The next morning, Deidre found herself at the wall overlooking the red deserts of Hell. The air was hot and dry, the two suns too dim to shed much light into the black fortress. Any thought she had of trying to make it here faded whenever she saw the desert or thought about how Darkyn manipulated her.
She was scared again. The pictures Rhyn showed her wouldn't leave her thoughts, even if Darkyn had agreed to stop the slaughter. He would do it again. It's what he was.
She started to panic.
Deidre drew a deep breath. She missed nature. Real nature, not the barren landscape of Hell. She glanced around her, wondering what would happen if she just … left. Even for a short time to try to relax. Darkyn would find her no matter what, but she had the urge to see trees. Water. Grass. Anything familiar. . She absently reached for the hourglass and realized she'd left it on her nightstand.
She tried not to get her hopes up that a portal out of Hell would appear. Stilling her mind, she calmed herself. The portals didn't answer her at all when she was upset.
It opened at her request. Deidre was startled. She expected Darkyn to have severed her ability to leave. Glancing down at herself, she decided there was only one logical place for her to start.
Deidre stepped into the shadow world and paused. No one stopped her. Darkyn didn't appear to force her to return. She crossed the shadow world to the glowing portal that would take her where she wanted to go.
The mate of the Dark One does whatever the fuck she pleases, Darkyn had claimed. She was almost surprised to see he was serious.
She stepped into her own apartment and stopped. It smelled horrible, probably because of the blood-soaked second bedroom. Otherwise, it looked the way she left it, except that the air conditioning was off.
Deidre looked around, struck by how different the place she lived for two years felt. The pile of mail she left on her desk was still there, the living room neat and quiet. With the rest of her life in disarray, she didn't expect her apartment to look … normal. Like it was just waiting for her and her boyfriend to come home.
One choice. She'd made one choice, and she'd never come home to this place again. She crossed to her desk, where a red journal sat. In it was her bucket list, a list of things she hoped to do before she died from the terminal brain tumor she no longer possessed.
Now, she had an eternity to fulfill the list. An eternity in Hell at the side of the Dark One.