35. Destructively Decadent
35
DESTRUCTIVELY DECADENT
SAYAH
M y eyes betray me.
They have to be.
He doesn’t see me yet, or if he does, he doesn’t acknowledge me.
Handsome is too plain a word to describe this man. He’s breathtakingly gorgeous. He’s tall, and his black hair hangs slightly disheveled around his face. His prominent jawline is so sturdy, it’s as if he has been sculpted. Wearing all black—black leather jacket with the collar flicked up, black jeans, black boots—the black makes the blue of his eyes stand out even more, vivid enough to cut through the most unforgiving dark. Although the blue of them is so other-worldly, he doesn’t need the sea of black framing them to make them stand out. The edge of his aura is sharp and cool, like fire.
There’s a girl at his side, but I barely notice the woman because I’m trying to breathe, trying to figure out why this very real man is entering Dom’s parent’s house, out of my mind and into my life.
“Bash!” cries Adaline, setting her spatula down to greet him.
I’m sitting at Dom’s side at the far end of the table, next to Hattie who’s at the head. I hunch down behind Dom's shoulder and focus on breathing, trying not to bring attention to myself that I know Sebastian, who now I know is Bash.
Dom’s brother.
“What are you doing here?” Adaline asks, wrapping him up in a hug.
He still hasn’t noticed me.
And even if he does, who’s to say he’ll also know who I am?
“Well…” His voice is exactly the way it had been in my dreams. Cool, calm, deep, like a babbling brook. “A little birdie told me that my little brother was in town. With a girl no less, so I had to stop by and see for myself.”
My heart races.
Dom glares at Ollie—the little birdie—and Ollie also greets him.
Scarlet, Jasantha, Hattie, and Dom exchange looks of annoyance, and something unspoken between them all.
The woman at Bash’s side is mesmerizing. Although I don’t know her—or him, for that matter—I’m jealous of her. Of her looks, of her life, of the man on her arm.
She is breathtaking as well. Her eyes almost glow a pale brown, like an autumn yellow. Her hair is blonde and hangs in waterfall curls to her shoulders, and her large, prominent breasts spill out of her shirt.
I try to hide my head behind Dom, unable to see Bash as he turns around, hoping he won’t see me.
Nobody at the table gets up to greet him. They remain seated, and the silence is resounding throughout the house. A disquieted tension.
So many things are running through my mind.
“Hello, siblings,” Bash says, and I can hear his boots clunking on the floor as he approaches us.
This is it.
He’s about to see me, and I’ll know by his reaction if he knows me too.
No one answers him.
Instead of finishing his walk to the table, he turns to his father, sitting at one of the barstools on the island.
“Father,” he says casually, indifferent. There’s steel in his voice.
“Sebastian,” answers Everett. “What brings you to Lake George?”
“I told you. I’ve come to see my brother.” His voice is cold, like a rapier’s samba—elegant, deadly, and utterly merciless.
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Dom says defensively, and now he’s about to turn around and see me.
He turns.
Those blue eyes catch mine, and he stops. I’m immured by his gaze.
Nothing is said. I can’t breathe.
“What do you want, Bash?” Dom asks at my side.
His eyes linger on mine momentarily, and I can’t tell if he recognizes me. “Why, I don’t want anything, baby bro.” His eyes leave mine, and he narrows his gaze on Dom. “Just wanted to see your sweet, cherub face is all. Haven’t seen you in, what? Eighty years or so. Wanted to see how you are, what you’ve been up to. Meet your girl.”
He sits down at the table across from Dom and me and pours himself a glass of wine.
“Sit, baby,” he orders, and the woman flashes over to him and sits.
She’s a vampire, too, obviously.
He pours her a glass of wine and hands it to her.
“Siblings, this is Talora. Talora, this is Hattie and Dom. You met Ollie over there, Jasantha, don’t know the dude here, Ollie’s girl Allison, Scarlet, and Dom’s woman…I’m sorry, what’s your name, princess?”
My heart’s pounding so loud, I’m sure the entire room can feel it like bass in a little car.
