CHAPTER ONE || THIERRY #2
“Thierry, come on.” Poppy shook her head. “I don’t get the attitude. I really don’t. It’s not because you’re old and jaded or whatever. My girlfriend is at least twice your age, and she’s nothing like you.”
From the circle’s edge, Simone—one of my oldest friends—gave me a little wave.
Judging by the crinkles around her almond-shaped eyes and the curve of her lips, she was trying hard not to laugh.
Many things amused her. The perks of being unknowably ancient and having seen empires rise and fall.
I suspected she didn’t even know exactly how old she was, given she had been born long before written record-keeping became standard practice.
Very little disturbed Simone, save for wanton violence against innocents.
But I had never seen her happier than when she was with Poppy.
The two couldn’t have been more opposite: Poppy was pale, freckled, wreathed in an unruly mane of vivid red hair, and filled with nervous energy.
Simone, on the other hand, was steadfast and regal.
With her flawless dark skin, killer bone structure, and close-cropped black hair, she was the epitome of elegance—almost like a supermodel who had wandered off the runway.
That is, if said supermodel was thousands of years old and had fangs.
“Maybe I’ll be nicer in my old age,” I muttered. “Give me another two thousand years and I’m sure I’ll be sweet as pie.”
“That’s the spirit,” Simone called, laughing. “And be nice to my girlfriend. Or else .”
I scowled.
“Anyway,” Poppy said, cutting back in. “Like I was saying before you decided to be an asshat for no good reason, this spell taps into all possible outcomes of every decision you have ever or will ever make. It creates a branching of fate lines, so that—”
“I find my one true, destined love.” I couldn’t quite keep the exasperation out of my voice when I added, “Yes, yes. Very impressive for those who appreciate such things.”
In my defense, she had explained the mechanics before. Repeatedly. And I wasn’t a warlock, so the finer points were lost on me.
But Poppy stopped dead, clutching her bowl like she might hurl it at my head. Simone shot me a warning look. Even the witch queen glared.
I sighed. No one likes getting ganged up on.
“Look, I understood the theory the first half-dozen times you explained it. And it didn’t work those times either.”
“If you don’t want me to cast it, just say so. You’re not the one risking spontaneous combustion.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Ethan Solomon assured her, voice carrying. He showed Poppy the wickedly sharp blade in his hand. “See? Locked and loaded. At the first sign of trouble, I’ll neutralize the magic by bleeding all over you.”
“Gee, thanks,” Poppy said, though she looked marginally reassured.
“And if you’ve exhausted your supply of wit,” Tatiana said, giving me a cold-eyed once-over, “we’re ready to begin.”
“Just get on with it, darling,” I drawled. “I’m not getting any older, but we shouldn’t waste time.”
Poppy sighed. “I hope your fated mate has the patience of a fucking saint.”
“As long as he’s well-endowed, everything else is negotiable,” I shot back, flashing a too-sweet smile to hide the sudden nervousness I felt.
Eight hundred years ago, I’d been turned by a sadistic bastard who delighted in seeing me suffer.
When I realized I was giving him exactly what he wanted every time I reacted to one of his cruelties, I shut it all down.
There was no way in hell I’d ever give Magnus the satisfaction of seeing my pain.
My instinct, even now, was to drown whatever I was feeling in humor. Or anything else I could manage.
Still, I couldn’t help the flash of guilt at how dismissive I sounded.
She was taking a colossal risk. They all were.
But she was choosing to do this because she agreed with me.
She believed what we were doing here mattered.
I wasn’t so ungrateful that I couldn’t see it.
Even if they were making it worse by dragging things out.
“Look,” I said, meeting her eyes and forcing the words out before I could overthink them. “I understand this is dangerous. For me and for you. And I trust that you’ve figured out the mechanics.” Grudgingly, I added, “Thank you.”
“Am I really high, or did you just—”
“Frame it,” I said brusquely. “It’s not happening again.” When she just stared, I added, “Don’t you have a spell to cast?”
Seeming marginally relieved, perhaps that we were back in safer waters with one another, she gave me a sharp nod. Then she and the other witches launched into the spell.
It was the same ancient Greek incantation she’d used before, this time echoed by Tatiana and Wynn.
The only word I caught was Moirai —the ancient Greek word that referred to the triplicity of fates.
Then came a shorter passage in a guttural-sounding tongue, possibly an ancient Germanic dialect.
