Page 1 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

As suddenly and unexpectedly as the sprawling black wings sprouted from my shoulder blades, stunning the entire room into a deafening silence, they unceremoniously retracted and vanished from sight, as though they had never even been there to begin with. If it wasn’t for the fossilized expressions of horror plastered across the faces of Trace, Gabriel, and Dominic, I might have tried to convince myself that I had simply lost too much blood and imagined the whole thing.

It certainly would’ve been the saner explanation for what had just happened.

But even then, mere moments after the wings had folded themselves up and disappeared like magic, I could somehow still feel them there with me, like a subtle burn tingling under the surface of my skin. A gnawing itch I didn’t yet dare attempt to scratch.

Because it was real.

It happened.

I had... wings .

My brain clicked off as a wave of numbness surrounded me, encasing my body like the strong, able arms of a lifelong protector. In an instant, the would-be panic and uncomfortable sensations pillaging my body were gone, replaced with an eerie, almost primordial calmness that made it somehow possible for me to coexist with the revelation that was otherwise impossible to digest—to make sense of. To fully reconcile in my mind.

I had wings .

The last few days had nearly blurred into each other, and in my current state of shock, I wasn’t even almost psychologically prepared to ask the important questions. Like why the wings had suddenly sprung up at that moment or what their impromptu appearance even meant. Far too much had happened in the last few days, and I wasn’t even sure where or how to start with any of it. The Order setting me up. Dominic returning to me. My Alt traveling back in time to turn Trace into a Revenant to save his life from certain death. Trace nearly killing me…

And now the wings.

The mother-flipping wings .

Just when I’d thought things couldn’t possibly get any crazier for me, life decided to throw another mega sized wrench at my face.

“What…w-where did… how —?” Gabriel managed to produce four whole words before returning to his stunned stupor. I could hardly blame the guy, though. He’d taken the nonsensical sentence right out of my mouth.

My vacant, glassy gaze skirted over to Trace and Dominic, curious to see if they had any other riveting pearls of wisdom to add to the discussion and then immediately regretted it. Trace looked as though he was stuck somewhere between a state of complete confusion and murderous bloodlust, his pupils dilating uncontrollably like he couldn’t figure out the off switch on them yet, while Dominic just stared at me with the faintest hint of a smirk on his lips. A smirk that screamed he’d just spotted his new favorite chew toy to play with.

I wasn’t sure which of the two looks alarmed me more.

“I didn’t...I’m not...” My short, impromptu declaration of innocence expired in my mouth. Mostly because I had no idea what to say about myself or the feathered appendage that had sprung out from my shoulder blades mere moments ago. What the hell could I say about it anyway? Whoops? Sorry boys, they just slipped out ? Yeah, sure. Slipped out of where? And HOW?!

It was all just too much to deal with and the more I tried to put it together in my mind, the more I wanted to run away from all of it. Starting with my damn self.

Unfortunately, running anywhere in my post-vampire-attack state was completely out of the question, so my mind circled back to the next best thing.

“I think…I think I need a drink,” I finally managed to say. Because WINGS, dammit!

No one in the room responded to me, not even Dominic—my forever drinking buddy. My partner in crime. The silence felt like an indictment of the strange bird -like creature I’d apparently become. The one that made the three people I cared most about in the world shun me with their silence in my time of need.

“Right. Better make that several drinks,” I amended under my breath as I pushed away from the wall I’d been perched against and warily began making my way across the room.

My legs instantly felt weak and jelly-like, like I’d just run a marathon and lost, and my upper body was slick with my own slow-drying blood, courtesy of Trace’s frenzied attack. Despite feeling each of their weighty gazes on me, I refused to meet their eyes, too afraid of what I would find there. Judgement. Fear. Disgust . I’d need a lot more than a few shots of whiskey to deal with that .

Instead, my gaze remained fixed on the bedroom door, never deviating from my narrow path as I clumsily crossed the room in my desperate pursuit of an immediate escape. I could only imagine what I looked like to them just then, all bloodied and disheveled, hobbling like I was taking my ‘walk of shame’ off the battlefield after losing the biggest fight of our lives. Of course, that wasn’t what had happened in the last twenty-four hours, but I felt the suffocating humiliation of it just the same.

Dominic was the first to take pity on me and bounce back to life. “I could certainly use a drink myself,” he drawled lowly, his dark eyes shadowing me with their full, undivided attention.