“This is Lasayah,” Dom answers for me. Hearing him use my full name makes me feel like I’m in trouble.
Maybe he’s being formal to hold a point with his brother.
The brother that has been haunting my dreams for months.
Bash holds out his hand for me to take, but I hesitate.
“Lasayah,” he whispers, sliding his tongue carefully across each syllable of my name .
A feeling of virulent and noxious love hits me like a tidal wave. I’m sure if I hold out my hand, it’ll be shaking. But I do. And it’s not.
Bash stands and grasps my hand, pulling it to his lips. “Pleased to meet you, Sayah.”
The way his mouth caresses my name holds a viscous potency, a hesitating and murderous curiosity all rolled into that decadent cadence.
Black hair disarrayed, blue eyes brilliant with a glint of danger and rapture as though seeing me is all the joy in his heart, he calls me by the name that only people who know me call me. He knows me. I can see it in those crystal blue eyes.
We’ve been haunting each other’s dreams, and I know that more than anything else.
An imagined chill laps at the nape of my neck, along with a wave of unnervingly intense emotions. I fight to breathe normally; the feeling of asphyxiating sends hot flashes to my cheeks, and I swallow hard, trying to calm myself.
Dom looks at me, and I feel a tickling in my mind like he’s trying to get in. I pull my hand back and look at Dom, shaking my head as though telling him I’m all right, fortifying myself against his attempt.
“Why are you here?” Dom asks again, his brows furrowing together as his frown turns grim.
Bash plays with the glass, slipping his fingertip along the top, making it sing. “I told you. I wanted to see you.”
His eyes catch mine again, and I fall into them, take a running spill into his darkness, and feel myself falling into a void, unable to return.
I look away.
“That’s a fucking lie, and you know it,” Dom retorts.
“Quit with the bull shit already,” Everett says raucously from the bar. “We can always use Jasantha to get you to spill the truth, so stop beating around the fucking bush.”
“All right!” Bash says, and his voice is terrifying. “All right. I need a favor.”
“A favor?” Dom asks. “What do you want now?”
“I need a drop of each of your blood. It’s for a spell. ”
“What kind of spell?” Scarlet asks, flaying him with her gaze.
Taking a quick slug of the wine, he says, “I can’t say. But just know it’s not shady.”
“Bash, everything you do is shady,” responds Jasantha.
“No, it’s not.” Bash is indignant. His voice is defensive now, “It’s to break a curse. That’s all I’m telling you.”
“We’re kind of in the middle of breaking our own curse,” Hattie says.
“What curse do you have?” Bash asks, and suddenly, it dawns on me that this is a typical dinner conversation for vampires.
“Dom was marked,” Hattie answers defiantly.
Bash’s eyes draw cold indifference initially, then grow a little lighter. “What?”
“A tracker,” Dom answers. “I’m marked for necromancy.”
“ Ooh , who’s the warlock? She hot?”
“Bash!” Adaline scolds, setting down a big bowl of salad on the table. “Regardless of the long quarrel between you two, you’re brothers. You need to stop it.”
“So,” Bash continues, and his furtive glances at me are not going unnoticed. “How are you gonna break it? From what I understand, they’re part demon. Their curses are unbreakable.”
“We have a plan,” Hattie says. “And speaking of, we better get on that. Who knows how much time we have?”
“Right,” Adaline says, “after dinner.”
“I’ll help,” Bash offers, but there’s something plaintive about it. “However, I can.”
Dom gives him an incredulous look before his eyes wander to mine, shaking his head. “When have you ever done anything that isn’t selfish?”
As Bash is about to respond, Adaline sits a heavy plate of meatloaf on the table, the thud against the oak interrupting the siblings.
“Eat,” she orders.
Only sounds of plates thudding, utensils scraping, and wine pouring emanate from the large room.
The old myth that vampires only ate blood creeps up again. Since knowing Dom, I know they don’t consume human food to fulfill hunger. They use food to suppress it.
“So, can I have your blood?” Bash asks, interrupting the silence. No one answers. “I’ll help with this curse, then you help me with mine.”
