“Isn’t it? Look at things through my eyes. I was almost killed because of you, because I can’t keep my head on straight as far as you’re concerned. Then you miraculously show up, with powers you’ve never possessed, and you’ve been bedding down with another. What other lies do you want me to hear? What other things would you say to make me soften toward you more than I already have? Was that your intention? Did you and your lover hope to gain some control over me and use it as a bargaining tool?” His merciless gaze was impossible to look away from. “You wasted your virginity if that was your goal. You just made the biggest mistake of your life.”
“Goddamn you, listen to me!” I screamed even as I started to cry, weak in the face of my own fury. I thought I knew what a broken heart was, but I was wrong. What I’d suffered before had been grief, something painful but possible to endure. This, on the other hand, felt as if my very soul was being ripped apart, obliterated in such a way it would be impossible to completely piece the woman I’d become back together again.
“I can’t believe I allowed myself to be in this position again. There was just something about you that I couldn’t shake, a vulnerability that I couldn’t turn away from. Was that a lie too?” He glared at me, and I could see not only anger, but misery etched all over his face. “Wasn’t it enough that you brought a vampire to his knees?”
“Please.” I softened my voice, trying to reach out to him as lovers who shared everything were supposed to. “Let me explain.”
My tender tone flipped an invisible switch inside the man gazing down at me, changing him from tormented to livid. “I don’t have to let you explain, remember?” I’d never seen the look in his eyes before, as if I’d been completely cut out, permanently amputated from his heart. “I can get every ounce of information I want without it.”
The last time Disco had taken my memories, it was a pleasant feeling, as if butterflies were swarming in my mind. I’d been told his ability was more powerful than I imagined, more terrifying, but I didn’t believe it.
Shame on me for not listening.
I wailed, a scream unlike any in my life, as he invaded my mind without consent, taking access to all of my thoughts and memories. Once the door was opened, it was like watching a movie, only it was my life shown in flashes. I couldn’t stop it or slow things down. As we neared the memory of my parents’ deaths, I screamed again—louder this time. I wasn’t afraid to confront what had happened to those I loved. It was what came after that I didn’t want to see.
He made his way forward despite my thrashing and weak swings aimed at his head, through memories both sweet and horrific, until there was no part of me he didn’t know inside and out. As he reached my arrival in New York and the first time we met, my screams had become pitiful mews and I’d stopped lashing out with my fists, my inhales so strangled I thought I might stop breathing. He continued, relentless, past our times together, our history, and then he was at the moment I made my debt with Zagan.
As he accessed the memories of the future, I went slack beneath him, too weak to fight, too drained to care. He studied each memory closely, and I felt him shaking violently when he came to the one moment that created an impenetrable wall between us. I didn’t know how he felt when he learned the truth. My mind was an absolute wreck, unable to focus on one memory or thought. Unexpectedly, the hands at my wrists became pliable. I could have ripped away if I wanted to, but I didn’t. Instead, I allowed him to see the rest, to know of every single thing that had transpired to bring me here, to this moment.
When he finished, he remained as he was over me. He was looking at me. I could feel the heaviness of his gaze on my face. I stayed in the same position he’d placed me, crying silently with my eyes closed. He moved away, but I didn’t have the will or strength to care. I stayed exactly as he’d left me, broken and bleeding on the inside, my heart carved out.
I had always assumed being raped meant your body had to be forcibly taken against your will. I had no idea the very same thing could be done via the mind. I felt violated in ways I couldn’t yet conceive. Images from the past bled with ones taking place in the present and it was too much.