Trace cleared his throat and nodded. “I could use a drink too,” he agreed, his baritone voice sending an unexpected shiver through my body. It sounded like liquified smoke pulsating over my skin, and I nearly missed an entire step at its beautiful trill.

Up until yesterday, I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to see him conscious and awake again, let alone talking and walking as though he hadn’t been dying a slow death in a magic-induced coma—courtesy of his psycho-bitch-ex-girlfriend Nikki Parker. Also known as the soon-to-be-dead supersized hemorrhoid in my ass.

More on that later.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but I really don’t think pouring alcohol into an already delicate situation is a good idea for any of you,” objected Gabriel, his voice teetering around the edge of panic. “If there was ever a time to be prudent and clear-headed, that time is now .”

Oh, my sweet strait-laced Gabriel. Forever trying to keep a level head and do the right thing. I was seriously going to need to get that guy drunk and loosened up one of these days. You know, for his own good.

His warning, of course, fell on deaf ears as we all filed out of the room one by one, eager to escape into the only thing that might make this crazy, nightmarish day a little bit easier for any of us to process.

“Alcohol it is,” he grumbled to himself and then begrudgingly followed us out of the room.

* * *

My uncle’s liquor cabinet wasn’t nearly as well-stocked as Dominic’s bar always seemed to be, but it had enough of the expensive dark stuff to tide us over. After downing the equivalent of several shots directly from the bottle, the four of us convened in the living room, with Dominic sitting across from me and Trace hanging back at the entrance of the room as though he needed to keep a healthy amount of space between us.

I tried not to feel offended by it, but I couldn’t help thinking the big black feathered wings that had erupted from my back earlier had something to do with his sudden need for space.

I took another crass swig from the bottle and then slumped back against the sofa, exhaling relief as the dark liquor fired its way through my veins and eased my nerves. While alcohol wasn’t the cure-all for all life’s miserable happenings, it certainly helped take the edge off enough to make it possible for me to sit through the conversation that was still begging to be had.

“Well?” I eyed each of the guys pointedly. “Is anyone going to say anything?”

At this point, anything was better than the strange looks I was getting from each of them.

“Has…” Gabriel shook his head, his expression pinched. He was standing in the middle of the room with his arms crossed over his chest as if to stand guard in the event that all hell broke loose again. “Is this the first time that you’ve…t-that the wings…that they’ve appeared?” he asked choppily.

I shot him a scathing are-you-serious look. “Don’t you think I would have mentioned a couple of giant wings springing out of my back if this had happened before? It’s not exactly something that would slip my mind.”

“Well…yes.” He scratched his neck. “I suppose you would have mentioned it.”

Another round of that dreadful, uncomfortable silence weaved its way through the room, making me feel as though I were melting into the hot seat of everyone’s unspoken judgment.

I honestly couldn’t stand another second of it.

“That’s it? That’s all you have to say about it?” I asked, shocked that we were all just sitting around calmly and not screaming out a bunch of questions and obscenities at the same time—like normal people. “ How did this happen? How is it even possible? And why now?” I asked, my gaze unintentionally flicking to Trace as though his bite were somehow responsible for the whole thing.

Of course, I didn’t actually believe that, but my traitorous eyes went there just the same.

“Well, uh, I assume it’s most likely due to, well…” Gabriel shook his head and then met my eyes with regret. “Truthfully, I’m not entirely sure why or how this happened.”

“Truly, brother? Is that the story you’re going with?” scoffed Dominic and then took an unhurried sip of his drink. Unlike me, he had taken the time to get himself a glass as opposed to drinking out of the bottle like a street rat. “I think it’s fairly obvious to anyone who doesn’t have their head firmly rooted in their rear end why this happened.”

“Really? Then by all means, enlighten us,” retorted Gabriel, staring Dominic down with raised, expectant brows.

“She’s The Daughter of Hades, brother. The daughter of the fallen Angel Lucifer. You said so yourself. Of course she’d have wings. She’s as pure and ethereal as they come,” he purred, his wolfish gaze swinging back to me on that last part. “Isn’t that right, angel?”

My cheeks warmed at his words—at the way he was looking at me. Despite the absolute mayhem unfolding around me and within me, I couldn’t help but feel comforted by him just then; by the familiarity of his perpetual adoration. In that moment, it made everything feel normal and right again. Even if it was all just smoke and mirrors.

“But why now?” asked Gabriel, clearly unsatisfied with Dominic’s basic explanation.

