Page 2 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

Dominic cleared his throat, the sound of it jolting me out of my self-deprecating pity-party-for-one and reminding me that I wasn’t alone. At least not in the physical sense. Mentally though, I felt as though I’d been cast off on a deserted island with nothing to hold onto but a pair of worthless wings and the scathing scarlet letter of a walking pariah.

Swatting away the tears under my eyes, I turned and faced him as he brought his glass to his lips and took a long, unhurried sip from his drink. His dark, probing eyes roved over each of my features, scrutinizing me as though he could see into my soul and know everything that I was feeling in that moment. Seeing me and exposing me within the very same breath. It was both comforting and unnerving in equal parts.

“He hates me.”

“He’ll get over it,” he answered easily, his gaze never leaving mine as he set the glass down on the coffee table between us and then leaned back against the lounge chair. He seemed entirely too calm and unbothered considering the hell storm that was currently pouring down all around us.

“Seriously, Dominic? He’ll get over it?” I repeated, stunned at his casual demeanor and nonchalance. How was he not getting the severity of this? “I ended his life!”

“You extended his life,” he corrected, crossing his leg over his knee.

“Well, I’m glad you think so but I’m pretty sure Trace is never going to see it that way.”

“Because he’s a simpleton?”

“He’s not a simpleton,” I answered heatedly. “He’s just…he’s not the same as you.”

“Exactly.” His mouth curved into a grin. “Isn’t that what I just said?”

“No. It’s—we’re not saying the same thing!” I snapped and then shook my head, mostly at myself for even entertaining this discussion.

He knew as well as I did that Trace never wanted this life for himself. He didn’t seek it out the way Dominic had. He didn’t choose this for himself the way Dominic had. They would never see it the same way. Frankly, they’d never seen eye to eye on anything in the entirety of their lives. Why should they start now?

“Just forget it,” I grumbled as I walked back to the couch and then dropped down onto it, folding forward onto my knees. I barely had the energy to think straight anymore let alone to stand there and debate Dominic on the nuts and bolts of Trace’s mind, nor did I need his confirmation to know that what I had done, indirectly or otherwise, was going to come with major consequences.

“If it’s any consolation, the first few days are always the hardest,” he offered lowly, his eyes still fixed on me in a jarring way—probing me as if to see through to the inner workings of my heart. “He’ll feel much better once he gets used to all the new sensations coursing through his body.”

My brows rose. “The new sensations?” I asked, hungry for any morsel of information that might give me hope; for anything that might make this sludge pile of guilt easier to sit with.

“You have to understand the transformation process, angel. It’s not just your appetite that changes,” he said as he stood up and then sauntered over to my side of the living room, casually making his way around the sofa and then stopping directly behind where I was seated. “Your physiology changes too. Each and every one of your senses are heightened. Sound. Sight. Smell. Touch ,” he murmured, his fingers gently raking through my hair before picking up the loose strands and moving them over to the front of my shoulder. “Everything feels different. Better. More ,” he said, dragging his fingers over the shredded fabric of my shirt. “Something as simple as standing in a crowded room can feel like sensory overload when you’ve only just Turned.”

My skin prickled as he traced the length of my shoulder blade, his fingers moving slowly and exploratively.

“He needs only to adjust to it, and in time he’ll wonder how he ever lived any other way,” he said suddenly beside my ear, his voice a wolfish purr.

I resisted the urge to shiver from his nearness. From the way his voice and smell and proximity made my breath hitch, and my stomach tighten.

“You make it sound like it’s a blessing and not a curse,” I murmured, turning slightly toward him.

“Because it is.” His breath tickled the corner of my lips as he spoke. “It’s merely a matter of perspective.”

My gaze fell to his mouth and my cheeks immediately flushed hot in response. Every fiber of my being wanted to kiss him then, to lean into him and let him expunge all semblance of fear and pain and shame in my heart the way he had done for me so many times before.

But of course, I couldn’t. Not today. Not like this.

Pushing off the couch, I took a few hurried steps forward and then turned around to face him again. This time, at a safe distance. “That may be so, but his perspective isn’t anything like yours, Dominic. He never wanted to become this. You did . You were able to make that choice for yourself.”

He straightened slowly; his eyes trained on mine as he shuttered his expression. “He has choices, too. Perhaps not the ones he wanted, but he has them nonetheless,” he informed as he casually walked back around the sofa and then toward me, stopping just inches from where I stood. He moved with the grace and stealth of a lion stalking its ill-equipped prey—sizing them up for the final strike. It was somehow unnerving and enthralling at the same time.

