Page 19 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)
I woke up the next morning to an empty room and a foul mood that started the moment I blinked open my eyes. True to his word, Dominic had spent the entirety of the night in my room, lording over my sleeping form like his survival somehow depended on it.
I too remained true to my promise and didn’t acknowledge him once all night despite waking up several times to find him sitting there, asking me if I was okay.
I had no idea what he was trying to prove or why he appeared to be concerned like he actually cared, but none of it was enough to erase how he’d made me feel last night. Luckily, I wouldn’t need to deal with that today, at least not for a while, since he’d apparently felt he’d done a good enough job securing the “matter” and finally vacated my bedroom in the early morning hours.
After dragging myself out of bed, I brushed my teeth and washed my face and then picked out my clothes, choosing to go with a cute long-sleeved black crop top and a pair of blue jeans. After dressing and undoing my braid, I spent the next thirty minutes trying to get the strange kinks out of my hair and make it look somewhat presentable.
A part of me knew I was just procrastinating to avoid facing Dominic after one of the most humiliating nights of my life, but I chose to focus on making my hair look pretty instead.
Everyone (who wasn’t in the throes of bloodlust) was already in the kitchen by the time I finally made it downstairs forty-five minutes later. The sight of their fresh faces gathered around the breakfast table, casually discussing the increased demon presence in Hollow Hills turned my already bad mood into an entire bushel of sour grapes. I was just about to turn around and leave when Gabriel spotted me at the doorway and foiled my plan.
“Ah. There she is,” he announced cheerfully, drawing everyone’s attention to me as though they had been waiting on pins and needles for my arrival.
“Finally. Pull up a chair. Isa just made homemade waffles,” informed Tessa and then shoveled a fork-full of waffles into her mouth before turning to Jackie and marveling, “They’re so much better than the frozen ones I usually eat. It’s too bad you can’t have any.”
“I’ve had waffles before,” answered Jaqueline in a tone that said she didn’t really miss them anyway.
“But you haven’t had Isa’s waffles,” countered Tessa, apparently unwilling to let the damn thing go.
Despite my best effort, my gaze slid to Dominic and my heart instantly sped up at the sight of him. He was sitting at the far end of the table, immaculately dressed, with a glass in one hand and a grimace on his face that appeared to be aimed at the clear liquid swirling around in his glass. A liquid that definitely wasn’t water.
“Good morning, Miss Blackburn,” sang Isa, momentarily stealing my attention as she busied herself working her magic at the stove. “I’ll have a plate ready for you in just a sec,” she informed, beaming as she turned over the breakfast sausages in the frying pan.
Maple-glazed breakfast sausages…
Dammit . “No thank you, Isa. I’m not hungry,” I lied, glaring over at Dominic again.
Even though the food smelled delicious and made my tummy rumble at the sight of it, I refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing me indulge in the fruits of his hired chef’s labor.
At that, he finally turned to meet my eyes, and I doubled down on my glare.
“Well, sit down anyway,” said Tessa, oblivious to the icy exchange going on behind her head as she continued to stuff her mouth with waffles like they were going out of business. “We should talk about what happened yesterday,” she pressed, her words garbled around the food she was still chewing.
“What’s there to talk about?” I crossed my arms and leaned my shoulder against the wall but didn’t enter the kitchen any more than that. “I’m not interested in sitting around and rehashing the same story over and over again. It’s not going to change from yesterday to today.” And that included the key details I’d very purposely left out of the conversation last night.
Initially, I’d omitted the fact that I’d almost been killed because it was embarrassing and scary and I really didn’t want to give them another reason to keep breathing down my neck. But also, because I hadn’t even been sure exactly how I’d walked out of there in one piece in the first place. Not until I’d spoken to Dominic.
And frankly, after what he’d theorized last night—that I had some kind of power over the bloodhounds—I wanted to talk about it even less today than I did yesterday. At least not until I figured out exactly why the Hellhounds protected me and what precisely that meant about me.
“Actually, I was thinking we should discuss what we’re going to do about it,” she answered as she stabbed at the last piece of waffle on her plate before hoovering that one too. “I think it’s safe to assume the Roderick sisters already got to Nikki, but we need to know for sure. And we need to get some eyes on them so we can figure out their next move.”
“How do you propose we do that?” asked Gabriel, his face already twisted into a frown as though he anticipated it was going to be putting one or more of us in some unnecessary danger.
“Well, I haven’t actually gotten that far which is why we need to put our heads together and come up with some kind of plan here. Don’t you think?” she added, turning to Jaqueline for agreement.
Jackie nodded but didn’t say much else.
“We can try a locator spell,” I suggested, remembering the time we’d done one for our mother when the Roderick sisters had taken her way back when. That was the night they destroyed everything—the night they used Trace’s body as Lucifer’s vessel. “I can ask Caleb to swing by at lunch.”
“Wait. Don’t we need something personal of Nikki’s for that kind of spell to work?” asked Tessa, like she was brand-new to all of this and didn’t know how any of it worked.
