Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
A nand deposited me on the sofa in Dominic’s bedroom and took a position of sentry at the door, as if there was a plausible threat of me escaping. If I could, what would I see: the fall of the lord at the hands of his son? Two siblings fighting over patricide? Helena pressing Dominic for more information about me? Or her plotting to complete what her father had started?
This had to end. I had to end it. I wouldn’t be safe in the underworld until we were free.
“I have to go to Dominic’s office. I know how to fix this,” I blurted.
Anand’s face was more emotive than I’d ever seen it. Pure. Undeniable. Doubt. He topped it off with a derisive smirk. He had every right to his misgivings, but I hated that he saw me as inconsequential. I wasn’t and he needed to know that.
Anand was of the few people I felt comfortable telling everything about me. So, I did. As I told him about Dominic’s discovery of me being a source for magic, the marking being concealed, and how my body responded to the magic being removed, Anand’s derision became genuine concern, proving to me that Dominic hadn’t shared the information with anyone, even Anand.
How dangerous was this information that Dominic hid it from his friend? It led to more questions that I wasn’t sure could be answered. Was Dominic protecting him? What was the root of Anand’s concern: me or the situation?
“That’s why he’s been able to use you so easily. Your magic is his magic.” He wiped his hand over his face and sighed, a grim edge to his voice. “You’re not just an innocuous human.”
Fear slithered over me at the dark, considering look he gave me. It reminded me that the other supernaturals feared him, too. He wouldn’t have survived being so close to the royals if he wasn’t a force himself.
“I have magic but can’t use it. Somewhat human.” A tool that could be used for dangerous things.
How did the vessel of Tenebras Obducit magic fare in my world? Would Peter’s demise really bring me safety and peace? Would my life be marked by the supernaturals trying to discover the link between me and him? If it was ever discovered, what would happen then? As a tool of powerful magic, I would never be left alone. My hope was to use the orb to remove the magic and render my connection to Peter moot.
“I’d like to try the spell again and remove the magic from me. If that can be done, then we’ll be free. At least that’s one problem I could solve. We could solve.”
Assuming he could do the spell. I needed him or someone who could. Anand was an anomaly, a shifter who couldn’t shift but had specific magic. I hoped that he could at least invoke the spell.
After several moments of contemplation, he gave me an unenthusiastic nod. Soon he was next to me, lifting me with that unsettling shifter’s grace and power.
“I can walk,” I told him with far more bravado and confidence than I felt. All the pains had merged to aches throughout my body with the mildest movement.
I should have taken the shifter-carry ride. My legs were giving my pride the finger and rightfully so. Nothing was broken, I was pretty sure of that. But I had suffered a strain or sprain. Each step sent a shock of agony through me. Determination fueled my journey to Dominic’s office where I breathed a sigh of relief when it opened without the need for magic. My discarded clothing had been put away, but the orb and knife remained on the desk. I went to the bookcases and scanned the books. When I didn’t find the spellbook Dominic used, I frantically searched the drawers, ignoring Anand repeatedly calling my name to get my attention. I was sure that I looked unhinged, because that was exactly how I felt. The mantra ‘get the hell out of the underworld’ cycled on repeat in my head. The mission was clear and I had no intention of being sidetracked.
“Luna!” Anand’s powerful boom filled the room. My head snapped up. His cherubic looks were darkened by his sharp, savage eyes and scowl. Gulping a sigh, I plopped onto the desk chair, folded my arms on the table, and rested my face in the crook of it. Despite Dominic not being here, his scent wafted throughout the room. There was the tinge of magical energy drifting from either the orb or knife. They were all reminders of Dominic and the violence I had witnessed and that I had no means of escaping from. Tense silence stretched along with my patience. I was desperate to go home.
“He killed his father,” I whispered, my words muffled. Dominic saying he would, and Dominic actually doing it were entirely different and difficult for me to comprehend. Murder was an abstract idea in my mind. How many times are idle threats of murder made? “You took the last piece of cake, I’m going to kill you.” “She spilled wine on my white shirt, I wanted to kill her.” “My dad’s an inhumane monster of the underworld and I’m going to kill him and take his position.” He said it and did it.
