Page 11 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

Of course, I knew it was Dominic even before I turned and looked at him. The sound of his voice had all but imprinted itself into the very strands of my DNA, long before I’d bothered to pay attention to it. As per his usual, he was wearing his signature, all-black attire and crooked grin, standing with his arms crossed along his chest as he leaned against the door jamb like he’d been there all along, patiently waiting for me to notice him.

As if Dominic Huntington could ever go unnoticed, but that was completely beside the point.

The point was, I hadn’t seen or heard from him since he’d walked out on me last night and while I had to admit that he looked particularly mouthwatering from my current vantage point, I refused to allow myself to feel anything but slighted at the sight of him. The asshole had left me. Walked out on me when I’d needed him the most.

Of all the people I’d expect that from, Dominic wouldn’t have even made the short list.

Then again, that was all before . Before my birthright decided to bust out of my back in the form of two feathered appendages. Before his emotions had been shut off by his maniacal sire. Before …when I knew exactly who he was and how he felt about me. Lord only knew where the two of us stood now.

“Well, if it isn’t Mr. All-Nighter,” I greeted sourly as I dragged my gaze away from him and tossed the bread and peanut butter jar down onto the kitchen island. “How nice of you to grace me with your presence.”

Okay , so that probably wasn’t the most mature way to start the conversation, especially since I wasn’t even sure whether I was dealing with regular Dominic or emotionless Dominic, but it was late, and I was still pissed off as hell.

“Mr. All-Nighter?” he echoed, sounding wholly amused by the nickname, which was so not the sentiment I was going for. “Did you come up with that all on your own, love?”

I cut him a quick glare from over my shoulder. “It was a tossup between that and dickhole. I’m starting to think I should have went with the latter, though.”

His smirk pulled up into a full-bodied grin. “Is that right? Pray tell, what made you change your mind?”

“It just feels more fitting now that I’m standing in the room with you. Don’t you think?”

“It does have a certain ring to it,” he agreed.

My lame attempt at riling him up really wasn’t having the effect I was going for, and it was only making the tightness in my chest feel worse. “I’m really glad you find this all so amusing, Dominic,” I said as I plastered on a wintry smile. “I was honestly worried you may have lost your humor right along with all your other feelings, but lucky for us, that emotion seems to have been spared.”

He touched his palm to his heart, feigning hurt. “Hitting below the belt, are we?”

I supposed that I was, but I wasn’t sure how else to get my point across. He’d left me without so much as a phone call or text, only to show up twenty-four hours later like nothing happened—like we never happened—and I was definitely way in my feelings about it. As much as I wanted to demand an explanation from him, to demand that he tell me where we stood, I was just too much of a chicken to come right out and say it.

Because what if he didn’t love me anymore?

What if his feelings for me had changed?

I could handle a lot of things—bad news, bad prophecies, even a pair of big, black feathered wings. I’d take it on the chin and roll with it, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle that . Not yet anyway. I haven’t had enough time to build that kind of wall around my heart yet.

I met his eyes again, searching for something recognizable. “Where have you been?” I asked softly. As small and pitiful as my voice had sounded, I’d hoped a direct question might yield a better result from him.

He pushed off the wall and slowly prowled toward me, looking like a fine piece of art set to offer itself up to the highest bidder. Something inside me wanted to sell my soul for a taste, but I rammed that slutty bitch back down into the murky depths of my belly. “Why? Did you miss me?” he asked coolly.

The cavalier manner with which he spoke to me—looked at me—sparked something angry inside me. “I bet you’d just love that, wouldn’t you? Me sitting here all night, pining for you while you’re out doing god knows what.”

“Not hardly,” he said, slowing his stride as he passed behind me.

My body shivered at his proximity, yearning to fall back into his arms and let his darkness consume me as it had so many times before. It had always been easier that way with Dominic— better . My darkness rising up to meet his, tit for tat, like a game of chess that neither of us were ever going to win.

But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction tonight.