“Really, Dominic?” I drew back slightly, feeling the nervous tension coil in my stomach. “And what choices does he have exactly?” I asked as I crossed my arms along my chest, armoring myself.

There was an unmistakable look of annoyance in his eyes as he regarded my folded arms. Leaning down, he picked up his glass from the coffee table and then returned to his full height to polish off the remnants of his drink. “Well, he can choose to accept it, or he can choose to take a long walk in the sun if he’s truly that dissatisfied with his circumstance.”

I flinched at his callous words.

“Or better yet, he could throw himself onto a stake if he prefers the quick and painless route. The possibilities are endless, really.”

“Jesus, Dominic. That’s not funny.”

“I didn’t intend for it to be,” he said icily as he slammed the glass down on the table and then sauntered out of the room, leaving me alone with nothing but the bitter taste of his abhorrent words and the dreadful feeling of being completely and unequivocally on my own.

* * *

Like a shunned leper, I retreated to the privacy of my bedroom to lick my wounds and sulk in peace. Locking the door behind myself, I plodded over to the ensuite bathroom and flicked on the lights. I needed to get myself sorted and cleaned up and I needed to figure out what my next move was going to be.

But there was something I had to do first. Something I really didn’t want to face, but knew I had to.

With a plum-sized lump in my throat, I stood in front of the sink and stared back at my reflection in the mirror, trying to work up the nerve to turn around and assess my newest addition .

A part of me was terrified of what I was going to find there. Would there be gruesome open wounds where the wings had been? Bloody gaping holes? Or perhaps just some dried blood and random plucked feathers stuck to my back like a slashed up down pillow. I didn’t have a single frame of reference for what to expect and it only made me feel more afraid to look.

But then there was the other part of me. The morbidly curious part of me. The part of me that just made me have to look when driving by the scene of an accident.

Because, apparently, my life had now become a car wreck I needed to gawk at.

Sucking in a readying breath, I grabbed the hem of my shirt and lifted it up over my head before tossing it onto the counter in front of me and then slowly making a half circle. With my back angled toward the mirror, I bit down on my lip and glanced over my shoulder, ready for the absolute worst.

Well, that’s…interesting .

No open wounds. No gaping holes. No random bird feathers sticking out from my back— thank God . But there was something there.

Needing a closer look, I leaned further back until I was almost fully contorted over the bathroom sink.

Two strange scar-like lines ran over the length of each of my shoulder blades. The scars, if that was what they even were, looked old and settled, as though the wound had happened many moons ago and had long since healed. Only it hadn’t even been a couple of hours.

Goosebumps spread across my skin, and I shuddered at the sudden chill I felt.

I had no idea where those wings had come from or worse, where they’d gone now that they were no longer visible. There certainly didn’t seem to be any traces of them under my skin. Had they even been real wings? And what exactly qualified as real wings? I had way too many questions and not a single answer to any of them.

Blowing out a breath of frustration, I retreated from the mirror and made my way over to the shower before turning on the faucet and stripping out of the rest of my bloody clothes.

After scrubbing my skin and hair clean, bandaging my neck, and then throwing on a fresh pair of jeans and a tank top, I pulled out my phone and texted my sister. I hadn’t seen Tessa since before the wings incident and needed to fill her and my mother in on everything that had happened. Because who the hell else was I going to talk to about this with if not them?

Hopefully, they would take the feathery unveiling a whole lot better than the guys had taken it. Which basically consisted of gaping at me like I was the ghost of carnival’s past and then clearing the room faster than I could say boo .

Surely, my own flesh and blood would handle it much better than that . Surely, they’d rally around me and help me come up with a plan of action. Because that’s what families did! Or what they were supposed to do anyway. Not that mine was exactly known for that, but still! They’d make it happen this time. They’d be open and honest and wouldn’t abandon me in my time of need.

Well, you know, hopefully not...

* * *

Tessa and Jaqueline arrived less than twenty minutes later, dressed in all black and carrying stacks of old books in their arms as though they’d just burglarized the local library. I’d been sitting by myself at the kitchen table with an uneaten bowl of ramen noodles in front of me when they’d walked into the room and stopped suddenly as though spooked by something. The stop was so abrupt that for a second, I’d wondered if my new feathered body part had made another appearance and had to throw a quick glance over my shoulder just to be sure.

“What? What is it?” I asked after confirming that the wings were in fact still incognito.

Tessa’s eyebrows knitted together as she looked around the room. “Uh, where is everyone? What’s going on?”