“He’s not dead,” Anand assured me. My head snapped up. Blatant lies from the lips of the seraphic man who was brutally honest was something else to add to the long list of things that were terribly wrong with this world.
I scoffed. “Have my eyes deceived me? I didn’t see him stab his father in the stomach with his claws and perform a spell to prevent Areleus healing himself? How will he survive that?”
“I saw the same thing. I’ve seen their fights many times.”
“I’m sure it was nothing like this,” I asserted. No one could live with each other and show any semblance of decorum after engaging in such a ruthless battle. Not people like them. I distinctly remembered Areleus saying he’d never fall prey to Dominic restricting his magic in the manner that Helena had because he knew it would be his demise.
“Not quite,” he admitted. His honey-laden voice felt like a trap, lulling me into complacency or acceptance of customs that no ordinary person should accept, but I refused be lured.
“Explain?” I asked, fatigue and doubt heavy in my voice.
He shoved his fingers into his hair, drawing my attention to his scar and his hazel eyes with the hues of green and secrets. With a look of introspection, he took an exceptionally long time before speaking.
“Sometimes, Dominic’s softness is his weakness.”
Great, we’re just throwing away definitions to words now. Why not? Webster is now allowing ‘irregardless’ to be an acceptable way of saying ‘regardless’ and ‘softness’ can mean whatever the hell we want it to mean. A small smile flitted over his lips. He was definitely getting an idea of what was going through my mind because I wasn’t making any effort to hide it.
“I know it’s hard to understand. Yes, Dominic can be cruel and ruthless when necessary. He has no qualms about making a lasting statement—for an advantage. Luna, it is pertinent that you understand when it comes to dealing with his father and people like him, there’s no alternative method. He must present his worst self. Nothing else will do. Areleus is his father, despite Dominic’s dislike of him. With all his abilities to be pitiless, he’s yet to pull from that well of cruelty and untethered violence to dethrone him. He says he will when it is crucial. It’s been crucial for a while.”
“He did today.”
He shook his head. “He won’t let him die. This was a statement. He’s proven to his father that he is capable of taking the throne. He’s allowing him the dignity of relinquishing it.”
Dominic entered the room. Anand didn’t seem surprised by his presence, although I was. Disheveled hair, shirt splattered with blood, and a vestige of unbridled violence-lust fueling his movements, nothing about this man hinted at kindness that would allow clemency.
“He lives?” Anand posed it as a question, but it had the undercurrent of a statement.
Dominic’s head barely moved into the nod as he kept an unwavering eye on me.
“I need to change clothes,” Dominic announced, backing out of the room. He stopped at the threshold. “Luna?” An invitation I ignored. His brow hitched, eyes smoldering and dark. He called my name with even more command.
“Go change then?”
His jaw worked from side to side and there was a glint of amusement in his eyes. No, a challenge.
I stood, meeting the challenge. The weight on my leg sent a shot of pain through me. I was getting less convinced it was a strain.
“Now, Luna.” His request was clipped, cutting his demand off abruptly. A reminder of him saying that he wasn’t used to asking for permission to use his magic. He wasn’t accustomed to being challenged often, either. He inhaled a breath. “I’m assuming you are here to do the spell. If we end up at your home or seen by others, is this the appearance you wish them to see?”
Looking down, I saw that my appearance definitely mirrored the shambled way I felt. Blood was smeared on my shirt and arms everywhere I’d touched after pulling the glass from my leg. Nodding in agreement, I sucked in a breath to prepare for the pain of walking. My gut clenched with each step and I could no longer hide the signs of pain as I made my way to him. He held my gaze as he lowered to kneel, his finger gliding over my leg. A menthol coolness laced me, chasing away the sharp ache in my leg and ankle. Tissue felt like it was meshing in healing while I was being ensorcelled by the comforting scent of lavender and giving in to the soothing effect of his magic.