Though fluent in modern German, I didn’t recognize a single word of it.
As they chanted, Poppy circled me, scattering flowers. She threw them haphazardly, but the petals still formed a perfect ring at my feet. As she moved into a third incantation—a spell she’d never used before, maybe in a forgotten Welsh dialect—a strange pressure built in my bones.
A moment later, I let out a sharp gasp.
I felt, simultaneously, as if I might fly away or sink into the earth forever. The pressure grew, like one of those awful carnival rides that spins until you’re pinned against the wall.
But I must not have been truly pinned, because the next moment I collapsed to my knees, gasping.
Were my bones breaking? My skin splitting?
White light exploded behind my eyes, and then—nothing.
Was this dying? After eight centuries, was this how it ended? Darkly ironic that doing the right thing would bring about my demise.
But if Poppy’s magic was going wild, why wasn’t Ethan stopping it?
Then the light resolved into images.
I recoiled.
Magnus, my maker, was right there. Close enough to touch. Thick iron chains, inscribed with blood-red sigils, bound him. Weak sunlight streamed into the stone room from somewhere above. He was lying in a marble sarcophagus.
Decay and mildew surrounded me. Dampness. The feeling of a place sealed off from time.
A tomb, I realized.
But Magnus’s face was the same. Barely thirty when he was turned, ashen blond and almost angelically beautiful.
Then, as Poppy continued the spell—I somehow knew she was still casting—raw power surged through the vision.
Magnus’s silver eyes snapped open.
He thrashed, roaring as smoke rose from his skin, as though the iron was burning him. That should have been impossible. Only silver weakens vampires.
The sigils flashed scarlet, painfully bright. One by one, they shattered.
And then Magnus vanished.
Next came a parade of faces. Dozens. Hundreds. Most I didn’t know.
But then I saw one I did.
My twin brother.
Nicolas was standing in a partly finished basement with a single bulb overhead, casting everything in a mix of glare and deep shadow.
He was holding a pale, middle-aged man in his arms. But it wasn’t the embrace of a lover.
His face, identical to mine in every way, was buried in the man’s throat.
And the man was letting out low, strangled noises, like he wanted to scream but couldn’t.
As if he’d been hypnotized into complacency.
My stomach heaved at the sight.
The man’s eyes went flat and lifeless, and all the tension drained out of him at once.
My brother pulled back and dropped him like a sack of trash.
The body fell at his feet, lifeless and unmoving.
Nicolas’s mouth was stained red. And there was nothing human in his eyes as he peered down at his victim, only mildly interested in the life he’d just taken.
Then he pulled a cloth handkerchief from his leather jacket pocket and dabbed at his lips, as though he’d just dined at a Michelin-star restaurant.
“No,” I whispered, horror and grief surging through me.
It was impossible. My brother was dead. I had killed him myself. His body had burned to ash.
For that matter, Magnus was dead too—killed by a coven of witches centuries ago.
Which meant Poppy’s spell hadn’t tapped into fate. It had tapped into something else. Maybe I was seeing a vision of the underworld. A place of torment, not peace.
Though unlike Magnus, Nicolas seemed perfectly content with his fate.
“No,” I said again, backing away. Except there was nowhere to go. I wasn’t truly here. This wasn’t really happening—it couldn’t be. But that didn’t make it any less vivid.
Then my brother’s image slid away as quickly as it had come. Replaced by dozens more faces I didn’t recognize. People I’d never met.
Were they more ghosts? Was I dead too?
Then the vision landed on another face I knew all too well.
Godric.
Magnus’s right hand. One of the most vicious vampires I’d ever known. As ancient as I was, Godric was older—and far more lethal.
His pale skin was smooth, except for the jagged scar across one cheek. He’d gotten that long before he was turned, though he never said how. His dark hair, once shoulder-length, was now cut short and modern. He wore a black leather jacket and a plain black V-neck. His eyes were dark, bottomless.
He blinked a few times, looking right at me, like he was stunned to find me here.
Impossible.
This was all a waking dream. The by-product of a powerful spell. He was a figment of my subconscious. Or maybe a ghost. Or maybe I was dead, and this was my reckoning.
“Thierry,” he snarled, fury twisting his face. “What have you done?”
“You’re not real,” I told him, relieved to find I could talk.
“Then how am I speaking to you?”
“I have a good imagination,” I said. “And an even better memory.”