“Did something happen? Is everyone alright?” added Jaqueline, casing the room as though the guys were hiding under the chairs, and she’d just missed them the first time around. Because, apparently, sitting at the table by myself was enough to raise both their alarm bells to kingdom come.

“Can you two be any more dramatic? Everything is fine,” I said and then pushed the untouched bowl of noodles away. Okay, so fine was definitely a stretch, but there was no need to throw everyone into a panic.

“Bullshit,” said Tessa, still not moving from the spot she’d paved herself into. “Where are the guys? Why are you sitting here alone if everything is fine?”

“How exactly does one cancel out the other?” I asked, taking offense. She was making it sound like I needed chaperones to walk and talk at the same time. “I do plenty of things by myself. It’s really not that big of a deal.”

Tessa stared back at me, blank-faced, as though she were waiting for the punchline.

Fuck. That . I didn’t even almost have the energy to deal with my sister’s third-degree right now, nor did I have the wherewithal to go toe-to-toe with her over the state of my mutually dependent relationships with the guys.

“Trace woke up,” I informed instead.

“Holy shit,” hissed Tessa, her eyes rounding out like two oversized gray marbles. “That was fast.”

Personally, it had felt like a lifetime to me , but sure, we could go with fast.

“Is he okay? Is everything…in working order?”

“Well, I didn’t count his fingers and toes or give him a physical, but yeah, he looked pretty together to me. Despite the bloodlust.”

“Sure. That’s to be expected.” She eyed me more closely. “Well, okay then…I mean, this is good news, right? ” she verified, probably because I looked like someone had just tossed a handful of sand into my bowl of ramen.

“Right. I mean, yeah, of course, it is,” I answered as evenly as my voice would allow. Because it was good news, despite the fallout that came after, especially when the alternative was him laying six feet under.

But it still didn’t make the current situation between us any less difficult to swallow. I mean, he literally couldn’t have gotten out of the room and away from me fast enough.

“Alright. Good. Just checking,” The tension in her face eased some. “So, does he remember what happened?”

“Not exactly,” I said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “The last thing he remembers was sitting in his car at All Saints. It does seem like most of his memories have come back though, so that’s good.”

Jaqueline’s gaze zeroed in on my neck. “Is that his handy work there?”

My hand instinctively moved to the bandages. “That was my fault. I didn’t realize the hunger would kick in so fast. I kind of figured he’d say ‘hi’ first,” I added, only semi-joking.

Tessa’s forehead lined with confusion. “I thought Descendants were supposed to handle the whole transformation thing better than that?” Her question was directed at our mother.

“We do, but it’s not instantaneous. Especially not during the first wake . A Revenant’s natural instincts will kick in long before anything else does. It takes some time to slowly come back together.”

I nodded in agreement, having witnessed it firsthand with Trace. “Luckily Gabriel and Dominic were there to stop him before, you know…” I trailed off, not even wanting to finish that thought.

“Where are they anyways?” asked Tessa as she dropped the books onto the kitchen table and then slumped onto the chair beside me, pulling the bowl of uneaten ramen over to herself. It was just as well. I couldn’t find my appetite to save my life anyway. “It’s kind of weird seeing you sitting here all by yourself,” she added, sloshing the noodles around.

“This again?” I wrinkled my nose at her. “You’re making it sound like I’m some codependent twit that can’t put her socks on without their help.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t go that far.” Tessa laughed as she shoveled a forkful into her mouth. “But the four of you have definitely been pretty sticky lately,” she noted through a packed mouth as Jaqueline dropped her own stack of books on the table next to Tessa’s and then began dividing them up into neat little piles.

“ Lately , as in while the world is going to shit and I’m dodging targets on my back about as often as I change my underwear?” I shot back sarcastically. “Gosh, how dare we stick together and try to keep each other alive.”

“The world is always going to shit, Jemma, and the same goes for the other thing too. It’s called being a Slayer.”

“Yeah, well try being the Daughter of Fucking Hades while you’re at it,” I grumbled out and then nodded smugly when she couldn’t argue that one.

No doubt being a Slayer meant putting yourself in harm’s way day in and day out, but even Tessa couldn’t deny that also being Lucifer’s daughter made that hard-knock way of life just a tad bit dicey-er.

“Speaking of the other thing,” I went on, segueing into the main reason I’d called them back to the house in the first place. “I may have just hit the motherload.”

“The motherload of what?” she asked, distracted as she jammed another bite into her mouth. “Targets?”

