Chapter 31 #2
He pressed two fingers lightly to my wrist, over my pulse, and pain tore through me. It wasn’t sharp; it was invasive, like something being unwound from inside my veins and dragged through every branch of my bloodline. A scream tore free from my throat and was swallowed by the roaring crowd.
To anyone watching, it looked like I was reacting to the fight on the ice. Inside, I was unraveling. I tasted copper. My vision tunneled. I felt something tear free, a thread snapping back through time.
“There,” Donn murmured. “Another strand removed from Eloise.”
My heart hammered as the pain receded, leaving a hollow ache in its wake and an uneasy feeling that I’d let something in. “What did you do?”
“The borrowed power your grandmother wields has to be filtered somewhere else.”
“Yes, back into you.”
“No, that is not how this works. She bartered for that power. To take it back directly would unravel my original oath, and given I’m not ready to leave this world, I can’t do that.”
Oh, fuck no. I absolutely didn’t want to receive an answer to the following question, but I forced myself to ask it anyway. “Where are you channeling it?”
He tucked a lock of hair behind my ear, his eyes shifting between mine with affection that hadn’t been earned. “I gave your grandmother my oath that my power would feed the Roberts bloodline.”
“And now she’s not of that bloodline.”
“Indeed. It was a little unexpected, but if you had come to me with your thoughts, we could have worked this out. However, it’s no longer a trickle of power from her to you. It’s more of an excessive dump. She may not have even realized it was happening before, but now she will have felt it.”
“My grandmother,” I whispered. “She’s—”
“Thinning,” Donn said. “What she is doing is unsustainable. Harvesting souls corrodes the vessel.”
My stomach dropped at the memory of the hundreds of jars. “You knew.”
“Yes, at the moment of death.” Donn’s gaze remained on the ice. “She’s capturing them before the veil can claim them.”
Ice cracked under a skate, and a goal horn blared.
I twisted my trembling fingers together. “Will they be freed once you remove her power?”
Donn glanced at me. “No. Only the taker can release what they’ve claimed.”
The words settled like a stone in my chest. “She’s not just holding them hostage, she’s warping them,” I snapped. “And whatever comes out the other side won’t be human or sane.”
“No, they won’t.” He leaned closer. “I could remove more if you let me in deeper.”
I met his gaze, fury burning through the ache. “You don’t own me.”
“Ownership is such a human word.” His dark and seductive voice wrapped around me while his eyes held a promise to end everything. The chaos, the dread I felt every time I worried if I was fucking up the world.
The air shifted. Pressure rolled through the arena, subtle but unmistakable. The lights flickered, and the glass vibrated. Donn leaned back in his seat and stretched his arm behind my shoulders to toy with a loose curl. “He’s here.”
“Who?” I demanded.
“Your mate,” Donn drawled. “He dislikes being excluded.”
The ice cracked, and the crowd screamed, but this time, it wasn’t because of the game. Hudson appeared like a force of nature at the edge of the rink, eyes blazing gold, power rippling off him in violent waves.
“Get your hands off my mate,” he snarled. The hockey players slammed into the boards, making way for the true predator.
Donn didn’t stand. Didn’t move. Didn’t release my hair. “What do you think he’s going to do when I steal a kiss from your lips, Cora?”
My head snapped around. “Never—”
He slammed his lips against mine and clutched the back of my neck to keep us together. I felt utterly stupid for falling for it.
The resounding roar shattered the glass, and people ran screaming around us as my lethal mate drew closer.
Donn broke the kiss. “Until next time, Cora.” Then he was gone. Again. And I was left to pick up the pieces with my over-the-edge psychopathic mate, who was blinded by rage.
I cursed everyone and everything, because I did not have the time or the inclination for antics. I stood and held my hands up, coming face to face with a very pissed-off man who was vibrating with the need for violence. My wings stretched against my skin in warning.
“Don’t fall for it,” I growled. “You know this was business.”
“You’re mixing it with pleasure,” he snarled.
Rude. “No, I’m not, but you are. For this to work, you have to trust me.”
His fingers curled around my wrist, anchoring me to him as the stadium emptied. I glanced behind him, finding a huge crack down the middle of the ice. My bet was on it getting reported as an earthquake.
“It’s him I don’t trust,” he snapped. “I leave you for a few hours, and his mouth finds a way to be on yours.”
I tipped my head back and groaned. “It was an act for your benefit. Donn was more enraptured with the sin bin than my lips.” His flesh rippled. “Don’t do this. Not here,” I warned. I had no doubt there were cameras facing us right now, ready to share this show with the world.
His jaw flexed as he fought with the power inside him. Power he hadn’t learned to control and harness yet. “Fine, then we’ll do this at home.”
Magic curled around us, and with a power only gods and full-blooded angels commanded, Hudson shifted time and space to move us from Nashville to White Castle in the space of a heartbeat.
I yanked my hand free and took a step back toward my sofa. At least he’d brought us to our apartment. Privacy was impossible, but I preferred that the supernaturals in the house not have a front-row ticket to our fight.
I pointed at him. “You have some explaining to do, mate. The power in your veins has grown.”
“I’m a reaper, Cora. I follow death.”
Oh, well, fuck. I was utterly and completely screwed, because now I wasn’t just the daughter of death—I had the literal power of it running through my veins, making me a perfect tracker for my mate to keep tabs on me, no matter where I was.
He stalked toward me and backed me up against the sofa. I flopped back, and he pinned my hands above my head. “But that doesn’t explain why you have an unnatural boost of power directly tied to mine. What did you do?”
A shiver skated down my spine. Something inside me shifted, stretching like it had more limbs than it should.
“I…” My throat closed. Somewhere in the dark, a hundred trapped souls turned toward me.
What did you do, Cora?
For once, I had absolutely no idea.