“Ready?” he asked, standing. I didn’t miss the reluctant anguish in his voice. He wasn’t as apathetic about what happened between him and his father as he wanted us to believe.
Removing his clothing as soon as he crossed the threshold, naked, he carried the bundle to the bathroom. The shower started to run moments later. He returned to the doorway and my eyes took in every inch of him, especially his impressive length that invoked a need to feel him inside me.
“Will you be joining me?” He gave me a sensual look that promised more than just a shower but an escape from reality as he explored my body and sated those rampant emotions that brewed in him. It showed in his face, his stance, and the way he looked at me.
“I should decline,” I said, finding that miniscule amount of pragmatism that remained.
“Are you going to?”
Not at all. Following his example, I slipped off my clothing. Grabbing the armful of tattered and stained clothing, I dropped them on top of his pile of clothes and followed him to the steamy shower. He pulled me into the stall, pressing me against the wall, using the excuse of bathing me to lather me, trailing over each part of my body where the water hit with kisses and laves of his tongue. His fingers slipped into me to gather the wetness between my legs, stroking and teasing me till I reached a shuddering climax. His tongue speared my mouth with a ravenous longing. I took his silky hardness into my hand, husky ragged breaths filling the space as I stroked him. Going to my knees, I ran my hands up the length of him, stroking him as I teased him with my mouth and tongue. His breaths became uncontrollably ragged, his fingers twining through my hair, tensing with pleasure. I could feel the restraint and the tension in his legs as he denied himself the pleasure. Gathering me in his arms, he lifted me and retreated to the bedroom. When he sheathed himself, I opened to him. A hungry desperation had him gyrating hard into me. I met his powerful greedy strokes with a shared frenzy to replace all the events of today with pleasure. Raw, untamed heat drove his movements. I felt a need that barely tolerated the absence of his cock when he rolled me to my stomach and reentered me. Positioning me to half kneel, he palmed my breast, teasing my nipple while his teeth nipped at my ear. Unspent chaotic magic curled around me in sync with his strokes. A beast prowled in Dominic that needed to be sated. I felt every primal part of him with every grind of his hips. My desperate moans increased as he caressed my breasts, tweaking the hardened nipples, and pressed hot kisses over my body. I felt devoured by each delicious stroke that ended with a shared explosion of satisfaction. I collapsed onto my stomach, his warm body covering mine.
He slipped out of me and I rolled to my side to face him. My body tingled with the memory of his touch. My finger traced over the sharp edges of his face, along the contours of his jawline, and his lips. He pressed a kiss to each finger and closed his eyes. Both of us were reluctant to move.
“Better?” he asked softly. Relaxed and sated, the tension had left my body, but my mind couldn’t ignore all the occurrences of the day.
“A little.”
He waited for me to elaborate. Searching for the words that didn’t come easily, I finally said. “Your father? I need to know what happened to him.”
“He’s alive,” he whispered.
“Barely?”
“His magic is gone but I healed him enough that he shouldn’t be in a lot of pain, nor should he succumb to his injuries.” ‘For now’ lingered in the heaviness of the room. “I was not kind to him after you left.”
Please don’t go into detail , I pleaded silently. I couldn’t stop the cruelty and violence, but I didn’t have to be given explicit details of it, either.
As if he heard my silent entreaty, he left it at that. “It will be my sister’s hand to determine if he lives. If she doesn’t continue to heal him, then eventually he will die.”
It was more complex than that. Dominic was testing loyalties.
Dominic and I showered separately and dressed. As we made our way to the office, the acute pain from my previous injuries gave me an appreciation for its absence. I renewed my focus on the problem at hand and not Dominic’s touch in his bedroom. When faced with his raw intensity, muscled contours, and erotic touch, it was easy to forget the perilous state we were in and become dismissive, if not accepting, of his propensity for violence, and his willful—no, his proud acceptance of being an asshole.
