see that it could be done.

My jaw set, and I felt the cool rush of ice seep back into my bones. Into my soul. All I had to do was think of…killing Elder Harcourt. He had taken my husband away from me, torn away my two other best friends, and he had played with us, and all I wanted was to crush his heart inside my hand. My eyes now glowed with the frost of a killer as I peered up to spring green eyes. I wiped the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand, never glancing away from him. “Drink it.”

Ezra inhaled deeply again. “No.”

I lifted one red brow. “Are you a King? Or a coward with a pretty crown?”

He stiffened. “What?”

“Antonio was right. This isn’t a decision. You just do it. It was, no, it is your life.” I stared just as coldly as he was. “You. Just. Drink. It.”

His eyes narrowed dangerously. He cracked his neck and stepped forward with a casual stride, then he began circling me, blatantly sniffing me at every angle. “You called me a coward. No one does that and lives.”

I snorted…even while I remembered he didn’t love me. “I asked if you were a coward.”

His Vampire growled quietly, then his tone turned intimate. Quiet. “You care for me.”

“I do.” Easy. I wouldn’t lie to him.

He hummed softly. “You love me.”

I nodded. “I do.”

He inhaled deeply. “You don’t smell like it anymore.”

My lips curved as he stopped directly in front of me, his gaze roaming my frame for any crack, any weakness, he could find. “I did learn a few things over the past year.”

“Hmm.” Once more, he leaned in, inhaling. “If you could do anything right now, what would it be?”

A soft chuckle escaped my lips. “Your dad and mine are here. I won’t answer that.”

His arched black brows rose, then he lifted a finger and poked my shoulder. “Did you feel that?”

“Yes.”

He shoved my shoulders, knocking me back a step. Instantly, he breathed deeply again.