Page 17

“I’ve never taken it off. Even in the capital,” I admit. Bria knows my mother came from magic, that she was an avid believer in the gods of old. But this is not just a symbol of the Keeper, of the god whose power lives on in Bria. It’s also a reminder of her fate.

I don’t dare speak as she traces her fingers lightly from the amulet back to my chest, moving them gently upward and trailing them along my skin, leaving a path of heat in their wake.

Her hand slides up the side of my neck and I relax my grip on the counter, letting her touch me in any way she wants.

I swallow, hard, over the lump forming in my throat as she weaves her fingers into my hair, scratching her nails against the short strands around the nape of my neck.

She tugs the side of her lip back between her teeth, her eyes luminous.

I want to tug her lip with my own teeth, to feel the lush skin between them.

I yearn to drag my tongue along them, to taste her.

I know that once I taste her, I’ll never get enough, never be satiated.

That I’ll take her perfect, untainted soul and make her mine, and that she’ll be the redemption for my sins in this life.

My body burns and I need her closer, the small bit of space left between us too much to bear.

I reach my hand toward her, letting my fingers barely graze her waist, though I want to pull her into me, to haul her on top of the counter and devour her right here in the kitchen. She sucks in a short breath when my fingers touch her and the tension between us ratchets up a notch.

“Everything okay?” I hear Quinn’s voice and drop my hand from her, clenching it into a fist as it falls to my side.

Mother. Fucker. I could punch him square in the face right now and he would deserve it, my knuckles are itching for it.

Her hand falls from my hair, and she turns quickly, murmuring something about fetching bandages for me. I slump back against the counter and blow out the long breath I was holding. I watch her briskly walk across the room and through the doors.

My gaze slides to the others and I’m met with vastly different expressions from my friends. I groan at the sight, not sure I want to know how much they saw. I take another swig of the nasty liquid before asking.

“What?” I snap, cracking the knuckles on my hand to release the tension.

Quinn stares back, his mouth a firm line of disappointment. No surprise there. But Ash is smiling, her teeth gleaming in that predatory grin she has. Ash has never been one to stay silent. About anything. Even when we all would prefer she did.

“I’m just glad she’s taking my advice. Finally,” she croons, taking a sip of her drink.

Quinn’s eyes go narrow at this, the hazel deepening and darkening with her words. “What advice?” he grinds out.

Ashbel’s smile grows, a flash of white. She sits back with her drink and takes a long sip before answering him. “The advice that she doesn’t need to be lonely all the time. She should try to enjoy herself more often.”

“Lonely? How could she be lonely?” Quinn seems genuinely confused by what Ash is proposing. “She enjoys herself plenty. She has training and running, she’s fine.”

“Really Quinn? Her father is gone, she’s separated from her mother and sister and has been for years. They are the only people she knows with magic aside from Cato. She lost Cedric…” Ash trails off, her smile fading as she speaks.

“But she ha—”

“Yes, I know she has us,” Ash interjects, finishing the sentence for him, irritation beginning to form in two small lines between her brows.

“We’ve all been subjected to death and destruction.

You’ve both witnessed horrors, the slaying of innocents, even had to be involved in it.

” She sends a pointed look at me with the last bit, referencing my time in the capital.

It stings but I let it go. “But you have each had moments of happiness as well. You get to have days off, you can fully relax, and even have the pleasure of another person. Bria never gets to experience that. She never gets to do anything she really wants to do.”

“She seems perfectly happy to me. She has a purpose, she has friends.” Quinn seems as though he’s trying to grasp what Ash means and is coming up short. But I understand.

I look at Ash so she knows I’m on her side in this, but speak to Quinn. “It’s not the same Quinn. You have no idea what she goes through.”

Quinn scowls at me now. “Oh, and you do? I think it’s ridiculous either of you think she’s lonely.

Bria is dealing with bigger things right now.

Who are we to know if she wants that, even needs that in her life.

She definitely doesn’t need to be wasting her time pining over someone like Cade.

Or even you, Evander.” The last part is said in a low voice, a warning speared across the room at me.

“What she wants to do with her life should be up to her. It’s never her choice. She’s forced to be what everyone wants her to be.” The gleam in Ash’s eyes is daring Quinn to fight her, to give her a reason to unleash her anger on him.

Quinn is incredulous. “What we want her to be?!” He’s nearly shouting at her now. “She’s the gods damned prophecy, Ash! She’s not some earl’s daughter anymore, looking for love or a husband or a good time.” His face is flaming, whether from the alcohol or the rage, I’m not sure. Maybe both.

But his words hurt more now than ever, and I drop my head to my chest. “We still don’t know that, Quinn,” I force out, feeling my heart heavy and leaden.

“No,” Ash counters, her finger running along the rim of her glass. She won’t raise her eyes to meet mine. “He’s right.”

That feeling in my chest tightens and my jaw clenches. I push the words past gritted teeth felling like I might be sick. “What do you mean he’s right?”

Ash and I have always been on the same page about this.

We don’t know Bria is part of the prophecy.

Helara always assumed she was, as did Bria’s parents once she came into her gifts.

It was the reason for separating the girls after the attack.

Her sister and mother were sent to one camp, Bria to another.

They were not to be around one another until her sister turned eighteen, until they knew of Nimai’s own gifts—keeping them safe and separate until the time came for them to reunite, to gather their forces and revolt.

The prophecy tells of two sisters, the sun and moon, light and dark.

And Bria is the dark. No one has exhibited magic like hers in decades, and none nearly as powerful, even those in her own bloodline.

But there had still been a chance. She had yet to show all the magic that Lilith possessed. Or at least that’s what I thought.

Ash finally raises her eyes to look at me, though the fight is gone, replaced by a glassy sheen of sadness. “She’s raising the dead, Ev.”

Well, fuck. She doesn’t need to continue. I know what that sentence means. We all do.

If Bria is able to reanimate—to raise—fallen soldiers.

..she is now the most powerful woman to exist since Lilith.

Her unique skills and dark abilities now nearly fully resemble those of the woman she descends from—dark like the nightmares that creep into your mind as you rest, dark like the shadows that lurk in corners, that slide along your spine when you walk over a grave.

Not evil, but the opposite of light. The gifts from the Keeper of Life and Death, the descendent of a god.

I drop my gaze from Ash, not wanting them to see the look of defeat, to see the agony I know she is also experiencing from this revelation.

Instead, I silently gather my gear from the counter and stalk to the table where they sit.

I pour myself a generous glass of the whiskey before tossing it down my throat, letting the pleasant burn warm my body from the inside out, letting it push away the ache in my heart, just for a moment.

I hate that no one told me, not even Bria.

Slamming the glass back on the table, I turn on my heel and storm out of the kitchen.