Charade (Heven and Hell #2)(57)
Author: Cambria Hebert

Yet, that demon had done it.

How?

Heven had been unconscious. Airis said that she had to be for him to get in. So I guess it would be easiest for me now as she slept. I felt like I was taking advantage of her as she slept, but I had no choice. Besides, she knew what I was doing, so I wasn’t exactly busting in uninvited.

I would just have to trust that the Mindbond we shared was enough of an opening to let me in.

The only way I would know was if I tried it.

I exhaled and wrapped my arms around her, something inside me easing at the way she shifted toward me, completely trusting me, even in sleep. I closed my eyes. She smelled good… like strawberries. As I relaxed, I opened up the Mindbond as far as I could, dropping any barrier that I might hold up to keep my thoughts my own.

Let me in, Heven. Open up, I urged with my mind.

I felt her mind give way, and instead of pushing in, I backed out slightly. The last thing I wanted to do was scare her or hurt her. That would only make this harder.

So I lay there, taking even breaths and counting her heartbeat, feeling her chest rise and fall as air moved through her lungs. After a short while, I began to talk to her, murmur thoughts from my mind to hers. She sighed and snuggled closer and I knew that this was the moment I needed to act.

With closed eyes, I pushed my mind and my thoughts out toward her, feeling the bond we shared and the invisible wall where it stopped. I kept pushing—gently—continuing to tell Heven that she was safe and that I loved her, and I felt the wall give way as I entered a part of Heven’s mind I never had before.

I was assaulted.

*   *   *

The human mind is a complex thing. I always thought that our Mindbond was something extremely unique. Something that completely opened up Heven to me. And in so many ways, it was. But I had no idea how much of her mind was still closed off. I almost felt like I was tangled in a spider web in the dark. I resisted the urge to shake, to fight off the spidery threads that brushed against me, afraid that I would somehow hurt Heven.

I never imagined the inside of Heven’s mind to be a dark place. She’s such a bright spot in my life, and while I knew she faced a lot of challenges and had been through so much, I never once believed that it hampered who she truly was.

I still didn’t.

I focused and tried to make out what was in the darkness. There was nothing there.

Heven. I spoke her name, a mere whisper from my mind to hers, testing her response.

She didn’t make a sound; she didn’t speak a word, yet I was overwhelmed.

Assaulted by feelings, by thoughts, and by images. Suddenly, the darkness gave way to a curtain of light and I felt as if I were watching a movie. A movie in which I was the star.

It was a memory.

We were at Bubble Maineia, sitting in a corner. I knew the place had been packed, but seeing this from her side, I hardly noticed anyone else but… me. I watched myself lift the chocolate drink to my lips and take a pull from the straw and the feeling of longing with a touch of lust swept over me. She wished that my lips were on her instead of the straw. I saw my lips moving, but didn’t hear the words; then I laughed. Joy and happiness rained over me and I felt the breath leave my chest a little.

I knew that Heven loved me. I felt it every day. I saw it in her eyes. But this. This was more than I imagined. To see myself through someone else’s eyes, to feel what she felt without her emotions mixing with mine was… it was the purest feeling I have ever known.

The memory died away and I was once again left in the dark. I stood there, the threads of her mind brushing against me and feeling extremely precious. Something caught my eye… a glint of gold. There, where the memory had replayed in front of me, was a shimmering golden thread.

Our thread.

I recognized it immediately. It was part of me too, and as I watched it grow and elongate, it stretched toward me. My first instinct was to move away, to not disturb the thread that helped to bind us together. What if it broke? But the closer it got, the warmer I began to feel and I couldn’t help myself. I reached out and wrapped a finger around the thin gold.

It was much, much stronger than I thought it would be. It looked fine and delicate, shimmering gold in the dark, but it felt like steel. I tugged at it and it didn’t so much as move. On instinct, I moved closer until I felt a warm glow pour throughout my mind and spread to each of my limbs.

Our connection was growing, solidifying.

She was mine.

The hellhound in me growled in possession and satisfaction. The human side of me realized that I was being archaic, but the animal in me didn’t care.

As the connection of our thread washed over me and strengthened, a million other threads and chords revealed themselves to me. Every single one was a color of its own. It was beautiful. They illuminated the darkness and revealed to me who I always knew Heven was.

Absolutely stunning.

But I wasn’t here to be in awe of her true inner beauty. I was here to get rid of what didn’t belong. I began to make my way through the millions of sparkling threads, carefully navigating them, only touching them when necessary and with the utmost care. When I did touch one, I got a sensation of what the thread was for.

The blue thread seemed to store the words to all her favorite songs. The green thread was for her love of nature. I came to a thread that was duller than the rest; it didn’t glimmer like the others. My adrenaline surged. I found it! To be sure, I reached out and wrapped my palm around it.

It wasn’t the thread the Dream Walker left behind. But it was the thread that seemed to hold her physical pain. The minute my hand wrapped around it, I got an intense pain in the back of my skull. I dropped the thread like a live wire and swore.

Is that what he was doing to her? Is that the kind of pain she has been walking around with?

It ended now.

As stunning as they were, I tuned out all the other threads. I stopped thinking all together and I felt. Heven’s mind was a pure place, so I searched until I felt a glimmer of something that just didn’t seem to belong. I moved in that direction, no longer needing to watch out for the other threads. It’s like my mind knew where to go and how to get there.

When I reached the spot where I felt the thread should be, I expected to see it, looking like an intruder, sticking out like a sore thumb.

But the space was empty.

I made a sound of frustration. It should be here!

I felt as if I was standing right next to it. My skin prickled with the sickness of it. The hound in me was restless, urging to get out, to defeat the presence it had detected all along.