Page 20 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

It took my eyes several seconds to adjust to the lack of light before finally spotting Trace at the far end of the cell. Beautiful in his self-imposed prison, and murderously furious. Even though I couldn’t see his eyes from where I was standing, I instinctively knew that the blacks of his eyes were already violently fighting to swallow up the blue.

“Nice to see you too, Romeo,” said Dominic, ignoring Trace’s warning as he pulled me up to his side and smiled coyly like this was some kind of casual call. “You’re looking…well, you’ve certainly seen better days.”

“Did you hear what I said?” snapped Trace, the feral sound of his voice letting me know that he was hanging on by a measly thread. “Get her out of here!”

“Actually, I thought we might stay for a while. Care to come out of your hidey hole and join us?”

“ What ?” hissed Trace as I nearly toppled over from shock and embarrassment.

“Alright, that’s enough,” said Gabriel, back in front of Dominic’s face as if to block him from getting any closer to Trace. And thank God for that. Dominic had clearly lost his ever-loving mind. “What is the meaning of this? What exactly are you trying to do here?”

“We’ve done this your way long enough, brother.”

“Done what my way?” asked Gabriel, his gaze resting heavy on Dominic.

“She needs his help, and she isn’t going to get it if they spend the rest of their lives in separate rooms.”

“He isn’t ready,” informed Gabriel, folding his arms along his chest as if that were the end of it.

Sounds good to me .

I turned to circle back and leave, but Dominic grabbed my arm and yanked me back beside him. “And he never will be if he keeps sucking back those donor bags of yours.” Dominic paused as if something had just occurred to him. “If that’s even what you’re giving him,” he said as he took a languid step toward his brother. “Please tell me you haven’t been subjecting him to animal blood all this time.”

“As shocking as it may seem to you, not everyone wishes to become a bloodthirsty monster,” retorted Gabriel, making Dominic laugh in response.

“That may have worked for you, but the rest of us need something with a little more meat—”

“Help with what?” asked Trace, halting Dominic’s monologue and drawing his focus back to himself. He was still standing in the makeshift prison and looked as though he had no intention of moving from there. Like ever again. But his eyes, they were singing a different tune entirely.

Dominic shoved his brother aside again and then ambled toward the steel bars while I hung back next Gabriel. Where it was safe. “She needs to learn how to port and you’re going to teach her.”

I cringed at his horrible delivery.

“I can’t do that,” answered Trace, his baritone voice as firm and far-reaching as a slamming gavel.

“This isn’t optional.”

“Do you want me to shred her to fucking pieces?” snapped Trace. “I’m telling you I can’t do it.”

“Certainly not if you continue following Gabriel’s protocol,” said Dominic, his tone letting everyone know he’d had just about enough of that plan. “But we’re going to do this my way now.”

“And what exactly is your way ?” asked Gabriel as he walked up to Dominic, his dark hair falling across his forehead and shading his eyes while I continued to stand a great many feet away from all three of them.

“We satiate his appetite.”

Gabriel made a growl-like sound at the back of his throat. “You aren’t seriously suggesting we let him openly feed on her?” he ground out, his revulsion ringing heavy in his tone. “He’ll drain her.”

My stomach dropped out of my body at his words.

“Not if we don’t let him,” answered Dominic, as though it were as simple as that. As though we weren’t talking about playing Russian roulette with a loaded vampire and my damned life. “The only thing preventing him from leaving this cell and rejoining the world of the living is his inability to control himself around Jemma and that isn’t going to change if he doesn’t stop denying himself the one thing he craves.”

“I’m not drinking her blood,” spat Trace as though the idea of it revolted him.

“Oh, but you are, Romeo, and you’re going to savor every last drop of it,” crooned Dominic. “Now be a good Reaper and come out and join us.”

“Fuck you,” growled Trace as he barreled toward him like a raging bull, his arms reaching out through the bars, desperate to swing at Dominic as though he wanted to rip him apart with his bare hands.

The floor shook beneath my feet as he pounded against the bars, and I scrambled back, yelping as Dominic just stood there and clicked his tongue at him.

“I’ve already told you, Romeo. You’re not my type.”

