Chapter 21 #2
A sharp spike of envy stabbed through my chest as I watched their reunion.
The way Angelo's entire body relaxed the moment she was in his arms, how Serenity's face transformed from worry to pure relief—it was everything I craved and couldn't have.
Angelo had his mate safe and sound while mine was trapped somewhere in either the Elder Dimension or buried alive in that vine-choked cathedral.
My hands clenched into fists at my sides. While they got to hold each other, breathe in each other's scent, feel the steady beat of each other's hearts, Joy was facing god knows what horrors. Alone. The unfairness of it burned like acid in my throat.
I forced myself to look away from their intimate moment, my jaw tight with barely controlled emotion. While they stood there embracing, Joy was suffering without me.
Dimitri stepped up alongside me, his brown eyes fixed on the vine-covered cathedral. "Tinker Bell's spell better work. Because if it doesn’t, Marsha’s going to pay for every second those vines kept us out."
"Speaking of which..." I turned as Tinker Bell approached, looking like she'd been through hell. Strands of blonde hair had escaped her ponytail, ash streaked her flushed face, and her jeans and T-shirt were torn and filthy from whatever battle had taken place here.
"Enzo, you have it?" Tinker Bell's voice was breathless with exhaustion, but her green eyes burned with desperate hope.
"Yes," I said, my hand trembling slightly as I reached into my jacket. The stone felt heavier than it should as I pulled it from my pocket, its surface warm against my palm like living flesh. "You want to tell me exactly what this is? This thing acted like it was alive."
My skin crawled as I remembered the constant pulse against my chest, the way it seemed to respond to my emotions. I held it out to her, fighting the urge to hurl the cursed thing as far as I could throw it.
"You might say it is." She took the stone with reverent care, cradling it in her palm like a venomous snake.
The moment it left my hands, a strange emptiness came over me, as if something vital had been ripped away.
"The stone leeches onto whoever is cursed and would literally suck them dry if they were in the same room. "
Cold swept through me. "It almost killed Killian." The words came out hoarse, my throat tight with the implications.
"I'm not surprised," she said matter-of-factly, though her fingers trembled where she gripped the stone. "Hopefully, his blood will be enough to fuel the counter-curse."
Sweat beaded on my forehead despite the cool night air. I didn't want to ask—didn't want to hear confirmation that Joy had been screaming. But I had to know. The not knowing was worse than any answer she could give.
"Have you heard any more screams? Any sign of Joy?"
She gave me a look filled with sympathy and regret. "We heard some screams, but honestly, we couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman."
Keir joined us, his weathered face grim as he cast a thoughtful look at the cathedral. "But whoever it was, they were in agony."
I cursed under my breath, my fangs extending involuntarily. If it was Joy, I'd leave a body count bloodier than Jack the Ripper.
Keir turned his attention to Tinker Bell. "Can you cast the spell alone now that you have the stone?"
"I hope so," she said, rolling the blood stone between her palms like a prayer bead. She headed over to a large flat rock where her ancient spellbook lay open, its yellowed pages fluttering in the night breeze. A bubbling cauldron sat over a small fire nearby, the contents hissing and steaming.
This had to work. I watched every movement, searching for confidence in her actions, some sign she knew what she was doing.
But all I saw was uncertainty—the hesitation in her hands, the way she checked and rechecked the spellbook.
My life, Joy's life, everything depended on magic I didn't understand from a witch who hoped it would work.
She dropped the stone into the cauldron with a sharp plop. The liquid turned a deep crimson, and she began to chant in Latin, her voice rising and falling with ancient rhythm:
"Sanguis principis, vincula rumpe,
Tenebrae recedant, lux resurgat,
Maleficium dissolvatur,
Libertas restituatur."
The cauldron's contents began to glow with an eerie crimson light, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Thick smoke snaked upward into the star-filled sky, then suddenly changed direction, streaming toward the cathedral like ghostly fingers.
The magical mist hit the massive vine wall and began seeping into the twisted vegetation.
My breath caught. It was working—or at least, something was happening. As the smoke penetrated the vines, my muscles coiled tight, ready to move the second they started to recede.
Come on. Come on. Let this work.
At first, nothing happened. The thorny barrier remained as impenetrable as ever, its sickly green glow unchanged. Seconds stretched into an eternity, each one tightening the knot in my chest.
Then—movement. The vines and thorns began to wiggle, just slightly at first, like they were uncomfortable. The motion spread outward in ripples, the entire wall of vegetation starting to writhe and shift as if something was irritating it from within.
Hope flared in my chest. It was working. The spell was actually—
A sharp crack split the air like thunder, and for one terrifying moment, reality seemed to tear. An agonizing scream split the night air, raw and primal, echoing across the bayou like the cry of the damned. The sound pierced straight through my soul, and I knew—knew—that voice.
"Joy!" Her name tore from my throat as I lunged toward the cathedral, my body moving before my mind could catch up.
Strong arms locked around me from both sides, hauling me back. Angelo and Dimitri formed a human wall, their grips like iron shackles.
"You can't attack it, Enzo!" Angelo's voice cut through my panic. "You'll be captured too!"
But reasoning had fled completely. I fought like a man possessed, thrashing against their hold with vampiric strength, my fangs fully extended and murder in my eyes. "Let me go! She needs me!"
Another scream echoed across the bayou—weaker this time, broken—and it nearly shattered what was left of my sanity.