He had become a physical weakness for me, and I didn’t like that. Entering his office, the reality hit me that if I didn’t put some distance between us, I would be forever linked to this world, the magic, and everything it embodied. I was determined to keep my involvement with the Prince of the Underworld exactly where it belonged—in the underworld. Once I was home, it and he would have to be a thing of the past. I just had to figure out a way to do it. What I did know was that we had to get rid of the one person who knew what I was.
With purpose, I breezed past Anand seated on the sofa and went to the orb and knife.
“We need the spell book,” I told Dominic. Dark amusement moved over his face as he sauntered to the desk and whispered a spell to reveal the book, which had been on the desk the entire time. The markings around it illuminated a hazy bronze before pulling from the table and disappearing into the ether. His command of magic was remarkable, or maybe it was just exceptional to a person who didn’t possess such skills. Anand seemed unimpressed by the display, but that was probably a result of having been exposed to it all his life. It was imprinted into his existence.
“We’re going to do the spell to completion,” I instructed Dominic. I turned my attention to Anand who was looking down at his hand, his dark curtain of hair covering his face. He lifted it to peer at me when I called his name, his hair moving from his face as if it had been instructed to do so. If magical hair was a thing, I was going to ignore it. His brows hitched up.
“No matter what happens to me during the spell, it must continue,” I directed. Dominic had stopped the spell before, and he couldn’t be allowed to do it again.
Their lips pinched. They were two people used to giving orders rather than receiving them. Their expressions demonstrated that their compliance was clearly by choice and that they were finding entertainment in being on the receiving end of my directives. They gave me a look they might give a child discovering the world and trying to take command of the decision-making process with their limited knowledge and experience.
It earned them both a glare as they approached me, the humor still playing in their faces.
“Of course. The spell will continue to completion, as commanded by Luna,” Anand piped in.
“Then what happens, Luna?” Dominic asked. His question lacked true curiosity.
“I go back to my normal life, and you handle Peter.” Inhaling a deep breath, I closed my eyes for a moment before blowing out. “And deal with him.” I gave in to the unavoidable fact that Peter needed to be handled. He was a menace, and any order and rule enforcement in the supernatural world was predicated on Peter not being there to cause havoc. I held on to the hope that with the magic removed from me, I would be of no use to him, and freed. I could then proceed with repairing the damage of my tattered life.
Dominic looked pensive as he gave me a tight half smile. Breaks of worry shone in his eyes. I knew it was because he hadn’t confirmed if I existed only because of the magic. He didn’t function well in the unknown. Once it was removed, would I cease to exist? It was a risk I had to take because it was highly unlikely I’d continue to survive in the underworld. With Areleus still alive, given enough time he could convince Helena to finish what was started. If he fully healed, it wouldn’t be his last attempt on my life.
We hadn’t found any other option, and based on before, it was just painful. I could handle the pain if it meant I’d be free.
Dominic took my hand and brought the tips of my fingers to his lips. His warm breath breezed over my fingertips. He nipped at one of the fingers, sending a shiver through me and sparking a devilish glint in his eyes.
“Stop,” I whispered. “I will not conflate the two.”
But it was hard not to blend the splendor of his powerful and dark magical abilities and the allure of his raw primal sexuality. They merged into the essence of Dominic. Undeniably Dominic. Those qualities consumed my thoughts as he pierced my finger and handed me the orb to hold. I secured the magical object to me while Dominic read the spell. Magic curled around me, painful but bearable. It quickly augmented, violently ravaging through me, yanking and tugging as it stripped the magic from me. Tears welled in my eyes, the pain siphoning all my energy away until I collapsed to the floor, curled into a ball and gripping the orb to me, refusing to let it be taken from me or to roll away. I’d come too far, endured too much to let it end… Each moment became more of a challenge to hold on to it. I gulped down the shriek of agony as magic pierced every aspect of my being, pulling the dark magic that shouldn’t be in me. Becoming light-headed as the minutes ticked by, I felt like I was being ripped in two.
The darkness was a welcome escape.