“As long as afterward, I never see you again,” replies Dom as he cuts a piece of meat with his fork.
There’s a twinge of disbelief on Bash’s face, and then it’s gone. The warp and weft of old resentments and alliances hanging between them. “Deal.”
“ A ll right,” Adaline says after eating dinner and cleaning dishes. “We better get a move on and start on that spell. We need to get Hattie ready for her mission.”
We’re all standing around the island, chatting amongst ourselves and helping Adaline with whatever we can.
Wiping her hands on a dishtowel, Adaline flings it on the counter and walks toward the hallway. Everett subtly places his hand on the small of her back to walk with her.
I let Dom pull me, aware of where Bash is. Even if he isn’t in my peripheral, I can feel him as one would feel an electric forcefield.
Upon entering the spell room, Adaline moves her arms in a swooping motion that brings the fire in the fireplace roaring to life. Dom, not going to be part of the spell casting, takes a seat on the chairs by the fire and retrieves his phone.
“Hattie, stand there,” Adaline orders, pointing to a place before the fire. Doing as she’s told, Hattie takes her place where her mom had instructed. “Now, we make a circle around her.”
I fall in line next to Scarlet and Adaline, irresolutely grabbing each woman’s hands. They’re cold, but it’s a bone-deep cold, not just their skin. The feeling and tension in the grip is worse, Scarlet’ s more so than Adaline’s.
“Repeat after me,” Adaline instructs. “And while doing so, imagine a blanket of invisibility covering Hattie. Picture her like a ghost, iridescent and able to walk through walls. ‘Impero te, impero ti invisibillis. Te astringuo lingua. Impero ti invisibillis.’”
“Impero te, impero ti invisibillis. Te astringuo lingua. Impero ti invisibillis,” we articulate, each time our voices growing in volume.
Doing magick with his mom and sister is unnerving and unreal. Still, I concentrate as hard as possible on Hattie pulling this off.
A crystal passes between us, and when it’s my turn to hold it, I pull all my energy from myself, picturing Hattie becoming invisible, and put it into the rock. The crystal burns in my hand, and I hold it before me when it’s almost too hot to hold anymore.
It’s glowing.
I pass the crystal to Adaline, who then gives it to Hattie.
The glow dies down, as well as the chanting.
“When you’re ready,” Adaline says, her dark lashes sweeping up as she blinks, “call upon its power, and it will make you invisible.”
Hattie nods and tucks the crystal into her bra.
“You’ll need this,” Adaline adds, handing her a heavy stone. “Put this on the sensor so the alarm doesn’t go off.”
“I’m coming with you in case anything weird happens,” Scarlet says, glancing from Hattie to her mom.
“Dom is going too,” says Adaline, moving over to the table. “This is his curse to break, and he should be there.”
Hesitation hits my heart, thinking of the last time I sent him to a city on a mission.
That’s what got him marked.
This is all my fault.
“So, me, Dom, and Scar?” Hattie asks, walking over to the chair to put on her boots. “Shouldn’t Ollie come too? You know, one more male backup in case he and Dom have to veilweave anyone?”
“We can send Ollie, too,” Adaline agrees, putting her spell items away.
“It’s a four-hour drive,” Hattie says, lacing up her other boot. “We better get moving. ”
Silence again befalls the group as we exit the spell room. Dom’s hand in mine is no comfort to what we will experience. Not just him leaving me alone with vampires, but there’s something sinister in the air. I can feel it, like coming down with a cold. Nausea pools in me, and aches filter through my bones.
Bash is sitting on the couches with Talora, and Allison is at the table with Jasantha. Joe, Ollie, and Everett are outside puffing on a cigar, the austere smoke of it illuminating in the pale porch light, the dark lake invisible in the background.
Dom beckons Ollie with his finger, and he appears before us on a breath.
“We’re going with Hattie to get the artifact,” he instructs.
Ollie nods, scratching his chin, the sound of the stubble on his face resounding. “All right. Leaving our girls here then?” he asks.
