Then something tugged on my mind.
I swatted it away, curling into a ball, becoming invisible.
The blackness grew darker, wanting to keep me just as much as I wanted to keep it.
But the tug came again, harder, stronger.
I fought it.
But it was so persistent. It scrabbled at my mind, breaking my happy bond and dragging me unwillingly from the deep.
It wrecked my contentedness.
It broke my happiness.
No!
I turned feral.
You can’t take me.
I belong here. Not there.
Here I had a sense of infinity. I wasn’t just human, I was so much more.
I didn’t want to go.
I like it here.
Here where I don’t care or want or fear.
But whatever it was wouldn’t listen. It pulled me faster and faster from my sanctuary.
Blackness faded, becoming brighter and brighter.
I had no choice but to hurtle toward the light, breaking in two with sadness.
Then everything disintegrated.
The darkness. The comfort. The gentle kind of warmth.
It all vanished.
I froze, completely lost and vulnerable.
Where am I?
Something brilliant and bright shone into my eyes. I blinked in pain, seeing an echo of the deep yellow sun.
The clouds are gone.
I blinked again. Bringing the world I once knew into focus.
It made me wish I was blind.
With my eyesight came an unfurling of senses as my soul slipped back into a body I no longer wanted, breathing life into limbs that’d turned into a corpse.
There was something I was supposed to do in this world. Something extremely important.
The knowledge slammed into me with wet panic.
Breathe!
I couldn’t breathe.
A shadow crossed the blistering sun, pressing soft lips against mine. My nose was pinched then a huge gust of air whistled down my throat, bringing sweet, sweet oxygen.
My chest expanded then deflated.
Not enough.
More. Give me more.
The life-giver understood, once again filling me with breath along with forgiveness, sorrow, and regret.
I retched.
Strong hands flipped me onto my side, patting my back with solid thumps as I vomited up bucket loads of lake.
It hurt.
God, it hurt.
My lungs turned inside out with agony as the overstretched organ gave up trying to survive on water, holding out eager hands for air instead.
With air came life, and with life came the knowledge that I’d died.
Tears sprang to my eyes.
I’d died.
And I preferred it.
I sank into despair.
How had I given up so easily?
Then realization slammed into me of who I was and where.
I was Nila.
This was the Second Debt.
All around me stood Hawks.
Bastard, traitorous Hawks.
Then it didn’t matter anymore.
Pain enveloped me in a heavy cloak, squeezing me from all angles. Agony I’d never felt before battered me like a storm. Agony lived in my head, my heart, my bones, my blood.
Everything hurt.
Everything had died.
Coming alive was sheer torture, welcomed by a ring of devils.
“Come back to me, Nila.” Jethro breathed into my ear, barely registering above the bone-crippling agony I lived. “I won’t let you fucking leave me.” He licked a tear leaking from my eye. “Not yet. I won’t let you leave, not yet.”
I couldn’t look at him.
I couldn’t listen to him.
So, I focused on the spot on top of the hill—on a black speck spotlighted by the waning sun.
No, not a speck.
A woman.
Dark hair, feminine grace.
Jasmine.
Seeing her stole my tension. I relaxed. My screaming muscles stopped twitching, melting into the mud upon which I lay.
I didn’t need to fight anymore.
Jasmine was regal with honour and resplendent with pride—exactly as expected from any Hawk descendant.
I had the strange urge to wave—to have her grant me mercy.
How was it possible someone could wield so much power even while she was as broken as me?
I’d drowned and come back to life.
I’d been fixed.
However, Jasmine never would.
My eyes drifted from her beautiful face to her legs.
I sighed in sympathy for such a plight.
Wheels replaced legs. Footholds instead of shoes.
Jasmine Hawk was paralysed.
Wheelchair bound and reclusive.
It all suddenly made a lot more sense. About Jethro. His father. His sister.
And then it all became too much.
I drifted off into fluffy clouds.
I said goodbye for the second time.
I CARRIED HER unconscious form back to hell.
I turned my back on my father, grandmother, and siblings.
I let them whisper about my downfall and plot my death.
I did all of those things because the moment I’d felt Nila give up, nothing else fucking mattered.
Money, Hawksridge, diamonds—none of it.
It was all bullshit.
And I didn’t fucking care.
All I cared about was making sure Nila healed.
I couldn’t let her die.
She couldn’t leave me alone.
Not now.
Stalking up the hill, across the grounds, and into the Hall, I ignored the Diamond brothers who’d been watching the spectacle with an array of binoculars and telescopes, and stormed to the back of the house.
In the parlour loomed a huge swinging door, disguised as a bookcase.
Years ago, the door had hidden a bunker. A secret entrance into the catacombs below the house. They were there to save my ancestors from war and mutiny.
Now, that bunker had been converted and served a different kind of function, along with an addition found ninety years after the first brick had been laid.
Nila’s body was icy and soaking. Her clothing dripped down my front, leaving a trail of droplets wherever we went. Her long wet hair trailed over my arm like kelp. Not for the first time, I fantasised I’d plucked a kelpie from the pond and taken her hostage. My very own water nymph to keep for good luck.
She would make me right.
She had to.
Pulling on a certain book, the mechanism unlocked, swinging the door open.