Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(82)

Angry rain pelted against the windows like falling pebbles. The lights in the room flickered as the storm gathered traction outside. A part of me felt like it was a sign—a warning from the heavens telling us we shouldn’t play with fire. To abort this mission and find another way.

But, of course, we wouldn’t. We’d dance in the inferno until our skin was charred right off its bone.

“Fine. You win,” I conceded, but not because I thought I couldn’t do what needed to be done. I knew that I could. But because I didn’t want the only living memory I’d have of my mother to be the moment when I drove a stake back into her heart. My hands curled at my sides. “I’ll wait in the hall,” I said and then left the room in silence.

Outside in the open hallway, I pressed my back against the wall and squeezed my eyes shut. I tried to sink away from the moment, to block out their voices as they argued about who would be charged with the stake and who would be drawing out her blood. I didn’t want to listen to them discuss how best to strap the Revenant down, and I certainly didn’t want to think about how that Revenant in there was my mother.

I squeezed my eyes tighter and searched inside for better days. Days with Trace’s arms fastened tightly around my waist and his lips pushed up against mine. Days when tomorrow didn’t matter and the starry nights went on forever. There weren’t enough of those days to hold onto anymore. They were slipping away faster than I could count them.

Dominic propped himself against the wall beside me. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know it was him.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he asked, tipping his shoulder into mine.

I offered no thoughts and no words. There just weren’t any of those either.

After a quiet pause, he asked, “Are you still upset with me?”

I met his dark eyes, wondering if he really cared about the answer to that. I couldn’t tell. “No,” I admitted. “I’m not.”

If Dominic, Gabriel and Trace had avoided telling me about my mother’s existence to prevent me from feeling even one ounce of the aguish I was feeling now, then I understood why they did it and I didn’t fault them for it anymore.

I knew they cared about me—all three of them, and each in their own special way.

“I’m glad to hear that, angel. I was beginning to think I might actually have to apologize to you.” His closed mouth pulled into a smile.

“As if you even know how,” I retorted.

“I’m a very fast learner.” His smile widened and I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

“What are they doing in there?” I asked as I ticked my chin to the den. “What’s the holdup?”

“Romeo and the bombshell are going over the plan again while my brother fetches the necessary…tools,” he answered choppily as though weary and very aware of my apprehension.

I nodded and then met his eyes again. “Bombshell, huh?”

“Well, she is rather easy on the eyes.”

“Maybe you should marry her then.”

Dominic clicked his tongue. “Is that jealousy I’m detecting?”

“Not even in your dreams, Dominic.” I couldn’t even cope with the idea of it, and definitely not today. I faced forward again and distracted myself with a family portrait hanging on the wall.

“Was that your mother?” I asked him, remarking how much they looked alike. She had the same curly, blond hair he did, only it was much longer, and her eyes were a beautiful shade of amber, but almond-shaped and cat-like.

“Indeed, it was,” he said without taking his eyes off me.

“She was beautiful.”

“Yes, I suppose she was,” he said and then leaned in closer to me. “The cursed usually are.”

I met his eyes as Gabriel zipped past us on the way to the den.

“We’re ready,” he announced and then disappeared into the room.

“This too shall pass, angel.” He bowed his head and then left me in the hallway to ponder the possibility alone.

I closed my eyes again and tried not to listen to what was going on in the other room, but my sudden super-sonic hearing refused to play along.

Against my better judgement and the natural law of self-preservation, I listened to Arianna give out directives to Trace on how to hold her down, and then to Gabriel as he narrated the steps he would be taking to draw out my mother’s portal-closing blood. The needle had been inserted into her arm and they were ready to draw out her blood the moment Arianna gave the okay for Dominic to pull out the wooden dagger.

It was all perfectly planned; the stick would come out, the blood stolen, and then the stick would go right back in and we could all go back to living our miserable lives as though this never happened.

Or so I thought.

With a gasp and a man’s shout and the screech of chairs shuffling back and forth, it was clear that all hell had broken loose in the den.

And by hell, of course, I meant my mother.





37. MOTHER’S DAY


A blur of dark clothes and ebony locks rushed passed me in the hallway, and I knew it was her. My mother. Kicking off the wall, I took off running after her, intent on blocking her at the door before she could get away, but I wasn’t fast enough. She’d reached the door like a burst of wind and swung it open before I even reached the foyer. The thundering storm greeted her with closed arms and she stopped dead in her tracks. But I knew it wasn’t the rain she was afraid of.