Read Drowning In The Dark: #4 The Veil Series for Free Online Page A

at my breakfast. As lovely as it was, I’d lost my appetite. One breakfast wasn’t going to make up for the past. Nor was it going to change the fact the netherworld was gearing up for an attack on this side of the veil. “Stefan… I appreciate this. I mean, nobody has ever made me breakfast before.” I looked up. The fine lines of his face creased with resignation. He knew it too. As much as we both wanted the normal, it was never going to happen for the likes of us.
    He shoved away from the counter and strode across the living room to the window where he parted the blinds and narrowed his gaze, no doubt contemplating my Institute stalker.
    “None of this changes anything.” I sighed. “What are we supposed to do? I can’t stop my brother. I can barely control myself. And he’s…” I gestured, as though shooing a fly. “He’s…him. All scary-immortal-lust-demon. All he has to do is look at me, and I’m terrified. And then there’s the thing…”
    “The thing?” He threw a glance over his shoulder, brow tight in confusion.
    “My owner wrapped around my insides.” I shoved the plate of food away and wondered if I had any whiskey left in my emergency stash. My fingers trembled. I curled them into a fist. Stefan noticed, but his neutral expression didn’t falter. I’d have better luck reading runes than that impossibly measured expression of his. “I’m not a hero, Stefan. That was your job.”
    He barked a dry laugh, the sound guttural, almost dirty. “Like I’m the epitome of self-control?”
    After everything he’d been through, he seemed to be doing pretty well. He was here, talking, joking, almost himself. “How do you do it? How do you control it?”
    He shot me a sharp look. “I don’t. It controls me.”
    “So, why aren’t you all, y’know, frosty?”
    “Because right now, I either have what I want, or I’m getting it.” The glitter in his eyes sparkled. “Don’t look at me and see a survivor. I’m not human, not any more. If the demon wants, it gets. I have no control. None.”
    That wasn’t a particularly comforting thought, given how he’d nearly brought about an ice age and almost killed me several times. Bowing my head, I hoped to hide how his words affected me. I’d held out hope that Stefan would win. I didn’t want to hear the truth. If he was all demon, then what hope was there for me?
    I held up my finger and thumb, showing him the tiniest of gaps. “This is my control. I’m this far away from going nuclear, and I’m too much of a coward to do the right thing.”
    “Which is?”
    “Take P-C-Thirty-Four.”
    He flinched. He had an intimate relationship with the drug. The Institute had developed it by testing it on him. Plus, a few months before, I’d pumped him full of the stuff in an attempt to repress his demon side. He hadn’t reacted well. Shadows crossed his face as the history flittered through his mind. For a few seconds, I feared the memories might flick his demon switches, and I’d be captured in ice in the next breath. Finally, after what was probably only a few seconds but felt like minutes, he lifted his head. “You’re a lot stronger than you realize.”
    “I’m really not. I’m propping myself up with alcohol. I hunt demons every night, hoping one might get lucky and kill me.” Yeah, there was that ugly truth out in the open. I hadn’t even been sure until that moment when the words were out and they sounded right. My lips twisted. Self-disgust churned my stomach. “I don’t trust myself. Not even a little bit. My thoughts are all over the place. I can’t decide, right now, if I wanna curl up in a ball an’ cry, go out on the streets and kill demons—and I mean kill them, not just deport their asses—or if I should jump you because the lust in my veins is driving me crazy. My demon wants a piece of you. She wants to burn everything to the ground, and she quite likes the idea of the princes showing up so we have an excuse to go all