“Yes,” Dom says and looks at me. His green eyes slant a bit. He, too, has the memory of the last time he went away to a city. “It’s gonna be okay,” he tells me as he reads me. “The spell will work. I know it.”
I'm not sure whether it’s his vampire allure that makes me believe it or if something surfaces in myself that makes me think it’s going to be okay, but suddenly, I feel like it is.
Ollie’s next to Allison in that same inhuman movement, explaining what he’s going to do. When he’s back, we walk the four of them to the vehicles outside, and I let Dom swoop me up into a hug.
“Be careful,” I tell him softly.
“I will, love.”
He kisses me sweetly and then evaporates into the car.
Sounds of the car doors shutting and the engine roaring to life skim my ears, and I shiver, maybe at the still early spring air or at what they’re going to do. The headlights come on, and the echoing of tires on gravel replaces all other sounds.
When they’re gone, crickets and a distant owl hum to me.
I’m left alone with his vampire family and the brother who’s dangerous and terrifying, whom I’d been in secret assignations with.
At least I get the feeling that Adaline likes me.
I make my way back into the house. As I walk by Bash as he sits with Talora recumbent in his lap, he looks at me, and that fury catches me sideways and hard.
Ignoring it, I walk up the spiral staircase and back into my bedroom.
Walking to the balcony, I lean on the railing and stare at the stars.
The night is calm; there aren’t any interruptions of clouds in the sky. The winds are sleeping, and yet the trees still sway. The smell of moist Earth touches my nostrils as I notice how bright and sparkly the night sky is. The moon’s coming up, not quite half a moon, but the silver in it puts any silver on Earth to shame.
As I look up and beg the moon to keep my man safe, I feel Sebastian’s presence before I know he is there.
Turning slowly, I see him in the doorway.
My lungs forget how to draw air.
“I know you,” he says, his dark voice shattering any calm I’d just found.
I don’t say anything; I don’t know what to say. I let my gaze sweep over him.
If he’s here, that means that he’s my death. I know death. I’ve stood on the narrow edge of it before, and it doesn’t scare me now.
Though every fiber in me tells me that it should.
Without even so much as a sound, he’s next to me. I try to fight looking at him, knowing that with him standing so close, I’ll fall into those eyes again, and this time, with him in person, I may never recover.
I remember all the times we’d let go of consciousness together, sharing fits and starts of each other’s slumbering worlds.
“You know me, too,” he says, his voice drawing shivers from my spine.
The smell of him is dangerous, like cologne and midnight. There’s a hurricane in his eyes and a fire in his bones that tempts me, and I know if I get caught up in his allurement, I’ll burn in those flames and drown in that storm.
There’s no fire this time, but he hasn’t bitten me.
At least, not yet.
“Why do I know you?” I ask, fighting the urge I feel surging inside my every limb. The only choice I have is to accept the madness.
“You’ve been in my dreams for months.” There it is. His peerless gaze ensconces me, slowly sweeping up my body, his eyes drinking up every feature of my face.
Does he feel this passion that I feel? The passion that feels like I would go to the ends of the Earth for him? That I would burn in his fire no matter how bad it hurts because I like how he burns me? That every lingering moment in his life has put him on this path that led up to this moment on this balcony right now?
“You are the one that has been in mine,” I state when I finally find my voice, not moving an inch toward him because I don’t trust him.
Or myself.
“I think you have that backward.”
“Regardless, what the hell does this mean? Why have we been dreaming of each other?” The tremble in my voice gives him conviction, and even though this is the first word we’re speaking awake to each other, it isn’t. It’s as though we have spoken to each other millions of times in thousands of different lives. This is not the first time we have spoken.
“I don’t know,” he says, and the coolness of his voice trudges through my existence one cadence at a time. I get the feeling he knows this part. He knows it well.
He inches closer, and I feel like I’m being pulled, like his lips are magnets that need mine to feel alive, pressed against them to feel his own existence.
Somehow, I pull my gaze away.
