Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(56)

“Yes, you should have.”

“In her defense,” said Dominic, “She had just come back from slaying Engel and thwarting his plans to take over the world. I’d venture she was quite exhausted.”

Gabriel’s eyes softened a little, and I swore it looked like there was some pride in there too. “Don’t ever do that again. Do you undertand?”

You have my word.” I grinned and then shuffled over to him. “God, I missed you.” Bouncing on the tips of my toes, I wrapped him in a bear hug and squeezed. When I pulled back, his moss-colored eyes glimmered at me and I knew I had him back.

“I…I missed you too.” While he looked wholly uncomfortable saying the words, I could tell he meant them.

“Does Tessa know I’m back?”

“I called her as soon as I heard.” His eyes shifted to Dominic, letting me know he was the one who let Gabriel in on everything that had happened.

“I figured he ought to at least know you were alive,” said Dominic. He wanted to appear nonchalant about it, but I could tell there was something more to it. He knew Gabriel was important to me and that he would be worried sick about me, and even though he didn’t fully trust his brother when it came to matters of the Council, he knew that I cared about him.

“Thank you,” I nodded over to Dominic and then turned my attention back to Gabriel, anxious to get some intel out of him. “What about the Council? Do they know?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t said a word to them.” His eyes sharpened when he added, “Dominic told me what happened the night of the party. I…I don’t really know what to say.”

“So, you think they were behind it too?” I already knew they were, but I wanted to see where his head was at.

His expression soured. “I don’t see how it could have been anyone else,” he said and then dropped his head in shame as though the blood were on his hands too. “If I had known what they were planning—”

“I know.” I quickly cut him off. He didn’t need to explain anything to me. I knew he would have tried to stop them, or at the very least, warned me about it.

“What’s the official word on her?” asked Trace. He was standing with his shoulder against the threshold, his arms crossed over his husky chest. “I haven’t been able to get a straight answer from anyone.”

“Same,” Gabriel said and then turned back to me. “Your status was changed to Active Duty the day after you disappeared.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means they’re trying to cover their tracks,” answered Trace. “Make it look like you’ve been out on official business so no one suspects they tried to take you out.”

“Is that true?” I looked to Gabriel for confirmation.

“It does appear that way,” he said, regret heavy in his eyes.

I couldn’t believe the lengths they would go to get rid of me and then hide to truth about what really happened. If I had any doubt before, it had completely evaporated now. They were behind my attack, of that I was sure, and the minute they found out I was still alive, they were going to come for me again.

The only way to get them off my tail now was to eradicate my threat to them entirely. Unfortunately, there was only two ways to do that: I either had to be dead for good or I had to go to Hell and slay the devil himself.

Like, seriously. Eff my life.

I pulled in a breath and tried to re-center myself. I could only focus on putting out one fire at a time or I risked falling head-first into the whole damn inferno.

“Have they said anything about the sky?” I asked, hoping he could give us some insight into what we were up against.

“The Council’s been on lockdown since last night. No one is getting in or out of Temple.”

My eyes widened. “That bad?”

“It appears the dimensional walls have been compromised between our world and the others. Sanguinarium in particular has begun bleeding into our Realm. Hence the red sky and the day-walking.”

“Oh, my God.” I knew it was bad, but I didn’t think it was apocalyptic bad. I lowered myself back onto the couch in case my legs decided to give out on me. They had a habit of doing that at the worst possible times.

“They’re not sure how it happened, but they have their best High Casters working around the clock trying to reinforce the walls,” he continued, his voice sans emotion. “The only saving grace is that mortals don’t appear to see it.”

“Yeah, we figured as much when we didn’t see total chaos on the streets this morning,” said Trace as he bounced a look between me and Gabriel. “Everyone was just going about their business, getting their latte’s and shit.”

“I almost wish that wasn’t the case.”

“Why?” I asked, baffled. The last thing we needed was mass hysteria.

“Unfortunately, word is spreading quickly through the Revenants hives,” answered Gabriel grimly. “There’s already been four animal attacks this morning, and I suspect that’s only the beginning.”

And by animal attacks, he meant vampire attacks covered up by the Council.

This was so not good. If Revenants were catching on that the sun was no longer a barrier to them, they’d have free reign to hunt all day and night, which meant twice as many victims, if not more.