It’s just a dream. Just a dream. But goddammit, it wasn’t. I was there, in the moment, living every breath and emotion. Each second had felt just as real as the throbbing in my skull.
I grabbed the sides of my head, grasping how the rest of my body felt. Perfect. I ran my hands over my torso. Whatthehell?
While I’d been away, I had healed.
I can heal! That was what I had said during my “dream.”
Slowly, I got to my feet, noticing the pools of sticky-looking blood on the floor where Mack’s and that woman’s body had been. King and Mia had taken them. To where? Who knew? All that mattered was Mack was dead and I killed him. Killed him. Yes, it was an accident, but that didn’t make it any less painful or horrific. To add frosting on my shitty cake, I then killed a second person. I’d had cause, but once again, what did it matter? Two deaths by my hand. Me. Theodora Valentine.
But you’re going to fix this. At least, I’d fix one of the deaths. I wasn’t ready to let Mack go three thousand years ago, and I wasn’t ready to let him go now.
So how would I get him back? That chalice seemed like my only hope. Of course, King was already looking for it, and I had no doubt he would find it. But here was the thing: Mack was dead, and if his soul had crossed over to this other side King mentioned, Mack was now free from my father’s poison. However, if King brought him back, Mack would still be tormented. That had been Mack’s point all along. He didn’t want to live with the pain and guilt of his memories.
But I can heal him. It was my gift. It always had been. Now I just needed to convince that dark, evil sonofabitch King that just bringing Mack back wasn’t enough. He needed me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
San Francisco. 8:45 p.m.
With very little effort, I found that foggy hill overlooking the Golden Gate from my dreams. And though the old dark house had been leveled long ago—a crisp-white, modern-day palace with floor-to-ceiling windows sitting in its place—it was that same dreary old home with that ominous vibe.
I entered the meticulously landscaped yard filled with vibrant flowers—violets, reds, and yellows—and approached the all-glass front door with a view of the tiled foyer and potted palms.
I reached out my hand to push the doorbell, but then thought to myself how formality and politeness were a waste of time. King had taken my life multiple times. Once in this very spot. That made us like family, right? A really, really dysfunctional family, of course.
I clamped down the lever on the door handle and pushed, not at all surprised to find it unlocked. A cocky sonofabitch like King would never bolt his front door because he’d kill anyone who had the gall to intrude. Which was why I half expected him to come rushing toward me with a giant spear or cleaver or something sharp.
Instead, I heard music, voices, and laughter coming from a room just off of the foyer.
A party?
I hit pause for a moment, thinking this through. My goal was to persuade King to not kill me and to let me help him get his brother’s life back. Would crashing his dinner party help or hinder?
Help. He might behave more rationally if there were people around he wanted to impress. So that was that; I marched down the short hall and stopped in the doorway of the tennis-court-sized living room. Jeez. Big enough? Although most of the people inside, wearing tuxes and evening gowns, were crowded around the bar at the far end of the room or were pouring out through two French doors onto a patio.
There had to be at least a hundred people inside.
“What the hell are you doing here, little Seer?” said a deep, menacing voice.
I turned and looked up at the very unhappy man with the misleadingly handsome face and dark hair combed back to give him a sophisticated look. It hurt to look at King. It really did. Because all I could see was Mack.
I cleared my throat. “So. A party, huh?”
He immediately got the undertone of my criticism. His brother hadn’t even been dead twenty-four hours, and he was throwing a soiree.
“I should’ve broken your neck,” he growled.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I promised Mia that if you stayed away, I would let you live. I’d like to thank you for not staying away. Shall I kill you now, or would you like a drink first?”
“How gracious.”
He dipped his silky head of black hair, and I resisted the urge to run my fingers through its thickness, pretending it was Mack.
“It’s the least I can do since you’ve granted my wish,” he replied.
Yeah. Just try to kill me. I fucking dare you, I thought. But instead, I said, “I’m a bit underdressed for your party. Why don’t we go somewhere private? There’s something I need to discuss with you—a proposition I want to make—before you kill me, of course.”
“I’m afraid I can’t leave my own event—too many wolves to watch,” he said in a low voice.
I looked around the room, and that was when I noticed it. The colors. Everyone here oozed reds and black. I didn’t really know what the colors meant specifically, other than they were not good.