Dark Requiem (The Darkling Trilogy, Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

an
intensity that made me feel weak.
    I knew I loved Avery—that
all-consuming, brutal love I’d had a taste of the first time I held
Luna’s journal. I placed my hand against my aching stomach—an ache
like a wound which had been with me for as long as I could
remember. My grandma and my aunt had been band aids keeping the
wound from sight, but it had always been there—that loneliness and
the sense there was something very important missing in my life.
Something as fundamental as the moon on a pitch-black, starless
night.
    I had to go to
him.
    Wiping away tears, I
glanced at the clock opposite my bed which was just visible in the
gloom shrouding my room. It was five-thirty a.m.
    I forced myself to my
feet. The first thing I had to do was book a flight out of New
York. My final destination was the mansion in Louisiana, but first
I had to get to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Once I had done what I
needed to do in Mississippi, I could go to Louisiana and
Avery.
    I glanced around my room,
searching for my phone amongst the clothes littering the bed and
floor. I caught sight of something just as I saw my handbag at the
foot of the bed.
    I gasped and a chill ran
through me.
    My hair.
    I stared at my reflection
in the mirror opposite the bed. It was a ragged mess. I couldn’t go
and find Avery again with my hair looking like this.
    I retrieved my phone and
called my hairdresser’s private cell number.
    When she picked up I
didn’t let her speak.
    “ Toni, I need you to be at
my apartment to weave my hair in the next hour.”
    “ Dallas?
What—?”
    “ One hour,
Toni.”
    I hung up. After another
glance in the mirror, I searched through my contact list for my
mother’s make-up artist.
    My thoughts were on the
moment I walked away from Avery, leaving him alone in the clearing
whilst dusk crouched all around him.
    I had forgotten
him.
    Tears filled my eyes once
more.
     
    ***
     
    It was almost eight p.m.
and my cab had just driven away, leaving me some distance from a
single storey house deep in Hattiesburg, Mississippi under an ochre
sky marbled with yellow threads of light. Knee-high grass devoured
the property. Three more oaks cast a fugitive gloom about me and at
first obscured the filth caking the windows of the house. Greying
wood peeked between strips of curling white paint, weathered and
bristling with splinters. A forlorn breeze whistled between the
floorboards.
    Anxiety sat cold and
clammy in the pit of my stomach.
    What if this didn’t
work?
    I pictured Avery as I had
seen him last and my resolve strengthened.
    It had to work. Too much
depended on it. I didn’t remember much of the dream that led me
here, only the brown mare and the chapel, but I knew this was where
I needed to be.
    The shack appeared to be
empty, but I could feel his presence, a dull ebb of hostile energy,
emanating from inside. It was only a matter of time before he awoke
and sensed my presence. Next to me was a pink Louis Vuitton luggage
set. My freshly done hair hung down my back in dark, glistening
waves. My make-up was flawless. The cute burnt orange Versace dress
I wore clung to my body as if it had been made especially for me,
revealing long, sleek, dark legs that would make even Naomi
Campbell jealous.
    I looked damned
good.
    When I finally got to
Louisiana there was no way Avery would be able to resist me. Dolce
& Gabbana sun glasses and orange Jimmy Choo’s completed the
look.
    I tapped my foot
impatiently, wondering when the hell the being in the shack was
going to wake up.
    I smoothed my hand down
the front of my dress, admiring my perfectly manicured
nails.
    Damn, I actually couldn’t
believe how good I looked.
    I glanced up at the shack,
thinking I might have to actually wade through the grass—and God
only knows what else—to go and knock on the door, when I felt a
tightening of the energy from within.
    He was coming.
    I could feel him honing in
on me and gathering his power to draw near. He would soon be here
and standing