“Well, good, because I wasn’t. I managed to do just fine today without you.”

“I don’t doubt that for a second.”

“Better than fine actually. I did amazing.” Okay so that wasn’t really the truth or anything close to it, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him know that.

In that moment, I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me—to stick it to him for disappearing on me last night and every night since his sire had made him shut his emotions off. I wanted him to know that he couldn’t just walk out on me, to abandon me and expect to find me in a heap of tears on the floor, waiting for his return. But most of all, I just wanted to know whether any of that even mattered to him anymore.

Whether I still mattered.

He settled beside me at the kitchen island, his body and presence too close and overwhelming. “I’m sure you were nothing short of spectacular. We both know your heart is nothing if not resilient.” His penetrating gaze roved over me from head to toe as he sidled in close to my ear with a whisper, “Some might even call it fickle.”

I winced at his underhanded insult and then turned to glare at him, anger riding my blood as my face landed within an inch of his. “When did you become such a grade-A fucking jerk?”

“I like to think I was just born this way.”

“Screw you, Dominic.”

“By all means.” His dark, rapt eyes flicked down to my mouth as his body remained close enough that I could almost taste the hostility rolling off him. “You’re more than welcome to.”

But it wasn’t just hostility there. There was fire and fury and resentment and something else there, too. Something that simmered my blood and heated my chest despite his callous words. Just like that night in the basement cell, it muddled my mind and made me want to do crazy things like eviscerate the miniscule gap between us and kiss him, to beg him to tell me he still loved me the way he did before.

But I wasn’t sure how he would respond to any of that. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Not of myself, or him, and definitely not of his feelings for me, and that alone made me keep myself firmly rooted in place. Nothing about his demeanor felt familiar to me. Nothing about his words felt comprehendible. It all just felt…wrong.

And I still had no idea where the hell he had disappeared to last night.

Uninvited thoughts of him cozying up with some random bloodwhore whirled through my mind then and curdled my stomach like spoiled milk.

Refusing to allow him to see the distress on my face, I reared back and steeled myself, smothering down the painful storm inside me and instead, focusing in on the waiting jar of peanut butter. Because if I couldn’t know where he stood anymore, then I wasn’t going to let him get a read on my cards either.

Flattening the slice of bread, I dug out a scoop of peanut butter and started buttering it. Aggressively.

He stood there for a few beats, watching me intently as though I were doing something incredibly groundbreaking with the bread. I resisted the urge to squirm under his unrelenting gaze.

“Can you not do that?” I finally snapped, scraping out another hefty scoop of peanut butter and slapping it onto the bread.

“Do what?”

“ That ,” I gestured in his general vicinity without meeting his eyes and then scooped out another knife full of peanut butter, piling that one on, too.

“You seem rather worked up tonight, angel,” he stated conversationally, as though making an observation about the weather. “Are things not going well with Romeo? Have you two not kissed and made-up yet?”

My jaw clamped shut as I shot him a withering stare. He certainly knew how to cut me where it would hurt the most. “That’s low, Dominic. Even for you.”

Lowering his gaze, he slid both hands into his front pockets, eying the butterknife that had stilled over the bread. “It was a genuine question,” he said, meeting my eyes again, his expression cool and passive.

That was such bullshit. You don’t casually throw out a question like that. It was a loaded gun and we both knew it. “Well, in that case, I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that he’s still not speaking to me.”

“And why would that make me happy?” he asked flatly, but he was watching my lips as if he were waiting on bated breath for my answer.

“Are you saying it doesn’t?” I challenged, dropping the butter knife and then turning my whole body to face him. “Would you prefer that we had kissed and made up?”

It felt like a lifetime before he answered me. “I’m not sure that my preference on the matter is a factor anymore, nor am I sure that it should be.”

I tried to connect the words, to force them to make sense to me, but I was too tired and hungry and daft to accomplish the feat. “What the hell does that even mean? It’s a simple yes or no question.”