“Yeah, like the biggest, baddest, most glaring bullseye ever . Right there on my back.”

“Oh?” Tessa picked up the bowl and slurped back the leftover broth as my mother paused whatever the heck she’d been doing with the books. “So, what did you do this time?”

Ignoring her rude assumption that I was somehow responsible for everything wrong in my life, I decided to stick to the topic and just spit out the good news instead. “Well, apparently, I am now with wings.”

Tessa stared at me over the rim of her bowl for several beats and then shook her head at me. “You’re so weird, Jemma.”

Exactly . Wait—what? That was not the reaction I was expecting. “Did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes, I heard you,” she answered as she picked up the soup bowl from the table and brought it over to the kitchen sink. “So, you’re on your period. Big deal. That’s life, Jemma, though I have no idea why you feel the need to tell me what kind of menstrual pads you bought, but okay. Thanks for sharing.”

I gaped at her, literally stunned silent at the unfathomable level of idiocy my sister had just reached.

“I was afraid this might happen.”

My head snapped to Jaqueline at the sound of her ominous whisper. Finally —some understanding and a decidedly more appropriate reaction. And then her words fully registered.

She was afraid this might happen? As in s he knew?!

“Are you telling me you knew it was a possibility all this time and you never once bothered to mention it to me?” I didn’t bother to wait for her to confirm what I already knew. “How the hell could you keep something this from me?”

“I only suspected there was a chance…because of your bloodline,” she admitted, her eyes weary and guarded. “But I never wanted to believe it.”

“Oh, well since you didn’t want to believe it, clearly there was no need to warn me,” I snapped back sarcastically.

“I didn’t want you to worry about it until I was sure there was something to worry about.”

“Well, clearly there was!” I said, pointing at myself as evidence even though the wings were still in hiding. “You had no right. You should have told me—you could have prepared me!”

“I take it we’re not talking about her period here, are we?” Tessa bounced a look between the two of us as I rolled my eyes at her. “Is ‘wings’ code for something I’m not aware of? I feel like I’m missing some context here.”

“No, Tessa. ‘Wings’ is not code for anything. I’m talking about actual wings that popped out of my back.”

A long pause and then an eye roll. “Right. Of course. Wings. And I’m an undercover unicorn,” she deadpanned.

I threw my hands up in the air. “Is it just me or are you getting stupider with age?”

“I know you didn’t just call me stupid,” she said icily, her eyes narrowing with challenge.

“Well, if the shoe fits—”

“ Enough with the bickering ,” scolded Jaqueline, her eyes sharp with irritation and something else. Something that looked a lot like fear. “The time for fun and games is over. You both need to get very serious, and you need to do it very quickly.”

Tessa crossed her arms as she examined Jaqueline, her forehead lined with apprehension. “You’re actually serious about this,” she realized as her expression blanched, making her alabaster skin look even paler than it usually was. “But that’s…that’s crazy . Descendants don’t have wings. It’s not possible.”

“Yeah, well, my wings beg to differ.”

Tessa’s gaze jerked to me, her eyes roving over me contemplatively. “Do they really? And are these wings in the room with us now? Because I don’t see any wings,” she remarked and then craned her neck as though she were searching for them over my shoulders. “Are you sure you didn’t imagine them?”

“Seriously?”

“No offense but you’re not the most reliable of witnesses when it comes to matters of reality, Jemma, especially when you’re bloodsharing with your boyfriends .”

Ouch, bitch .

“You know what, Tessa? You’re probably right,” I said as I hopped up from my chair and grabbed the hem of my shirt, yanking it up over my head in one fluid motion and then tossing it at her face. “I totally must have hallucinated the whole thing. Because, you know, I’m such a dumb bloodwhore. And I’m obviously also hallucinating these brand-new scars on my back that showed up right after the wings disappeared,” I said and then spun around to give her a full view of my back, glaring at her from over my shoulder. “ Right?”

She slowly lowered my shirt to her side, her eyes wide and fixed on my bare back as she crossed over to where I was standing. “Jesus. H. Chri—”

“Pretty sure these aren’t from him if you know what I mean,” I muttered as Tessa poked and prodded the closed wounds on my back with her finger, as though she might be able to dig the wings up out of their hiding place with her fingernail if she just plundered deep enough.

“ How is this possible?” she asked, her question obviously directed at Jaqueline since the two of us were clearly all the way in the dark about this. “What does it even mean?”

Jaqueline eyes darkened as she met Tessa’s gaze, and then mine. “It means your Nephilim powers are awakening.”