Fate of a Blood Moon (The Hades Blood Moon #2)

Chapter 17

Jase

T hanks to Tony’s contact, Shannon Lewis, we had quickly secured new documents and passports for Rachel. With those in hand, we took Lucy back to the mansion. She slipped inside and quickly packed a bag and her passport before sneaking back out. Most of the clan had been out of the house, likely dealing with the explosion, so no one had noticed her.

Now we faced a long flight from New Orleans to Venice. Long layovers meant we wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow morning. Hopefully, the explosion had bought us enough time before Andrei realized I was missing and came after us. If we were lucky, it would slow him down just long enough.

Still reluctant to be anywhere near me, Lucy sat in the window seat, focusing on a few novels she had bought at the airport. The flight was at full capacity, so we had no choice but to sit together. Tony sat between Lucy and me and spent several hours using the phone’s Wi-Fi to map out our route once we picked up the rental car and grabbed Rachel.

“Okay,” Tony said, finally tucking his phone away. “Once we get the car, we’ll need to stake out the house before going in. The last thing we need is Valentina stopping us before we reach Rachel. We’ll have to wait until sundown, anyway.” He turned to me. “But there’s something you need to do, though.”

I gave him a quizzical look. “And what’s that?”

“When we find Rachel, you gotta stay behind and let Lucy and me approach her first.”

Though a slight irritation ran through me, I nodded because their idea was less reckless than mine. It wasn’t as if Rachel and I had a happy ending before she took off with my ring. I was the last person Rachel would want to see, and more likely, we’d end up killing each other before we could have a mature conversation about why I was there.

However, the possibility of being around Valentina made me nervous. That bitch promised to do everything in her power to break us apart, and seeing my face would no doubt throw Valentina into a rage. As much as I hated being tied to Rachel, I wasn’t ready to get ripped apart before I figured out what the hell this bond meant for me.

“Are you sure you know the address?” I asked Lucy. “How long have the two of you been in contact?”

She smiled. “Since the day she left. She made sure at least one of her friends knew where to find her if there was an emergency. I memorized it, though. It was too risky to write it down.”

“And if she’s not at the house when we get there?” I asked.

Tony shrugged. “We’ll just have to trust that ‘bond’ you have and hope it’s better than your brother’s.”

I shifted in my seat and cracked my knuckles, my jaw stiffening.

Tony smiled coldly. “You know, it’s funny how the idea of your brother manipulating her makes you agitated, yet you did the same thing with using Hailee as a plant in our friend circle. You manipulated Rachel to get to that church and awaken her mother. Now you’re risking your life to find her and essentially save her from Andrei’s schemes.” Tony leaned back in his seat and smirked. “I’m starting to believe this fated mate story you’re telling.”

I let my smile slip. “How do you know I’m not using you right now to get to Rachel and kill her?” I asked, raising a brow.

Tony rolled his eyes at me. “You blew up your brother’s fucking nightclub, murdered Meredith Loren, his most loyal companion, and sold his secrets to Bayou Perot. If you were acting on his behalf right now, this is one goddamn crazy way to do it.”

I looked straight ahead. God, four months ago, I used every manipulation tactic at my disposal to get Rachel where I wanted her. Then everything changed when she drank my blood and saved my life when we fought those demons. Even after that, I remained the villain by hurting her, taking that ring, and trying to kill her mother. I mean, in that moment, I wanted to. I needed to. Being so close to her made me feel everything I had been trying to suppress during the four years I had watched her. My free will felt like it was stripped away, reminding me of what her presence did to me. I’d never experienced anything like that with anyone in my entire life.

In all honesty, I was unsure of my own feelings about it.

“Yeah, well, I needed to send a nice little message,” I said. “As far as what I feel, I don’t fucking know. Ever since the church, all I’ve felt was jealousy, need, and lust. And something else …” My voice trailed off before I turned from Tony and rested my head against the seat. “Valentina was right. I was supposed to hate Rachel. It would have made killing her so much easier.”

“And now you’re trying to save her.”

I turned back to him. “Fucked up, isn’t it?”

Tony nodded grimly. “So, how is Andrei going to cast this spell that supposedly weakens her after he pulls out her blood, summoning this ‘warrior angel?’”