“Please tell me that isn’t the full extent of what you’ve eaten today.”

“What?” I jerked back from the sudden case of whiplash he’d just given me. Was that…was he…concerned about me? Feeling flustered and even more confused, I picked up the butterknife and piled on yet another scoop of peanut butter. “I think you should leave,” I said evenly, having just decided it then.

“But I haven’t even told you why I’m here yet.”

“Oh, and here I thought you just came to dazzle me with your shining personality,” I smarted, digging out another knife full of peanut butter and spreading it roughly. In the midst of my aggressive buttering, I’d pressed down too hard with the knife and accidentally ripped a giant gash down the middle, causing half the peanut butter to smear onto the kitchen island. “Fucking motherfucker!” I hissed crudely and then threw the knife down onto the counter, having had just about enough of this day and everything in it.

“Another pet name for me?” he asked teasingly.

I turned and scowled at him. “I was talking to the bread!” Wait—fuck.

Yup. I just say that. Out loud.

Releasing a breath of frustration, I gripped the edge of the island with both hands and stared down at my supper—a sad looking, brutally oversaturated holey slice of bread. It looked like something a cat might puke up and I had absolutely no intention of eating it. Low blood sugar be damned.

“Where were you last night?” I asked in quiet defeat, my eyes still fixed on the bread. I’d meant to ask him why the hell he was still here, but that hadn’t been what came out of my mouth.

He hesitated and I inwardly dry heaved as invasive thoughts of him feasting on some blonde bombshell pinged through my mind again like a fire alarm blaring through my head. I was certain I was going to be sick.

“Dammit, angel. Will you sit down and eat.” It wasn’t a question or even a suggestion. It came out like a plea—fraught with desperation.

My gaze cut to his, my hands still braced against the edge of the island as though I didn’t trust myself to let go. “I’m not hungry.”

“Well, the complete absence of color in your face says otherwise,” he retorted and then lifted his hand as though he were going to touch my face just then, to coax the color out from my cheeks again, but then dropped his hand back to his side.

I sighed, too tired to even attempt to decipher that one. “Just answer my question, Dominic.”

“Eat and then I will.”

“Are you kidding me right now?”

He stared back at me, stone-faced, like he had all the time in the world to engage in a battle of wills with me.

Having lost all semblance of patience and grace, I grabbed the dilapidated slice of cat-puke-slash-bread from the kitchen island and then rammed it into my mouth like a lunatic, smearing the peanut butter all over my lips and chin in the process.

“There. Satisfied? Now tell me where you were,” I demanded, before I’d even had a chance to swallow the food in my mouth. It wasn’t one of my finer moments, but clearly that ship had sailed a long-ass time ago.

“I was following a lead,” he stated simply as he reached out and wiped the corner of my mouth with his thumb, making my chest warm from the gentle gesture. “I received some intel that the Roderick sisters may be heading back to town. According to my guy, they were spotted just outside Chapel Hill.”

It took me a second to catch up to what he’d just said because, well, he had been touching me and nothing good ever came of my brain when Dominic was touching me.

And then my shoulders sagged at the news.

Truth be told, after Morgan’s visit earlier today, I’d hoped (and then somehow even managed to semi-convince myself) that her vision was probably, most-likely, completely wrong, especially since she’d seen all three sisters alive and well when I had known in my heart that that wasn’t possible. Or so I had thought.

But, as with all tough pills to swallow, it was becoming increasingly impossible to continue denying what was right in front of my nose. So much for a restful sleep tonight.

“I admit, it doesn’t look very good,” he continued, mistaking my silence for shock, “but there’s no need to panic just yet. I have yet to confirm the intel is good. This could very well be a case of mistaken identity.”

“Mistaken identity? Really, Dominic? You can’t be serious.” Even if Morgan hadn’t already dropped her prophetic bomb on me this morning, there was still no way I’d buy that load of farfetched dung.

