Chapter 19 #2
Fender’s fingers slid under my chin and he tipped my head back. “First things first. Need my kiss.”
I blinked up at him. “Pardon?”
“My kiss.”
The longer I got to stall, the better, plus, I wanted…no, I realized, I needed to kiss him. “Yes…of course.” He dipped his head, and I went up to my toes, meeting him halfway.
His lips were soft yet firm and deliciously warm, and as soon as they touched mine, everything, all my worries slipped away. He kept the kiss slow and gentle, and I melted. Who knew a kiss could be so powerful?
I’d imagined what it would be like, but my imagination had failed miserably. When Fender kissed me, the world stopped spinning. It was just he and I and nothing else.
He growled quietly against my lips, one hand sliding over my waist, the other up into my hair. My belly fluttered, and I leaned into him more, until he was all but supporting me. He slowed, the deep, overwhelming kiss becoming gentle presses of his lips to mine, before he finally lifted his head.
I stared up at him dazed, my body buzzing, electric.
He grinned. “Yeah, peaches, that’s the way you kiss your lover after you’ve been apart.”
I’d love to take some of the credit, but in reality, I’d done nothing but stand there while he’d taken ownership of my mouth.
“You miss me?” he asked, tucking my hair behind my ear. “I really fucking missed you.”
Had I? I’d only just seen him earlier in the day, but so much had happened.
So many things that had made me feel afraid and out of control, and I realized that standing here in Fender’s arms, I felt—steady again.
After the way our last interaction had ended, I’d been worried what it had meant for us.
His thumb slid over my jaw, drawing me back from my thoughts.
“Yes,” I said, giving him an answer to his question. “Yes, I think I did.”
His smile widened. “You think?”
“I know.”
“How?” he asked. “How do you know?”
My gaze slid over his handsome face and settled on his soft amber eyes that shimmered with gold. “I’m happy. Before I got here…when I got here, I was afraid, and now I feel safe.”
He massaged the back of my neck, his gaze sharpening. “You wanna tell me what scared you?”
“Before I left to come here, I found something terrifying in Brigid’s things. After that, Brick—”
“I’ll be talking to Brick. You know he’d never hurt you, though, right? He was just protecting our territory. We have females and cubs here, and you obviously surprised him. He should know you’re not a threat, though, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t give you shit again.”
Again, I expected him to ask me how I got in here. I braced, ready to lie because I had no other choice.
“You wanna show me what you found in Brigid’s things?” he asked instead.
Why wasn’t he asking me?
“Peaches?”
I quickly slid off my bag. “Right, yes, of course.” I certainly wasn’t going to force the issue if he didn’t think it warranted further scrutiny.
I placed my bag on the table and slid out the grimoire.
“I’m not sure how everything ties together yet, but this new development isn’t good, Fender.
” I found the page I was looking for and turned it toward him.
He stared down at it. His body went very still. “Who is that?”
“They’re wraiths, but more specifically, The Wraith’s of Destruction.”
“As in Disease, Mayhem, and Annihilation?”
“Yes.”
He cursed. “Do we know how they’re tied up in all this?”
I shook my head. “Not yet. Only that Brigid spent a lot of time on this sketch, and it can’t be for nothing. Do you know much about them?”
“Not really. Honestly, I assumed they were a myth. They vanished from stories and our histories a long time ago.”
“They’re definitely not a myth. They existed a very long time ago. They aren’t just any wraiths, either, they’re much more powerful.” I swallowed heavily. “They have the power to bring about the end of times.”
Fender straightened. “Uriel’s behind this. He has to be.”
“If we could just unravel all of this, how the sisters were involved, the angels”—or more specifically, Uriel, the rogue archangel who appeared to have highjacked Heaven—“the wraiths, all of it, then we could find those weapons, I’m sure of it.
” I looked up at him. “I think we’re skimming the edge of something really bad, Fender.
” I shivered and ran my fingers over the page again, then snatched my hand back as a spark of magic, dark and cold, shot up my arm.
“What is it?” he asked.
I leaned in, getting a closer look. “Oh gods, it’s blood.
The sketches were done in Brigid’s blood.
Her magic is saturating the book. It’s like us finding this, or touching it, has broken some kind of concealment spell.
” I spun to Fender. “There’s more here, the answers are here, I just have to work out how to tap into it.
If I do that, Brigid will show us. She’ll tell us what we need to know. ”
“Do you have any idea how to do that?” he asked.
It was like the Matildas’ grimoire, I was sure of it.
The blank page beside the sketch held secrets and I had to find out what they were.
Biting my lip, I touched the page again, and when the spark of magic shot up my arm this time, I forced myself not to pull away.
The ice spread through my veins, calling to my blood. “I need a knife,” I choked out.
Fender took one from his pocket, flicked it open and handed it to me. “What for?”
I took it, unable to reply because the ice had raced through my body, chilling me to the bone, while the buzz of Brigid’s magic tugged and called to my own.
I had to do this. There was no other way, the book needed my blood.
Gritting my teeth, I pressed the pointed end of the razor-sharp blade to the tip of my finger, and ignoring Fender’s curse right after, I placed my bloodied finger to the page, binding myself with the book, with Brigid.
The blank page beside the sketch filled with text. Beautiful sloped writing, all of it, a full page written in blood.
“What is that?” Fender said.
He was frowning down at the page, his confusion clear. “You can’t read it?”
“It just looks like a whole lot of weird symbols to me.”
“Another safeguard,” I said scanning the page.
“What does it say?”
“It’s not written in a way most information is conveyed, but somehow…
I understand it.” I couldn’t explain what I was looking at, only that I knew what it meant, what I felt.
“The three sisters, they’re a lot older than we thought.
They were ancient. They came across the wraiths deep in the forest a very long time ago.
Over time, they fell in love. Brigid with Disease, Eartha with Mayhem, and Petra with Annihilation. ”
“Fucking hell,” Fender muttered.
“The sisters wanted to live a quiet existence with their lovers, but the wraiths thirsted for destruction, wanting to destroy the world that the great goddess ruled—the mother, who’d created the sisters from her own flesh and bone, the being they worshipped above all others.
The sisters were unable to change their lovers’ minds, so to save mankind, they broke their own hearts, and cast a spell that put the wraiths in a deep sleep, then locked them away, hiding them where no one could find them. ”
“Does it say where they are?”
“To cast the spell, the priestesses each created a binding glyph. One of the sisters was chosen, the strongest among them, and they each carved their mark into her thigh bone. Those glyphs kept their lovers tied to that sister’s magic, and imprisoned, but also made her the key to their freedom.
As long as the bone stayed intact, the wraiths would stay asleep. ”
“You said Eartha and Petra were flayed, flesh stripped from bone. Uriel had to be looking for the glyphs.”
“I think so, yes,” I said, the horror of it sinking in deeper.
“Which means, he’s wanted this a long fucking time.” Fender dragged his hand down his face. “The question is, did he find them?”
“He could have been holding on to the bone until he was ready to make his move,” I said.
“Or maybe the dark power that Brigid spoke of when we were in her cavern, that came to her recently, that scared her. Maybe that was him? Or one of his angels?” He held my gaze. “If it was Brigid who had the glyphs…” He cursed. “The virus, Temp. Do you think Uriel has already released Disease?”
I hadn’t wanted to say it out loud. “I believe so, but we won’t know for sure, unless—”
“We need to exhume the sisters.”
“Yes.”