“Why not now? It’s as good a time as any,” replied Dominic, which I translated to him not having the slightest idea either.

“It’s because she was afraid for her life,” answered Trace, his rueful blue eyes pinned on me from afar. “Most of her abilities have awakened at points when her emotions were at their highest.” My breath hitched realizing that he remembered—that his memories had returned from the dead, right along with the rest of him. “I’m supposed to be her soulmate, and I nearly killed her. Do the fucking math.” The way he’d said that last part, it was as though he were already blaming himself for this. Like he should have been able to control the frenzied bloodlust.

The notion was absurd, and it smothered my heart with guilt.

“Please don’t do that, Trace. Don’t blame yourself. This isn’t your fault,” I said, popping up from the sofa and onto still shaky legs, ready to take a stand for him. “None of this is your fault. You weren’t even fully conscious yet, and I was standing too close to you. I should have known better. I should have given you time to adjust to-to…” My sentiment died abruptly, unable to even say the words out loud. To vocalize what had become of him.

“To adjust to being a bloodsucker,” he finished for me, the unfiltered revulsion heavy in his words for all of us to hear. His eyes continued to hold me captive as a million questions churned around their stormy depths.

The need to go to him then—to run to him and make this all better for him was overwhelming. And I’d started to do just that when he abruptly threw his palms in the air and backed away from me, stopping me dead in my tracks.

God, was he scared of me or just repulsed by the sight of me? I had no actual idea and frankly, I wasn’t sure which of the two would be worse.

“Please talk to me,” I pleaded softly, fully aware of that endless line in the sand between us. It had been there since the first day I’d walked into Hollow Hills and despite working so tirelessly to erase it, to trample over it entirely, it was still always there with us, like a cockroach that refused to die. “You must have so many questions.”

He puffed out a dry, humorless laugh as the churning grew more chaotic in his eyes. “Questions? Yeah, I have some questions,” he said, the frown never leaving his face as he pushed his hands through his long dark hair and furrowed his brows. “How in the fuck did this happen to me? The last thing I remember is sitting in my car getting ready to meet with my supplier and then suddenly, I’m waking up in your house with nothing on my mind except… blood, ” he spat, his lips curling around the word like a flesh-eating virus. “I feel like I’m in an alternate universe because none of this makes any fucking sense to me.”

My heart broke for him. For the time he’d lost and for the life-changing decision that had been stolen from him. If only there had been more time, some other way to save him...

But there hadn’t been, and it was time for me to face the music.

“I’m so sorry, Trace. I never wanted any of this to happen to you. You have to know that. I…I had no other choice. It was the only way.” The words fell flat even to my own ears. They weren’t enough. Nothing would ever be enough to erase what had been done to him.

“The only way to what?” His brows pulled together, his pained eyes searching mine frantically as though he hadn’t trusted his ears the first time around. “What are you saying to me right now, Jemma? You did this?”

Guilt pressed down against my chest as I lowered my head in a disgraced nod.

It didn’t really matter which way I tried to slice the truth and serve it to him, there was no one to pin this on but myself. At the end of the day, this was done by my hands, whether I tried to put the blame on my future self or not. We were one and the same and I deserved to face the fallout just the same. Besides, it wasn’t as though I’d tried to stop her. I probably could’ve if I really wanted to, but I wanted him alive more than I wanted to do the right thing and for that reason alone my hands were just as bloodied as hers were.

“ Why?” he hissed, his eyes and voice equally wrecked by my admission of guilt. “Why would you do this to me?”

The knife in my heart twisted deeper. “Because you were dying, Trace—right before my eyes, and there was nothing any of us could do to stop it. Nothing. If there had been another way, another option…but there wasn’t. She did this to you on purpose! She knew what would happen if she broke the talisman and she did it anyway.”

His head jerked back at my abrupt switch of gears, and then my words registered. “Nikki broke the talisman?”

I nodded again, watching warily as all the blood drained from his face. “She destroyed it knowing it was the only thing keeping the wall around your memories protected, and she did it on purpose . Right in front of my eyes. If she couldn’t have you then no one could, and definitely not me,” I said, my voice cracking as I recalled the horror of that day on the bridge with her. “The minute she broke it, you were gone—trapped in some unconscious sleep state that no one could wake you up from.”

His jaw muscles flexed as he tried to process everything I was telling him.

