Shannon’s Reviews > A Heart of Bitter Poison > Status Update

“I love you, Lu. My beautiful, otherworldly, magical goddess Lu,” he whispers.  Love. He says it so easily, like it’s both a privilege and a relief. Like tossing an injured bird to the sky and watching it disappear into the distance, healed and wild and free. And though I can’t say it back, he doesn’t seem to mind. Even just knowing he’s content with waiting draws a little more of the venom from my heart

“What the…what are you, a fucking cat bringing home birds now?” Ashen lifts a shoulder. “I thought you’d be hungry.” “So you went and got me takeout? And severed his spinal cord?” Ashen looks down at the crying man with about as much interest as if he were looking at a rock. “You said once that things got messy when you didn’t sing. I just thought I would make it a little cleaner for you.”

A sardonic smile creeps through my lips as I take a step toward Davina. “What, you’re going to say it’s love that broke him? That’s horseshit. If he loved me, he would have fought for me.” For the first time, I see a flash of flame in Davina, a dark amber spark buried deep in her pupils. “He did, in the only way he knew he could win.” My smile slips away. I sweep my gaze across her face…

Ashen could lean a little closer, just a few more inches, and our lips would press together. The kiss would be fierce with all this longing that churns in my chest. Or I could tear his neck apart with my teeth, take all the blood I can drink and stab him right in the heart, sending him back to the Shadow Realm.

“You kill him multiple times and yet he still comes back for you. He’s running around the Living Realm when he should probably be planning a war. Instead, he’s threatening to turn people’s eyes into cake pops because he’s worried about you. He could have brought you back to the Shadow Realm ten times over already yet he stays close to you… he even talks to Eryx, who’s technically his mortal enemy.”

His gaze lifts and bounds between my eyes as he edges closer still. “Whatever you think you saw is not what you saw.”  “What a surprise. The truth is lies. Reality and illusion are blurred. And the common denominator in all this fuckery is you.”

And the truth is that this bloodfate is nothing but cruel. It shouldn’t be this way. I shouldn’t need something so sacred from the one person left to betray me. I’ve killed nearly everyone to sell me out across the millennia. Yet, the one that hurt me most deeply is here, with his arms wrapped around me… No, it shouldn’t be this way. Not with this enemy. Not with the man who should never be mine. 

“Who knows?” Bianca says with a shrug. “Two ancient creatures, who trace back as far as we can map immortal existence, restless in themselves and in the world. Both broken and alone, now bound by blood in a bond that surpasses the confines of reason or magic. Two fates spiraling closer together with every drop of life shared. It certainly seems like a myth breathed to life, does it not?” 

“Ashen is a demon, Lu. If you give your heart to a creature of the shadows, you have to learn how to love the darkness as much as the stars.”