“Sayah,” Bash says, and when he says my name, it feels like a warm summer venom has glided through my skin. “Dom can’t know.”
Dom.
I’d forgotten of Dom.
But why can’t he know? And why does Bash care?
“What is it that he isn’t supposed to know about?” My thoughts are splintering.
He’s too beautiful to not look at .
“The dreams. We’ve been dream-walking to one another.”
“What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know what it means,” he says, inching closer to me once again. He’s so close I can count each one of his glorious dark eyelashes.
A knowing deep within his eyes tells me he does know. He’s familiar with this, and I cannot shake that feeling.
“You burn me,” I say harshly. “In every dream. You kiss me. Then you bite me. Then I burn.”
“I know. I’m in them, too.” His tone is almost frigid.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” he says again, his dark eyebrows dancing above his eyes. “I had to see for myself that you knew who I was, too. That you have been having the same dreams as me. Each one is so real, and the next day, I feel so . . . different. Your light feeds me, and every time I get to breathe you, I live a little easier, and life is a little less painful the next day.”
That’s precisely what he had told me in my last dream of him.
I’m having déjà vu.
“What about the last one? In my room? Were you really there?”
“Yes.” He peers at me through narrowed eyes, a wistfulness passing over his expression.
“How?”
“I don’t know. All I know is there’s something about you that I need to live.”
“I barely know you. I’m with your brother. You’re with Talora. This is crazy!”
“I don’t care about any of that. The feeling I get when I see you in my dreams is something I have ached for. I don’t care how long it takes. I will have you.”
“But you burn me. Doesn’t that mean anything at all to you? Because it does to me.”
“I think that’s a metaphor for something.”
I bite back an angry retort. “I don’t want to try it out” is what I say instead, folding my arms demurely around me .
I can’t move again; his lips inch closer to mine, and I’m curious if it is a metaphor. Maybe it’s a sign to me that he’s that passion, that all-consuming, ineffable love I’m missing in my life, and that’s what the fire is for.
The fog grows thick, and I remember there’s someone I have feelings for, but I can’t think of who that is now.
Then it hits me that this is all his power.
All vampires have a special power; this must be his. To make me feel at ease and to forget that man I came here with.
Fighting against the fog, I push back against it as hard as possible.
My nose wrinkles. I rummage through my soul, trying to find that power, to dredge it up and throw it at him, and there’s something in me that doesn’t want to know what his worst fear is. Even though he’s a monster, his worst fear is probably abysmal.
Backing away from me suddenly, he must’ve sensed that I was searching for something to divest him of. He folds his arms across his chest protectively.
“Bash?” comes Talora’s voice from down the hall.
He looks toward the bedroom and then back toward me.
“Dom can’t know,” he says again.
Then he’s gone.
The further he gets from me, the more and more the fog lifts and the details about the moment that had just happened become clearer.
So many questions are milling through my mind that I almost forgot why we’re here.
The curse and the artifact they have left to retrieve.
Putting Bash as far as I can away from my mind, I decide the best thing to do is ignore him and let him fade away.
Maybe there’s a spell I can do that will erase him from my mind and stop him from revisiting my dreams.
Wondering if Adaline will mind much if I peruse through her grimoires, I head back out of the bedroom and down the spiral staircase.
The room is quiet; a few others sit on the couches watching something on T.V. Bash is not on this floor, so he must have retired to one of the bedrooms with his lady.
I go around the kitchen and down the stairs to where the spell room is located.
Adaline’s not in the room.
There’s an eerie feeling in my heart.
This is a vampire’s dwelling; her secrets, herbs, and spell books are here. I do not find it within me to try and go through a book, even if it’s a simple meandering, looking for a spell.
It’s a spell I need to break a bond I have with one of her sons.
The other son.
Maybe it can wait until I get back home to do it.
As I’m leaving, I hear voices from a slightly ajar door down the hall from the spell room.
I remember seeing it in passing when we first came down here.
It’s Adaline’s office.
Trying not to listen as I walk past, I overhear.
“So that would make him a tribrid then?” comes the voice of someone I don’t initially recognize.
