Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(70)

“What other choice do we have right now?” retorted Dominic as Gabriel carefully steered me away from the door like a sleepy child unable to walk. “She’s going to get herself killed and then who are we going to pine over?”

“For fuck’s sake.” Trace ran a hand over his face.

I pulled my arm loose from Gabriel’s grip. “I may be going to rest against my will, but I can certainly get there on my own. You can all stay here and never talk to me again!” I glared at each of them, though my glare lingered the longest on Dominic, knowing he was the one that forced this on me. “And for the record, I hate you the most.”

He bowed his head. “Duly noted, angel.”



I barricaded myself in the guestroom until long after the sun had set. While the compulsion had faded away, my rage on the other hand, had not. It was becoming painfully obvious that no matter how much I advanced in my training or how much growing up I did as a person, they were never going to let me stand on my own two feet. In their eyes, I was always going to be too weak or too fragile or prone to wigging out to hear the truth.

It was bullcrap and I was over it.

Okay, so I kind of wigged out in the living room when I found out the truth about my mother, but so what! Silly me. I guess I wasn’t supposed to have feelings. I guess it wasn’t supposed to matter to me that the mother I never knew didn’t just up and leave us when I was two, but that she was turned into a Revenant and probably spent her life being hunted by the same Order that I was supposed to sign my life over to. I wasn’t supposed to wonder whether she chose that path for herself or if it was forced on her. I shouldn’t feel sad that I lost out on having a mother, on knowing who she is, and I certainly shouldn’t feel frightened by the thought that she may have abandoned me on purpose.

Nope. I was robo-Slayer and I wasn’t supposed to have feelings because if I did, that meant I was weak. Too girly. Too human. Too much of everything yet never enough.

Ugh. Screw that noise.

I was done with trying to fit into everyone’s preconceived box of who I was supposed to be. I was going to live my life my way, however short-lived it may be, and I wasn’t asking for permission anymore. They were wrong about me. I could handle the truth. I would listen to its heartbreaks and I would mourn the world as I knew it because that’s the kind of girl I was, and then I would pick my pretty self off the floor and do what I was supposed to do. Just like I always did.

I folded my pillow in half and turned on my back as I tried to relax my racing thoughts.

Arianna’s words pummeled through my brain, destroying all semblance of security and justice in the world. Was this really happening? Was I really going to have to go grave robbing for my own mother’s body? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like some sick cosmic joke. Some new game the Angels of Torment conjured up to bring me to my knees again.

It was bad enough that I was going to have to pull a stake from my dead mother’s heart in order to reanimate her body and siphon her blood. But then what? Was I supposed to take her back home with me, or was I just expected to put the stake back in her heart and close the door on ever really getting a chance to know my mother? Thinking about what was going to happen afterwards was even more terrifying than the act itself.

The more I thought about the possibilities, the more rattled my nerves got, and the more rattled my nerves got, the more my mind searched for relief. His relief. I quickly shook away the image of his blond curls from my mind before I did something I was going to regret.

I needed to get out of this room or I was going to go nuts.

Climbing out of bed, I tiptoed across the room to the chair that I had pushed up against the door. I didn’t want to see anyone tonight and my sealed door was a message they’d heard loud and clear. Pushing the chair aside, I turned the lock and then opened the door. The lights were off in the hallway and the house was as quiet as a mortuary. It was just as well because I really wasn’t in the mood to see anyone.

Relaxing my shoulders, I started down the hallway towards the stairs in search of something to eat and drink. It wasn’t what I was hungry for but it was the only thing I was going to allow myself to have tonight.

I made it downstairs in one piece and without waking up anyone in the house. There was something to be said about the quietness of night. About the stillness. Everything was tranquil and unmoving as though the world had come to a temporary stop in its rotation—ceased its constant spiral of madness.

I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and turned on the facet. Filling up my glass, I took a long sip and set the glass on the counter doing my best to ignore my trembling hands. I’d noticed the withdrawals were getting worse lately, though I was doing a better job of hiding them, especially around Trace. The last thing I wanted him to know was that I was fiending for Dominic. As understanding as he’s been with all this, I wasn’t about to put his patience to the test. He didn’t need to know that part. I didn’t even want to know that part.

“Trouble sleeping?”

I jumped at the sound of Dominic’s silky voice. My cheeks immediately burned hot as though I’d been caught with my hand in the proverbial cookie jar. I flattened my hand against my somersaulting heart to make sure it didn’t jump out of my chest and run off on me. “You scared me half to death.”

“I certainly hope not, angel. That would be a tragedy of epic proportions.” He was resting his shoulder against the entrance, watching me like a lone wolf hunting its prey.