“ Yeah ,” I answered, dragging the word out, waiting for her brain to catchup.
“So then…how are we going to do the spell?”
Seriously, Tessa? “We have an entire house of her crap at our disposal,” I reminded her since she obviously wasn’t going to catch up on her own. “I’m sure Caleb can grab whatever he needs on the way over here.”
“Oh. Right.” She jabbed her index finger in my direction. “Good thinking.”
“Yeah. Groundbreaking ,” I said and resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her. What the heck had gotten into her? She seemed so off her game.
Maybe it was all the carbs she kept pigging out on?
“Where are we on the Sang Noir front?” asked Jaqueline, drawing my attention over to her. She was seated beside Tessa with Elspeth’s old grimoire in front of her and an open journal beside it. She’d been jotting down her translations in the journal for days, but judging from the lack of used pages, she hadn’t gotten all that far. “Have you made any progress with the Macarthur family grimoires?”
“Well, not exactly,” I answered, trying not to sound too dejected even though I felt that way inside. “The good news is they’re written in English. The bad news is I still can’t make heads or tails out of them. I guess you were right after all,” I said, eyeing my mother for any signs of gloating. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to learn how to port on my own. At least not any time soon.”
“So, are we finally asking Trace for help?” asked Tessa, assuming that would be our next move.
She assumed wrong.
“Actually, I found some info on a couple Macarthur relatives in one of the journals. An aunt and a cousin. Ben was going to help me track them down yesterday, but then, well, you know.” I tried not to draw too much emphasis on the whole almost-getting-myself-killed-again thing, hoping they wouldn’t either. “We can try again today if Ben’s up for it. I’m hoping at least one of them would be willing to help us.”
“And if they’re not?” inquired Dominic, finally speaking up. His tone was flat and unbothered, like he didn’t care about the answer either way, but I could tell by the sharp look in his eyes that he did.
“They will,” I said definitively, even though I really wasn’t sure of it myself. This was the one and only idea I had at the moment, and it needed to work. In the meantime, all I could do was pray they’d be willing to help me, and that was assuming Ben would even be able to track them in the first place.
“Then you have no contingency plan in place,” he surmised and then glanced around the table like he wanted everyone else to know it too. “What a foolish way to waste the already limited time you have.”
“Dominic,” warned Gabriel, but it was already too late.
Anger slashed at my insides, scorching my skin as though there was a live fire-breathing dragon living inside of me. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I forget to consult you on this, ōsensei ?” I snapped back, my sarcasm dial turned all the way up. “It must have slipped my mind since you were, you know, nowhere to be found. But please, Johnny-Come-Lately, by all means, tell us all about your better idea.”
“The better idea would be to use the perfectly capable Reaper you have at your disposal,” he shot back smugly as Gabriel threw smoke-signals at him by way of his eyes.
“You really shouldn’t have said that,” muttered Tessa under her breath, obviously remembering the last time she’d tried to get me to use Trace for my own personal gain.
“No, no. It’s totally fine,” I said, even though everyone could clearly see and hear that it was anything but fine. “It’s not his fault he doesn’t know. He hasn’t been here. He was obviously busy with more important things than to bother to come around here before today. Right, Dom?”
Tessa and Gabriel exchanged confused glances.
“Are we still on this?” asked Dominic, sounding bored as he set his glass on the table and leaned back in his chair.
“I guess some of us move on from things much faster than others.”
“Or perhaps some of us are simply choosing to be petulant and unreasonable.”
“Well maybe some of us would be less petulant and unreasonable if other people would stop being dickholes,” I offered not even bothering to hide my contempt for him.
He huffed derisively. “We’re resorting to name calling again then, are we?”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t say I was talking about you , but I guess if you feel like the shoe fits...” I shrugged. “ Wear it, baby .”
“Okay—what in the world is going on with you two?” asked Tessa, her brows knocking into each other as she looked back and forth between the two of us like we were a couple of body-snatchers parading around the kitchen.
Even if I’d wanted to answer her question, which I didn’t, there was way too much to unpack to even attempt to explain what was going on with Dominic and me. Especially since I wasn’t even sure of it myself.
“Tell me, angel, have you even bothered to ask Romeo if he’d be willing to help you with this or are you simply too busy getting in your own way to even bother with such a remedial detail?”
“A remedial detail?” I repeated, half-laughing, half-raging. “We can’t even be in the same room anymore without him wanting to rip my neck open! How the hell do you expect me to have an actual conversation with him?”
“By fixing the problem.”
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to do!”
“How so?” He blinked lazily.
“By giving him time and space to adjust to everything.”
“And therein lies your problem. He doesn’t need either one of those things.”
“Oh really? Then what exactly does he need, Mr. Know It All?!”
“He needs you .”
That shut me up almost as abruptly as it had stabbed at my heart. Squaring my shoulders, I gave him the world’s coldest glare. “He doesn’t want anything to do with me. You’d know that if you had bothered to be here,” I said and then started to turn around to leave the kitchen.
“He isn’t going to get any better chained up in your basement,” he called out at my back, halting me in my tracks. “Deep down, you know it’s the truth.”