“Weeks went by with absolutely no sign of life from you. Not a blink or grunt or even a twitch of your muscles, and the more time passed, the further you disappeared into yourself. I could feel you slipping away from me. You were dying and I was so desperate I would have tried anything to save you. I did try everything. Well, everything I knew to do anyway. I mean, I even tried making a deal with the Senior Magister,” I admitted, rambling without forethought. “If that’s not desperate, I don’t know what is.”

“What do you mean you tried making a deal with the Senior Magister?” interrupted Gabriel, his brows drawn together in distress. “What deal?”

In my rush to defend myself, I’d forgotten that I hadn’t actually shared that particular detail with anyone yet. I’d only shared that the Council had set me up but had not divulged the part about the deal that had almost lured me there had it not been for my Alt warning me about the trap.

“Is that what I said?” I laughed nervously, feigning innocence. “I’m pretty sure I meant—”

“ What deal , Jemma?” he repeated, not buying my crap for a minute.

I threw my hands in the air and quickly gave up the charade. There was no point in trying to deny it any further. “The only deal I could make,” I admitted, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. I wanted to appear confident for once, steadfast in my idiotic decision to turn to my enemy for help. “I agreed to become the Fourth Horseman in exchange for Trace’s life being saved.”

There. Now they knew everything.

“You did WHAT?!” Gabriel’s voice boomed across the room, jolting me.

Well, shit . So much for the truth setting you free.

“I had no choice, Gabriel. It was the only leverage I had,” I defended as tiny beads of sweat began prickling the back of my neck. “Didn’t you hear the part about how I was desperate?”

“I heard you loud and clear and that doesn’t even begin to excuse you from doing something so incredibly careless without even bothering to discuss it with us. Dammit, Jemma!” he snapped, his moss green eyes overflowing with so much hurt and disappointment that I had a hard time meeting his eyes then. “How could you keep this from me?”

“I mean, I didn’t go out of my way to keep it from you,” I murmured, hoping that might lessen the sting a little. “It just sort of slipped my mind with everything else that was going on.”

He ran his hand down the length of his face as if to reset his expression and gather his thoughts. “What exactly was the conversation you had with him? The verbiage used? Was anyone else present? For all we know, you may have unwittingly entered into some kind of binding contract with the lot of them. Did you even consider that?”

I definitely had not considered that .

“Well, I didn’t sign any papers or spill any blood if it makes you feel better,” I offered, forcing a smile.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as though my idiocy were giving him a migraine. “How could you do something like that and not tell me?” he asked again, his tone softer then as though he were incredibly wounded by it and needed to know where this had come from.

But the answer was simple.

“Because you would have tried to stop me. What else was I supposed to do, Gabriel? Watch him die?” I held his troubled gaze and firmly shook my head. He had to know I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t .

Everyone had a limit of what they were mentally and physiologically capable of handling. Well, losing my soulmate once was it for me. It was all I could tolerate in one lifetime and no amount of shaming me would ever change that.

“I couldn’t watch him die, Gabriel. Not again.” Not ever again.

“Of course, heaven forbid it. That would be far too morbid an ask,” sneered Dominic, drawing my attention back over to him. “Be it far better to martyr yourself and leave the rest of us to deal with the fallout of losing you instead,” he ridiculed, his own voice sounding more annoyed with me than anything else.

“That isn’t what I was trying to do.”

“And yet it’s precisely what you did,” he retorted, a vicious accusatory glint in his eye.

“I was trying to save his life.”

“By availing yourself to the Order?” he scoffed. “Have you learned nothing from the past?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, I have .”

“Oh? Pray tell.”

I flicked my chin up, not even needing to think about it. “I’ve learned that I’d rather die a thousand fiery deaths in the depths of Hell than to ever be forced to live through losing someone I love again.”

Pain etched across his face for the slightest of seconds, barely detectable had I not been staring so hard, before an icy, indifferent look shifted into its place, chilling his eyes from the inside out. “How exceptionally foolish of you,” he said bitingly as he picked up his glass from the side table and brought it to his lips.

“Maybe,” I agreed, unaffected by his cutting words. “But I would have done the same for you.”

The glass froze momentarily, hanging in the air somewhere between his mouth and the wooden end table beside him. His lips parted as if he meant to respond to me, something sarcastic and underhanded no doubt, but absolutely nothing came out.

Apparently, I’d managed to render Dominic Huntington speechless.

“And the same goes for you,” I added pointedly, turning to Gabriel. I may not have loved him romantically the way I loved Trace and Dominic, but I still loved him with the whole of my heart and would do just about anything to save his life if it ever came down to it.