“Either way, we don’t know their motives. They could very well be heading to town simply to pay tribute to their fallen sister,” he said uniformly. “To memorialize her place of rest with a fine assortment of broomsticks and magic eight balls.”

“What?” I blinked at him.

“They may have even felt a plaque of some sort was in order,” he went on, his tone growing grimmer then. “They could be carving out her epitaph as we speak.”

“Okay, now you’re just being ridiculous,” I said, trying not to laugh at the image he’d conjured in my mind, but failing miserably.

His lips pulled into a lopsided grin as his eyes brightened with something that looked a lot like satisfaction. Like he’d wanted to make me smile and take the edge off. The thought spurred my wounded heart back to life.

Unfortunately, our daunting reality quickly swooped back in to pull the plug before I had a chance to enjoy it.

“They’re not coming here to memorialize anyone,” I informed, all amusement in my expression wiped from existence. “They’re coming here for the baby.”

And there went all the light from his eyes, and my heart, and the room.

“You know this as fact?” he queried.

“Close enough.” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Morgan saw them in a vision last night.”

I went on to relay the details of what Morgan had shared with me during her impromptu visit at breakfast as well as the very unfortunate detail that there were in fact still three sisters, and not two as we had previously believed. The news had been as off-putting to Dominic as it had been for me since he’d been there with me that day in the abandoned mine. He’d watched me snap Arianna’s neck.

“She must have been tethered to her sisters,” Dominic offered as we tried to work out what had gone so wrong that day in the cave. “Perhaps some sort of anchoring spell.”

“She also had Revenant blood in her system,” I pointed out, remembering we had force-fed her some of his blood to bring her back from unconsciousness. “ Fuck . Could she be…could you have sired her?”

He shook his head. “She didn’t have enough of my blood in her system to be Turned.”

“Right. Thank God.” I exhaled a weighty gust of relief. “So, tethered it is then.”

Frankly, it was hardly that surprising that the sisters had a fail-safe in place seeing as Nikki had done the exact same thing for Trace. And she’d come up with the idea under severe duress. Surely the three most powerful Dark Casters on this side of the globe had thought of it too, if for no other reason than a precautionary measure.

“So, now what?” I asked as I worried my lip. “We can’t just let them wander into town unchecked. We need to find them before they find Nikki.”

“I’m already on it. If they’re here, I will find them.”

“No. We’ll find them,” I corrected and then ignored the annoyed look on his face. “You’re not tracking them alone. I’m going with you.”

“That won’t be necessary. I work better alone.” He crossed his arms as though the decision was final. “Besides, I think you have more than enough irons in the fire as it is.”

“When do I not?”

“Speaking of which.” He eyed me pointedly. “My brother mentioned you’re going after the Sang Noir. Has there been any progress with it?”

“That would require that I have somehow manifested the ability to teleport, and since I haven’t, the book is still sitting at Temple under lock and key.” My shoulders slumped in defeat. Of all the mountains I had to climb, this one seemed like the steepest. “I mean, whatever. It’s no biggie. All I need to do is teach myself how to travel between space and time, and I’m interdimensional gold.”

He didn’t find my sarcasm amusing. “Why would you have to teach yourself anything? You have a perfectly capable Reaper at your disposal.”

That certainly wasn’t the way I’d describe Trace at this current juncture. “Trust me. He can’t help me right now.”

He quirked his brow at me as though I were speaking in tongues. “Why in the world not?”

“For starters, because he despises me,” I answered matter-of-factly.

He blinked at me, slow and even, as though I’d just uttered the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “He doesn’t despise you,” he said plainly as he pushed away from the counter and made his way around me again, coaxing another involuntary shiver from my spine. “It’s not physically possible for him to despise you.”

I would’ve laughed at his clearly misinformed assertion had I not already been on the verge of tears “He literally can’t even stand to be in the same room with me anymore, and honestly, I don’t even blame him,” I said, tracking him over my shoulder.

After everything I’d done to Trace, everything I’d put him through since the moment I came into his life, it was a miracle that I’d stayed in his good graces as long as I had.

