TrinityI woke up slowly. I couldn’t say where I was, but I knew I wasn’t where I had been before I’d cut myself. Had they thrown me somewhere else? Was I dead? My lips twitched, and I moved my hand. I felt no pain and frowned as I sat up and looked at my arm. There wasn’t even a scar. How was that possible?I had to be dead. It was almost a relief. “You’re smart… for a human.” I looked over at the man who had been in charge of my torture. I didn’t flinch, but I met his gaze evenly. He looked less derisive of me as he stared back at me.His lips twitched, and he turned his head. “She’s awake.”A woman came in that I didn’t recognize. She wasn’t one of the servants who had been in charge of taking my blood. She wasn’t the vicious one that seemed to enjoy cutting me, but I couldn’t remember her clearly if she had been a nice one either. The man stood. “Strong-willed too,” he chuckled. “You certainly got the master’s attention with that little stunt. Ira will get you cleaned up and tak

LucianusI felt the slightest disturbance at the edge of my territory, or maybe it was somewhere in the castle, but I didn’t pay any attention to it. Whatever it was would have to wait, and it was likely just the girl trying to find a portal to the human world. I was tempted to have the castle drop her back into the dungeons just to teach her a lesson. My gaze traced the familiar planes of my wife’s face in the portrait that had returned to my desk. For years, it had been too painful to look upon her face, yet it seemed that I could not go a day without seeing her in her portraits or walking around in her old gowns that still had the faintest trace of her perfume lingering on them. My wife had been so beautiful and bright. Her name felt lost to time and too sacred to be uttered, yet I felt it trembling on my lips. Her presence was long gone, yet my heart ached as I stared at the small portrait of her. I remembered when she sat for it. I could almost hear her complaining about it, a

Lucianus I landed on the balcony of my bedroom and threw her to the ground. I expected her to scramble away, to sob or please with me, but she just lay there, staring bleakly into some middle distance as if her mind had escaped her body. The shock had seemingly settled in, and the realization that there was only one escape from this castle, from me, was likely settling in. Good, but the sight of her so broken did not bring me the gratification I thought it would. She was so still, I thought she might be dead. I grabbed her by the front of her dress and yanked her up. Her jaw trembled. Her eyes overflowed with tears, but she said nothing. Where was all the will to survive in her now? Where was that bit of life that had led her to run out that open door into the darkness of the forest? It didn’t matter. I called my insignia ring to my hand and heated it until it was blistering hot. I pulled the collar of her dress aside and pressed the seal in her flesh. A wild, animal scream of ago

Lucianus I stopped. The dagger froze in midair, trembling merely a breath away from piercing her chest and ending my torment. I shouldn’t have stopped, but I couldn’t help it. I had to stop. I wanted to drive the blade through her chest and be free of this, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t with her looking up at me with my wife’s face, my Trinitia looking up at me, to die by my hand? To have her last words be that nickname as I plunged this dark cursed, blade into her chest. I couldn’t. I knew this woman wasn’t my wife. I knew she wasn’t, yet I couldn’t. It would be forever engraved in my mind. It would break me in a way her first death had not. I had gone on a rampage against humans for her first death, but I could not do the same against myself. I shook myself. This had to be done. This torture had to be over. I couldn’t continue on like this. Trinitia was dead. My Trinitia would never speak my name again. This woman was not my wife, and I would prove it by wiping her from existence.

Trinity It took months before I was released from the hospital. It felt like I was on crutches for a long time and too weak to do much on my own. Mark had been great, letting me and my father stay at his house while I recovered. Mark would come home after his shift with the Salt Lake City police and ask me almost every day if I remembered anything. His questions strayed from normal to bizarre, especially when he asked about the wounds on my wrists and feet. At first, I wondered if it was just routine to check and see. Maybe he was also working on my case. Since I’d been found in Utah, in his jurisdiction, instead of Chicago, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else behind him asking me all these questions. He seemed so focused on my wounds and how I’d gotten down in the valley in the first place, and why my bones had healed quickly. I hadn’t the faintest idea why my bones had healed if they were broken. The doctor said that I’d healed cleanly as if I had never broken