Gabriel’s face contorted, seemingly horrified that I’d say such a thing let alone mean it. Tugging at the collar of his shirt, he dropped his head with a shake as if to chase away the sentimental words before they had a chance to break into his barricaded little heart and make themselves a home there. “As much as I hate to admit it, Dominic is right, however tactless he may be about it,” he said, shooting Dominic a coruscating look. “The Order has proven repeatedly that they can’t be trusted, especially when it comes to their intentions with you . You should never have gone to them, Jemma. Not for anything.”

“I know that, but I had no other choice.”

As far as I was concerned, it wasn’t a choice at all. It was the only option. Gabriel knew as well as I did that we’d had nothing else to go on. No alternatives. No backup plans. No hope. Doing nothing meant leaving Trace to die and we both knew I could never do that.

My war-torn eyes shifted back to my soulmate who was quietly listening to the exchange. “Maybe I was wrong and stupid for what I did, but I couldn’t just watch you die, Trace. Not when there was a way to bring you back.”

Trace looked away briefly, his brows banked together and hanging low over his eyes as he tried to put the pieces together in his mind. “So, are you telling me the Order had me Turned?” he asked, looking more confused than ever. Probably because he knew more than anyone how the Order felt about Revenants.

“No.” I watched as the muscle in his jaw twitched in irritation. “They never had any intention of helping me save your life, but I only found that out after my Alt came back to warn me about what was going to happen. That William was setting me up all along.”

“So, who—wait a minute. Did you just say y our Alt came back?” he asked, his eyes thinning with incredulity.

“Apparently, I have Reaper abilities in the future.” I shrugged it off because that was the least of my worries at the moment. “She—my Alt told me you were already dead on her Timeline. That there was no way to bring you back or to stop what was coming. Not unless we Turned you. So…that’s what we did.”

He cursed under his breath as he dragged his hands through his ebony hair again, struggling to absorb it all.

I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking in that moment. What he was thinking about me . Would he ever understand why it had to be done? Why there had never truly ever been another option—not when I was faced with the possibility of his death. Would he ever be able to forgive me for it? For the role I played in doing this to him?

When he finally looked back up again, his confusion and disgust had been replaced with something else. Something that could only be described as unfiltered homicidal rage. “Alright. So, which one of you two bloodsucking assholes did it, huh?” he asked, his hardened gaze bouncing between the two brothers. He wanted someone to pay for this and clearly, he’d set his sights on the most logical suspects.

“You’re not my type, Romeo, but perhaps if you had asked really nicely,” answered Dominic, smirking pompously as I resisted the urge to chuck the whiskey bottle at his head for making this worse than it needed to be.

“Neither one of us were present,” explained Gabriel and then glared over at his brother, a silent plea for him to shut the hell up for once.

“You really expect me to believe that? The two of you follow her everywhere she goes like a couple of lost pound dogs. There’s no way she did this without your help.”

“I resent that assertion,” complained Dominic.

“It’s true. They weren’t involved,” I said, drawing his sharp, furious eyes back to me. “My Alt came back with some Rev I’d never seen before. She vanquished her just as soon as she was done turning you. You’re not…sired to anyone,” I added, hoping that would give him some solace among the mountain of madness I’d just shoveled at him.

His shoulders relaxed a little, but he certainly didn’t look any less angry about any of it.

Not that I expected any different from him. Trace had never minced words about how much he loathed Revenants, mostly because of what had happened to his sister Linley, but also because of how he’d been raised. Because of what the Order had ingrained in him since before he could even walk and talk.

Becoming a Revenant was probably the worst fate I could’ve cursed him with. But what the hell else could I have done? Sat there and watched him wither away and die? The thought alone was preposterous. I couldn’t do that, no matter how selfish I came out looking. I’d already had to watch the life get snuffed out of his eyes once before and I’d be damned if I’d ever willingly live through that again.

I swallowed past the thickness in my throat and held his gaze. “If you need to hate someone, hate me . I’m the one that did this.”

His jawline hardened as he looked away again. It was as though he couldn’t even stand to look at me anymore, and honestly, I didn’t even blame him.

I could only imagine the fifty shades of fucked up I would feel if I had woken up from a strange time lapse only to find out that the person I loved and trusted most had turned me into the thing I hated most.

Without my consent.