He paused behind me, hovering but not touching. “He doesn’t hate you,” he repeated lowly, his words vibrating through my body like distant, low rumbling thunder. “He’s afraid to hurt you.”

My lips popped open and then slammed shut on a failed reply as his words roiled over me like a mudslide.

Afraid…to hurt me?

Was that even possible? Had I been misreading the hate in Trace’s eyes for fear all this time?

I started to shake my head, unable to let the hope take root in my heart. Hope had always been a double-edged sword for me. No matter which way I grabbed it, I always ended up sliced and bloody.

“Turning doesn’t make you into a different person,” he explained casually, like my entire relationship with Trace didn’t hang in the balance. “It doesn’t erase your feelings or conjure new ones. Especially not for Descendants. It only heightens what is already there.”

My heart clenched at the idea, desperate to fill its empty chambers with something that could sustain me. And then I remembered what had happened when I’d gone down to the basement to talk to Trace. While I certainly preferred Dominic’s explanation to the conclusion I’d come to on my own, I still couldn’t accept it.

The way he had spoken to me—looked at me. It was as though he had seen the devil himself. “I wish I could believe you, Dominic, but you weren’t there. You didn’t see the way he acted with me.”

“That’s because he doesn’t trust himself around you yet. Your blood—” Dominic trailed off, a small smile forming on his lips, as though he had momentarily lost himself in the overwhelming memory of it. “It’s unlike anything he has ever tasted in his life, or will ever taste again, and right now, it’s the only thing he can think about. The taste does not leave you. It’s always right there at the back of his throat,” he said like he knew exactly what that felt like.

Razor sharp fire licked down my spine like the strike of a match. “Was it like that for you, too?” I asked him, suddenly breathless.

“It was all I could think about for days. Weeks .” Darkness flitted through his eyes like smoke, and my heart raced in response. “Nothing could satiate my hunger after that, and certainly not a mere mortal. I imagine it’s far worse for him. For your first feed to begin at the vein of a Slayer—an earth Angel. He’ll only ever be chasing the dragon because nothing will ever come close to that again.”

His words sobered me right the hell up. “But it will get better for him, right? With time? I mean, it has to. Gabriel is helping him—he’s teaching him to—”

“To drink from a blood donor bag?” he cut in jeeringly. “I can assure you, that will never work.”

Dread seeped into my pores, making my head spin from the dysphoria. “But it worked for Gabriel,” I pointed out, desperate to keep believing that this was going to get better. That it could get better. That Trace wasn’t going to be stuck chasing some kind of unattainable high for the rest of his damned life.

“Gabriel lived off animal blood for years before he transitioned to donor blood, and even that wasn’t a pretty transition. But Romeo? He began at the very top shelf, and I promise you, there is no coming back down from that. To deny oneself that gift is to spend the rest of your days in a certain kind of madness. It’s unsustainable. The longer you deny yourself, the harder you will inevitably fall.”

His words shook me to my core. It rattled the windows and made the earth tremor beneath my feet. “Are you saying he’s never going to be okay? That he’s never going to able to be in the same room as me without wanting to rip open my neck?” Somehow, that sounded even worse than him just hating me.

“If he continues with donor blood? That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he answered plainly like it was nothing. Like he hadn’t just doomed Trace’s life with a stroke of his tongue. “I don’t make the rules, love.”

Suddenly, the air felt too thick to pull into my lungs, my head too unseasoned to hold all of the rioting thoughts. “What do I do now? How am I supposed to fix this?”

He paused and looked down at me, the weighty emotion behind his eyes completely lost on me. I wasn’t sure what he was seeing just then, what I looked like to him—my heart hammering in my chest, my eyes wild and wide with fear, my hands balled at my sides like I wanted to hit something.

Maybe him. Maybe myself.

“You do the only thing you can do,” he finally said, his voice and eyes once again shuttered. “You give him what he wants.”