“Yes.” This is Adaline’s voice.
I back myself to the wall to listen and not be seen.
“He’s part demon, part witch, part vampire.”
“And you think that’s the curse he’s trying to break?”
I now realize it’s Jasantha’s voice whom Adaline’s talking to.
“It has to be,” Adaline replies, her voice full of worry. “I don’t know what other curse he could be talking about.”
“If he’s part demon, wouldn’t that make him a warlock then?”
“Yes, but one kept the other at bay because I’d been doing my own magick and made the vampire curse. Until now, it would seem.”
“Are you going to talk to him about it?”
“I’m going to try. But not with that Talora woman around.”
They stop talking, and my heart stops with them. I shouldn’t be hearing this.
Bash is a tribrid? But how ?
“Well,” Jasantha begins again, and I creep away from the door as quietly as possible.
I return to my bedroom without running into anyone and collapse on the bed.
So, Bash is trying to break his curse, but what curse would that be? The warlock curse? Does it mean he is also marked to become a grimspawn?
So many questions are running through my head again, and I want to talk to Dom to pick his brain and see if he knows what this means.
The new information I’d just acquired—the fact that I now know that Bash is a real person and has been having dreams of me too—everything that has happened in the last forty-eight hours must have wiped me out because the next thing I know, I’m waking up to Dom and Scarlet stumbling into the room.
“Dom!” I exclaim. Scarlet walks him over to the bed, one of his arms draped around her. “What happened?”
“He blacked out,” Scarlet says tonelessly as Dom dangles from her arms haggardly, at an unnatural angle. “The warlock has started to come for him.”
Scarlet lays him on the bed, and the look of worry that passes over her face dissembles the toneless words she’d spoken.
I sit up and examine him, looking at his face and anything else that may be out of sorts.
“Did you get the artifact?” I ask, getting closer to him.
“Yes. Mom is working on it now; I’m going to go help her. Come when you can. We need to get this done soon.”
Scarlet’s gone, but Ollie remains in the doorway.
Dom is barely coherent, but I need to know what happened from someone who doesn’t look as though he got hit by a truck.
He’s pale and sweating. The look of distemper on his face is almost flagrant, as though if he breathed on me it would smell like bourbon.
The depravity of his appearance is disarming.
“We had Scarlet calm him and gave him some bourbon as well,” Ollie says, the abeyance of his own voice calm and relaxed. “It’s kind of like being drunk for a vampire. He’ll recover soon.”
“What happened? ”
Ollie comes all the way into the room and sits on the chair in the corner. “We got there and got Hattie spelled. She went in, and everything was fine. Suddenly, Dom’s eyes went black. He began mumbling, talking to someone who wasn’t there, speaking in tongues. I’m a vampire, and it scared me to my core.”
His words grate on me and cause a panic that I bite down on as hard as possible. “You have no idea what he was saying?”
He shakes his head. “No. He started acting possessed, trying to get out of the car. I had to use all my strength to get him to stay in the back. Scarlet came round to the back and got him spelled enough to get him to calm down. When he finally came to, the only thing he was saying was that he was supposed to kill . . .” Ollie stops and looks down.
“Supposed to kill who?”
His soft eyes are on mine, and they grow cold quickly. “You.”
My heart skips, the rubatosis unmooring me. “Me? Why me?”
“He didn’t know. He didn't remember any of it when he was all the way himself again.”
I look back to Dom, now asleep, his brown lashes resting on his soft face like a dark curtain of mystery.
“Sayah,” Ollie says hesitantly, “For whatever reason, the warlock wants him to kill you first. He won’t be able to control himself soon. It’ll keep getting worse and worse.”
“So, what am I supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” he says rigidly, pulling a stick off his pant leg. “Until this curse is broken, you may have to run.”
“Run? Run where?”
“Somewhere where he wouldn’t know you to go. Go home. Get your child. And run.”