“Are…are you…okay?” I asked tentatively, unsure of what to say or do next. I mean, of course, he wasn’t okay. My idiotic future-self had turned him into a goddamn vampire. Lord knew if he’d ever be okay again.

“I don’t know what I am,” he answered, his voice hoarse and distant and broken.

The urge to care for him, to nurse him back to health came hurdling back to me like an old habit that wouldn’t die. “How does your head feel? Any pain or migraines? Are you hungry? I can get you some…?” I trailed off upon noticing the poignant look of annoyance on his face. What I needed to do was stop talking and give him some space to breathe. Of course, my mouth didn’t seem to get the message. “I’m so sorry, Trace. Tell me what I can do to make this—”

“I need to get some air,” he said curtly and started to back out of the room like he was suddenly allergic to me and my onslaught of misplaced questions. “I can’t be here right now.”

My stomach twisted at the look of revulsion in his eyes; at the realization that he did in fact hate me and that things were definitely never going to be the same between us again.

“I’m afraid that’s not a good idea,” objected Gabriel, quickly stepping forward before Trace could leave the room. “It’s probably best if you remain indoors until you learn how to control the bloodlust. In fact, I’ll have to insist on it.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” growled Trace, looking him up and down like he’d suddenly sprung a third leg. “I’m controlling myself now, aren’t I?”

“Yes, but that’s because you’ve only just fed,” explained Gabriel, his moss-green eyes flicking to me as though I were exhibit A. “You’ll need to be able to control the thirst at all times —especially during times of hunger or when you’re in the presence of new blood. It’s easier for Descendants to do, but it isn’t an automatic ability. You’ll have to work at it.”

The fury and utter abhorrence whirling through Trace’s eyes was almost tangible. If I didn’t know better, I might have thought a hurricane was getting ready to blast out of his glorious eyeballs and take the whole lot of us out, once and for all.

“For once, my brother is right,” agreed Dominic as he casually swirled the liquid around his glass, watching it as though it were far more interesting than what was going on in the room. “You’re not cut out to live with the aftermath of innocent blood on your hands.”

Trace glared over at Dominic, looking at him as though he were debating the different ways he’d like to make him die, and then seemingly let the thought go, probably because he knew that what Dominic had said was true. He wasn’t built for murder and innocent bloodshed. Not the way Dominic was.

Trace turned back to Gabriel. “Alright. Fine . How do I do that?” he said, grinding out every word as if his jaw had been suddenly fused together. “How do I learn to control this shit?”

“The same way we become immune to anything—with practice and time. By exposing ourselves to it repeatedly and training ourselves not to react on instinct.” Gabriel glanced back at me and nodded. “I’m sure Jemma can provide some of her blood and I’ll work with you to—”

“I’m not drinking her blood!” snapped Trace, the hurricane back with a vengeance. Along with his dilating pupils.

I tried not to feel offended by the venom behind his words, but my skin was feeling unmistakably thin as of late. Still, I refused to get sidetracked by my own hurt feelings. This wasn’t about me. “Trace, please . Let me help you. It’s the least I can do. This is all my—”

“Don’t,” he warned, cutting me off again, his head angled away from me, as though he couldn’t stand the sight of me anymore. “I need you to…just… stop talking .”

My stomach fell out of my body at his painful demand, at the sheer sting of his words, but I refused to let it show and did my best to school my features instead. This wasn’t about my feelings. It was about him and the wholly fucked up thing that had just happened to him and I needed to remember that despite my own breaking heart. I pressed my lips together and nodded, working hard to hide the hurt from my face.

When he was satisfied that I wasn’t going to say anything else, his hard gaze darted back to Gabriel. “Not her blood. You understand? Not. Her. Blood. Just…just keep her away from me.”

Oh, holy painful death by way of biting words .

I wasn’t even sure whether I was still breathing anymore, but my expression remained steeled, nonetheless.

“Okay. That’s not a problem,” agreed Gabriel, holding his palms out to keep him calm. “We don’t have to use her blood. We…we’ll figure something else out.”

“Good. Let’s do that.”

Gabriel nodded. “Of course.”

“ Now ,” gritted Trace and then stormed out of the room, apparently ready to get this over and done with yesterday.

Gabriel bounced a quick wary look between his brother and I and then hurried out of the room after him.

The burn under my lids had finally reached its breaking point as tears sprang free from my eyes in thick, warm streaks of despair. If I had any doubt before, it was crystal clear to me now:

Trace Macarthur loathed me with every fiber of his being.