Diamond Kisses (The Jewelry Box #4)

A few guards shifted, creating a window into their ring of violence. I gasped as I noticed Henri prone and unmoving on the ground. His legs at an unnatural angle. His face covered in blood. His back contorted as if someone had snapped his spine.

Nausea gushed.

This can’t be happening.

Please…let me wake up.

Let this all be a horrendous nightmare.

Bowing my head, I closed my eyes and did my best to be anywhere but there.

Would I sense him if he died?

Would my soul slice in two when his slipped free?

Henri, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry I can’t stop them.

I closed my eyes as thud after thud, grunt after grunt echoed in the cave as the guards kept driving Henri closer to his grave.

I rocked and keened, tears flowing down my cheeks even as Peter hugged me close and whispered things I couldn’t hear into my ear.

This was worse than Henri dying.

This was a thousand times worse because he’d be in so much pain, so much suffering. His death wasn’t quick. His death dragged on and on, and if I had the ability to end his excruciating existence by setting him free, I would have. I would take his hand and walk with him into that blinding light and leave this awful, horrible world behind.

And what of the jewels?

“Don’t look, Ily,” Peter breathed. “Don’t look.”

I shuddered as Peter pressed a kiss to my temple, his grief tangling with mine.

I’d stayed true to him and the others all this time.

Everything I did and every day I survived was to save them.

But in that cave, listening to them beat my twin flame to death, I turned selfish.

If I had the choice to stop Henri’s torture and die with him…I would.

I would turn my back on my family and every jewel if it meant Henri would be free.

A wracking sob fell out of me as my eyes flickered open, and through the grimy gloss of tears, I watched a guard pull his foot back and kick Henri right in the jaw. In the forest of legs, Henri’s head snapped back, his body twitched, and then…nothing.

The guards all stopped.

The Masters didn’t say a word.

Henri didn’t move.

His chest didn’t rise.

His eyes didn’t open.

H-He’s dead…

What did that say about our connection that I didn’t feel him leaving me? How was he the missing piece of my soul if I didn’t feel that piece fly away?

I tried to crawl to him as the guards broke their circle and returned to an orderly line by the wall—some hunched and holding the many wounds Henri had given them, some ripping their shirts and wrapping makeshift bandages to staunch the stabbings he’d delivered.