I turned slowly, my anger and sadness and disappointment coalescing in the back of my throat like an immovable stone. “And what would you suggest I do instead, huh? What other option do I have? Should I just set him and his bloodlust loose on us and let him go to town on everyone?” I shook my head at the dire circumstances and hopelessness of it all. “He’ll hurt someone, and I already know he would never forgive himself for it. It’s up to me to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“Then start helping him,” he said as he shot upright and stalked over to me. “Excuse us,” he announced unceremoniously as he snatched me by my elbow and kept on walking, dragging me out of the kitchen right along with him.
“Excuse you! Can you stop manhandling me?” I snapped and then yanked my arm free from his grip, stopping us in the middle of the corridor. Granted, if he hadn’t wanted to let me go, he wouldn’t have, but I still felt emboldened by it in the moment. “What the hell are you even doing?”
He turned to face me, schooling his features into a blank mask of indifference. “I’m keeping my promise to you.”
I blinked at him stupidly and then yelped as he picked up my elbow and trudged forward again. “Wait a second,” I demanded, digging my heels against the varnished wood floor, but this time, he didn’t let up. “Can you…be a little…more…fucking specific?” I bit out choppily, struggling against his hold as I tried to slow him down and buy myself more time.
“No.”
“Dominic!” I growled, my irritation notching up again. “Knock it off. This isn’t funny!”
“I couldn’t agree more,” he said as he rounded the corner and then came to a stop at the basement door. His hand grasped the doorknob but before he could turn it, I managed to wrench my arm free from his grip using nothing but sheer terror and adrenaline to spur me on.
Whatever anger and annoyance I’d felt moments ago had been swallowed whole by the fear and panic pummeling down on me as his destination became horrifyingly clear. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” I whisper-yelled at him, my eyes round and wide. “Have you lost your mind? We’re not going down there!”
He met my eyes for a second, his own the picture of calmness. “This is the only way.”
“The only way to what? Provoke him into killing us both?” I already knew Trace didn’t want to see me, and that was bad enough, but seeing me with Dominic? That was a surefire way to get him to snap and kill us both.
“He isn’t going to do any such thing,” he stated calmly, like he actually knew what he was talking about.
But he didn’t.
“You don’t know what he’s like now—you haven’t been here! You didn’t see!”
“Do you trust me?” he asked me suddenly, the softness of his question throwing me off and making my lips move before I had a chance to think the answer through.
“Of course, I do.”
“Then let me do this for you, angel.”
I faltered at his words, at the softness in which he spoke them to me, and then we were moving again, the confusion swirling heavy in my mind as I let him lead me through the basement door. I had no idea what he thought he was doing for me, but this had epic disaster written all over it.
Memories of my last impromptu visit to the basement flashed through my head and my stomach dropped all the way to my feet, making them feel like lead. Trace had nearly chewed a hole right through me last time just for getting too close to him, and here I was about to do it all over again, and worse, this time I had Dominic flanking my side.
He was going to go nuclear.
“Dominic, wait, ” I hissed, trying to keep my panicked voice at a whisper despite the fact that I was basically entering a vampire lair and the only one who might have trouble hearing anything down there was me . “Let’s just stop and think about this for a second,” I pleaded, trying to reason with him—but there was no stopping him from this mad dash into the murky depths of insanity.
He was on a mission. A mission to apparently destroy the both of us by way of a scorned lover.
A cold blur of near-tangible air rushed past me as soon as my foot hit the bottom landing. For a split second, I thought it was Trace teleporting out of his cell to kill us both where we stood and then I remembered that Caleb had spelled the prison bars with magic and that, thankfully, that wasn’t possible.
Gabriel appeared in front of us as though he’d manifested out thin air, halting our advance into the lion’s pit like the Knight in Shiny Leather that he was. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?” he growled, his angry frown darting back and forth between me and Dominic as though I were somehow in on this madness. “You cannot be down here!”
I started to shake my head, an apology on the tip of my tongue.
“Can’t I, brother?” smirked Dominic.
Gabriel’s jaw tightened into stone. “This isn’t the time or place for your sadistic games, Dominic. Leave this basement at once!”
“Well, you’ll be happy to know that I’m not playing any games at all,” he answered and then shoved Gabriel out of his way. “And I won’t be leaving either. In fact, I plan on staying for a while,” he added, pulling me into the center of the room with him where the sleeping beast could see me in all my trembling glory.
We were so fucking dead we needed a new word for it.
“Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty,” he called jovially into the darkened cell.
Jesus H. Christ . Cringing harder than I’d ever cringed before, I lifted my arm and was just about to ram my elbow into Dominic’s kidney when I heard the sound and froze.
The sound of Trace’s deep growl rumbling out from the darkened corner of the cell, its deadly trill ringing in my ears as all the hair on my body stood on end.
“Get her the fuck out of here. Now ,” he growled like it was the one and only warning he was going to give us.
Smarter, saner people would have heeded his warning and left, but of course, we were nothing of the sort.