“There’s a Spirit witch named Liam who works for Black Onyx, but now he’s contracted to work for Andrei. I’ve noticed he’s in Andrei’s ear a lot. That can pose a problem. He’ll be the one to cast the spell and use Rachel as the means to do it.”

“Why Rachel specifically? She’s a dhampir, not a witch or anything like that,” Lucy piped in, her novel open on her lap.

That’s right, Lucy doesn’t know the entire history.

“Valentina was born a witch before being turned into the first vampire. Her ring, created by Kylan, allowed her to access magic. When she was pregnant with Rachel, that magic passed on to her. Not only that, but Rachel’s father was human. Rachel is unique. She shares the blood of a witch, a demon, and a human. The blood of three realms. She’s the perfect sacrifice to open a portal to the Upper World and summon their most powerful deity.” I thought about one more thing. “An angel created the spell, so someone with angel blood has to break it.”

Tony and Lucy’s eyes widened in abject horror, and Lucy’s hands gripped the book in her lap with such force that it started to tear. “I’ve seen the sketches in that Book of Shadows you stole, but aren’t you still doing the spell to get the sword?” she asked, panic seeping into her voice. Tony reached over and grabbed Lucy’s hand.

I shook my head. “Andrei plans to take the ring because he needs magic to subdue the angel and destroy Lucifer. With us, she’ll keep the ring on. We would only use her blood to activate the pentagram, enter the summoning circle, and destroy the obelisk. If we destroy that magic, then he can’t summon shit.”

“In other words,” Tony said, “if he gets his hands on the sword, he’ll use it to kill the Devil, and then he’ll hand it over to Black Onyx in exchange for Rachel.” He ran a thumb over Lucy’s hand, a silent reassurance.

I ignored their touching moment and closed my eyes. My thoughts went back to that night at the church and when I spoke to Valentina at the train station. Something had fundamentally changed, which rocked me to the core. I spent so long being burned alive by anger and betrayal at what Andrei did to our family and plotting revenge against the vampire who took my brother from me. I blamed them both for the destruction of my life and the endless nightmares in my head.

What I didn’t account for was Andrei falling into madness after putting the ring on. Nor did I expect him to fall for Rachel so fucking hard. Now he was on a mission to save our souls from the Underworld while putting her at risk. Andrei was willing to destroy everything to lock her away like some prized pet for his enjoyment.

Granted, we were both monstrous men, but my motivations changed when Valentina told me about my fate.

The mark on my stomach tingled again at the thought of Rachel. I ran a finger over the raised flesh beneath my T-shirt. It wasn’t the first time it had reacted when she came to mind. Closing my eyes, I pictured her face—those beautiful blue eyes.

As I conjured up an image of her in my mind, Tony let out a heavy sigh, causing me to open my eyes and look at him. “Let’s not be fooled into thinking Andrei isn’t already buying a ticket to head over here. Right now, our focus is getting Rachel. Once we do, we need to put some distance between us and Venice.”

“What about the guardian bond?” Lucy asked. “Won’t he know where she’s going?”

“He can feel her emotions but can’t detect where she’s at,” I said. “That’s why he has the tracker, so that thing will have to come out when we find her.”

“Maybe we get her away from the home she’s staying at before we do,” Tony suggested. “If Andrei shows up after us, he’s using that device to track her down, and we don’t want to put innocent people in danger.”

“I can’t believe that fucker did that,” Lucy cursed and leaned back into her chair. “Once we cut it out, toss it in a bush. As long as he thinks she’s still in that area, he won’t know she’s on the move with us.”

“This would be so much easier if we had a witch like Wendy to put a cloaking spell on her,” Tony explained.

Lucy winced at the name of her fake dead friend. “I wish I could have beaten that dirty cunt senselessly and ripped out her heart.”

While Tony and Lucy snickered at her remark, I let my head tip back onto the headrest, remembering how close Wendy got to fucking everything up.

Soon, the hardest part would be over. Then I’d have to decide what I truly wanted. Could I let Rachel go a second time?

The thought of seeing her again after everything that happened made my chest strangely ache. I had no fucking idea how to tell her the universe fated us since that first Hades Blood Moon without sounding like a lunatic.

Fate bound her to a monster—a man she loathed.

Maybe there’s a way to remove it? And if not, I’m about to turn her world completely upside down.