Chapter Thirty-Four

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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.