Beta: An Urban Fantasy Novel (War of the Alphas Book 2) by SM Reine

Author:SM Reine [Reine, SM]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION / Fantasy / Urban
Publisher: Red Iris Books
Published: 2015-04-21T23:00:00+00:00

—XI—

It was easy to recognize the moment that the lethe left Deirdre’s system.

She used to come off her highs slowly, over the course of multiple days. Now it was like running face first into Everton Stark’s fist. One moment, her body was still burning with the heat from Melchior’s incendiary kiss. The next moment, she was cold, hungry, and regretful.

Deeply regretful.

Deirdre had acted like an idiot in front of the Winter Court.

Worse, she’d been an idiot in front of Stark.

Thankfully, he’d banished her to her bedroom—her cell, if she were being honest with herself—once they’d returned from Original Sin, so she hadn’t had an opportunity to look stupid in front of anyone else. She’d only been able to bounce off her walls, literally and metaphorically, waiting for the frenetic energy to fade so that she could sleep.

The withdrawal hit before she could pass out.

Its sudden blow was agonizing. Her marrow vibrated. Her heart pounded. Cold sweat washed over her again and again, as though a bitter ocean were lapping at her. “Oh my gods,” she groaned, flopping into bed, burrowing under her pillow.

It was probably a sign of how sick she felt that she thought her bed still smelled like Gage.

He hadn’t slept in that room in over a month. There was no way the paper-like sheets and lumpy mattress could have retained the musk of his sweat. Yet Deirdre felt engulfed in his odor.

It wasn’t comforting. It was a cruel reminder of what she had done.

She turned on the news in an attempt to distract herself, jacking it up to maximum volume. Deirdre hoped that the noise would drown out all the ugliness in her head.

It didn’t work.

Her thoughts swirled with dark images: her would-be assassin, Colin Burgh, ripping the head off of a woman in Montreal; Gage’s fur smoldering in the oven underneath the asylum; Dr. Landsmore’s skull fragments exploding all over January Lazar’s shoes.

So much violence. So much more pain than any one woman should have been expected to endure.

It had been easy to ignore it when she had still been high, easy to forget why she was there, easy to forget everything that Stark had done to her.

She couldn’t forget now.

Reality was harsh after being high on lethe for so long.

Deirdre’s door swung open. She knew without needing to see that Everton Stark had entered the room. His presence was as immense as the dragon’s, in a way, and even angrier than usual. He had seemed unusually furious when they left Original Sin. And that said a lot, considering he was usually smoldering with bitter emotion.

He turned muted the television and set the remote control down.

“What was that?” Stark asked, biting out the words.

Deirdre looked at him from under her arm. Her head was throbbing too much to want to lift it further. The sight of the barrel-chested man standing by her dresser made sick anger surge within her.

She was still wearing Niamh’s costume. It hadn’t occurred to her to change out of it when she’d been pacing her room like the caged animal that she wasn’t.

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