Chapter Twenty
Alaric threw the car into park just outside the MET where we both knew it would probably get towed or, at the very least, ticketed, but we didn’t care.
We sprinted down the worn path towards the Obelisk monument, ignoring the confused glances of morning runners and onlookers.
The sun was just rising above the horizon, making the sky brighter.
The crisp November air bit at my skin, but I raced onward, my intuition and the voice leading me back to where this all would end one way or another.
We turned the corner and Alaric pulled at my arm painfully, forcing me to stop as seven Stonebound came into view, all still as statues in front of the Obelisk. And within their circle lay Sara-Kate, the pendant around her neck faintly glowing.
“We need backup,” Alaric whispered, pushing me behind him in an effort to protect me. “Go back to the council. Get every Bloodwright you can find.”
“No,” I interrupted. “I’m not leaving her.”
I shoved out of his grasp and walked carefully towards the seven Stonebound. Alaric was on me instantly.
“Mari.” His voice was venomous. “I will not let you walk right to your death.”
“They won’t hurt me,” I protested.
“How the hell do you know that?” he spat, concern, fear, and horror reflected in his dark green eyes. “I just found you. I’m not going to lose you.”
“Trust me,” I replied, pulling away. “I just have this feeling. They’ve never hurt me. And they’re not hurting her. Look, they look like they are protecting her. If they wanted her dead, why would they bring us here?”
“To kill three Bloodwrights instead of one,” he countered.
I shook my head, the innate feeling of familiarity and trust pulsing through me as I glanced at the seven Stonebound that seemed to guard Sara-Kate.
“Let me just go to her. I can’t leave her.”
He glanced over to where Sara-Kate lay eerily still, but her chest still rose with each inhale and exhale. Alaric was torn; his grip on my arm loosening ever so slightly.
“You stay here and cover me,” I conceded. “But don’t attack unless I tell you to.”
He looked as if he were about to refuse, but relented, his hand leaving my arm as he stood, watching me walk towards the Stonebounds surrounding my best friend.
I held my breath as I squeezed in between two Stonebound.
None of them moved or even glanced at me, truly looking like frozen statues, a new art piece the MET had put up overnight.
The only hint there was some sort of life was the faint pulsating glow of the red veins beneath their bone and stone covered skin.
I fell to my knees beside Sara-Kate, pushing her braids from her soot-covered face. The pendant glowed faintly, and as I touched it, I fell into another vision.
This felt like a memory, and once again, it was not my own, but Alaric’s.
I was walking down the same street I had just run down, the one leading to Sara-Kate’s grandmother’s apartment building.
But this time there were no fire trucks, no ambulances, or smoldering clouds of dust from a fire.
The street was full of cars with a few repair vans mixed in.
Alaric crossed the street, and there was Richard, standing confidently with his dark green eyes on the apartment building as he spoke to another repairman with a hard hat on.
“Why’d you have me meet you here?” Alaric had asked, his voice full of frustration and irritation. “You know I have training with Mari later and I need time to prepare.”
Richard dismissed the man we were speaking to with a flick of his wrist and a few words. “Just as we discussed. Two days after Thanksgiving.”
Richard then turned to Alaric, a sly smile on his face. “I’ve just purchased this block and wanted to show you so we could celebrate.”
Alaric glanced at the old apartment building with confusion. “Since when do you want real estate in Brooklyn?”
Richard shrugged. “An opportunity presented itself, but we’ll need the interiors surveyed and reinforced. Old buildings like these tend to crack under pressure.”
I fell out of the vision, once again in Central Park, cradling Sara-Kate’s head in my lap.
The pendant flared hot beneath my hand, beating in rhythm with my pulse—as if Sara-Kate’s life force was bound to mine now, or to something even greater that I didn’t yet understand.
I looked up to find Alaric staring at me through the bodies of the Stonebound who stood as a barrier between us.
And for once, I was happy to have a Stonebound between us.
“You knew.” My voice was barely above a whisper. “You knew this would happen.”
“Mari.” Alaric took a step toward me, his voice cracking, raw and broken. “I didn’t know. I swear to you.”
“You let this happen.” I accused as the Stonebound closed ranks around us, acting as a true barrier between us and Alaric.
“Please,” he begged, tears streaming down his beautiful face. “Let’s figure this out together. We need to get you two out of here.”
I shook my head, wrestling the ring Alaric had given me not so long ago, and threw it at him, the ring clinking against the concrete. “Not with you.”
He fell to his knees, the bond between us stretching so thin, so painfully, I thought it would actually break apart.
While the bond within me thrashed and my sense of this strange world I had been thrust into had been tilted on its axis, there were a few things that were crystal clear as I held my newly emerged best friend who just lost her entire family in one night because of one careless and greedy Bloodwright.
Blood remembers. Blood returns. The words roared through me now, no longer cryptic, but a call to arms. I was no pawn. No prophecy’s chain. I was something else—something the Gaines family could never control, something no one could control.
As I stared at Alaric through the bodies of the seven Stonebound that surrounded us, tears blurring my vision, I realized that Alaric Gaines wasn’t just my mentor.
He wasn’t just my Twinflame. He was my enemy.
And even though he and his father had a clear hand in what happened to Sara-Kate and the others, I was hopelessly and blindly in love with him.
But even blind, I could see one thing clearly: this was only the beginning.