This doesn’t make any sense. I can’t run right now; I need to help fix him. Even if I entertained the thought of running, I have a life back home, and so does Gauge. How am I supposed to just run away? Then there’s the split custody thing. If I take Gauge out of the state, Derek will have me arrested and, worse, have Gauge taken from me.
“I can’t run yet, Ollie. I need to help them to break this curse. ”
“Well. Do what you need to do.” Ollie stands to leave. “But there may come a time when he can’t help what he does. When that happens, run.”
He’s gone, and I’m alone with Dom, the man who’s now cursed to kill me.
Here I am, thousands of miles away from home, in a strange place with a house full of monsters. The only one that I have who’s protecting me is my boyfriend, and now he’s under some spell that’s making him try to kill me.
I want my mom.
What am I going to do?
Ollie told me to run.
Retrieving my phone from my back pocket, I look at the time. It’s almost six in the morning. I think about calling Claire and Anna; I miss them and want someone to talk to.
Unbidden tears infiltrate my eyes as I walk out to the balcony.
Time may have stood still. I stare at the water, wishing I had someone I could call. Someone that would help me understand this mess that I got myself into. But what would I say to Claire? She has no idea what has happened since I learned of Dom’s dark secret.
There’s a hammock swing off to the right of the porch, and I go to it; pulling my knees up to my chest, I cry. I cry for all the things I’ve been through.
Wondering why the world is always out to get me.
There never seems to be any good in my life. It always leads to evil.
Sitting here for a long time, I watch the sun come up over the water, watch the light kiss the lake, and give the world the first fiery breath of morning.
I know that I should go in and see if Adaline and Scarlet need my help, but there probably isn’t much for me to do.
I’m not a strong witch yet. I can’t accomplish much. I don’t know why I’m here.
There’s a hand on my shoulder, and I half-expect to see Bash here again because why not? It’s the last thing I need, so it’s the first thought in my head.
But it isn’t Bash, it’s Dom.
“Hey.” I sniffle and look up at him for a second, trying to decide if he’s himself or under that spell.
“Hey. It’s okay. I’m me.” The opacity of his skin is unsettling.
Pulling him down, I wrap myself in his arms and let him hold me for a few seconds.
“Do you remember anything about what happened to you?”
I can feel his heart racing. “I am starting to. But when I was sleeping, she came to me again.”
“The warlock?”
His chest rises as he nods. “She’s awful, Sayah. She terrifies me.”
“What did she say? What does she want?”
“She’s this awful-looking person with white hair and black eyes. Her lips and nails are black, and her face is so pale white that she looks like a ghost. She’s pure evil. And she told me her name is Matrasia. She said that the first person she wants me to kill is you because you are the Phoenix.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“She didn’t tell me. All she said was that I must kill you. And there’s a desire in my head I’m fighting right now that wants to hurt you. I’m so lost by this, Sayah. I don’t know what to do.”
“Why does she want me dead? What have I ever done?”
“I don’t know. I just know that you’re the one I have to kill. If I kill you, my mark will be complete, and I will be hers forever.”
A terror rises up in me that frays me. This is a dark I had never imagined. This warlock is part demon and wants me dead; floating petals and making sun talismans are not comparable to a demon’s magick. They’re not in the same realm. There’s nothing I can do to fight this.
“Hey,” he says, giving me a weak but hopeful smile, “I trust Hattie, Scarlet, and my mom. They’ll be able to break this. I believe that.”
“I hope so. I can’t imagine what will happen if it doesn’t work. ”
“If it doesn’t work,” he says, and the tone in his voice dangles in the winds of utter and severe gravity, “you have to kill me.”
“No! I will not kill?—”
“Sayah, you have to. This mark will change me into someone who is mindless; I’ll be dead anyway. And if she wants you dead, there’s nothing that will stop me from killing you. You have to keep you and Gauge safe. End me. Take my necklace and throw me in the sun. Or drive a silver stake through my heart. Sayah..” He pulls my chin so that I’m looking at him directly. “You have to.”
Tears swim in my eyes and roll down my cheeks.
“Promise me?”
I nod.
If it comes down to it, I am going to have to kill my boyfriend.