Trace slammed into the bars again. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

“Stop! Just stop!” I cried out, my voice and heartbeat spiking hysterically. “We shouldn’t have come down here. This was a bad idea,” I said, glaring at Dominic. “He doesn’t want to do it, and we’re not going to force him.” Not today and not ever.

How the heck had we gotten here? Fighting each other over who should and shouldn’t be drinking my blood? The more the scene unfolded, the more I realized how sick this entire thing was. We were sick, the whole lot of us. How damn far had we all tumbled from grace to be standing around in the basement cellar having this argument?

I pushed on my heel and turned, ready to put this entire nightmare behind me.

“You hear that, Romeo?” asked Dominic, causing me to falter despite my best intentions to run away from it all. “She thinks you don’t want to do this—that you don’t want her .

My heart squeezed in my chest. What was he playing at now ?

“She doesn’t know that tasting her again is the only thing you think about from the moment you open your eyes,” he continued smoothly as though he had been privy to all of Trace’s deepest darkest secrets. “Isn’t it?”

With my heart in my throat, I turned slowly and met Trace’s eyes. They were fixed on me, boring into me like a jarring revelation, speaking their truth in the form of one agonizing look.

“Are you going to let her just leave here without telling her the truth?” goaded Dominic. “Without allowing yourself even a taste?”

“That’s enough,” snapped Gabriel, his mouth screwed into a snarl. “He already said no!”

“All you have to do is come and get it,” purred Dominic, ignoring Gabriel as he continued to coax Trace into some kind of submissive trance. “She’s yours for the taking.”

Trace tightened his hold on the bars, his knuckles whitening with strain as a storm of emotions rushed across his face. Beaten down, he dropped his head. “I don’t want…to hurt her,” he gritted out, the burgeoning war inside of him coating every word. It was written all over his face, in the deep furrow of his brows and the way he pressed his forehead against the bars in defeat.

My breath stalled in my throat.

“You won’t— I won’t let you hurt her,” promised Dominic, and despite my erratic heart and spiraling thoughts telling me this was a horrible, dangerous idea, even I believed him then. “This is the only way to be able to be with her again. That is what you want, isn’t it? To be with her? To help her and keep her safe?”

Silence descended on all of us as I waited for Trace to put the final nail in my coffin. To finally show them with his own words, once and for all, what he felt about me. That he despised me. That he wanted me gone from his life.

“She’s the only thing I want,” murmured Trace and my heart nearly punched a hole through my chest.

I was certain I’d just hallucinated.

“Of course she is.” Dominic nodded knowingly, confirming that he had in fact said precisely what Dominic knew he’d say, and then turned to Gabriel who was scrubbing a palm down the length of his face. “Keys, brother.”

Gabriel glanced back at me and waited expectantly. Preoccupied with Trace’s admission, it took me a second to realize he was waiting for me—for my permission to unlock the door and set Trace loose, bloodlust and all.

My gaze slid from him to Trace and then to Dominic before swinging back around, questioning whether we were doing the right thing here or whether we had all collectively lost our minds. In that moment, standing in the basement of my house with three lethal vampires, it was a very real possibility.

Then again, what was the alternative? Leaving him locked in his prison cell in a perpetual state of hunger for the rest of his days? That didn’t really seem like an option either. At least not a good one.

Swallowing against the dryness in my throat, I nodded.

“Are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do?” asked Gabriel, his expression brimming with worry about all the ways this could go sideways. I was too but neither of us bothered to say any of it out loud.

Trusting Dominic, I nodded again and watched as Gabriel stalked over to the prison cell door with the keys in hand and unlocked it. My heart thumped wildly against my ribcage as he pulled the steel-bar door wide open and then stood back and waited, his arms poised at his sides and ready.

My gaze darted across the cell to Trace as I hugged my waist nervously and waited to see what he would do—waited to be near him again without the spelled bars between us. And then my stomach dropped as I realized he still hadn’t taken a single step toward the now open door. Toward his freedom. All he did was stand there and stare at me through the bars as though he was just as scared to be near me as I was.

Dominic clicked his tongue and then spun around and sauntered over to where I had cemented myself. He picked up my hand and then walked me over to the middle of the room—mere feet away from Trace. I glanced up at him from under my lashes and then gasped as the mesmerizing blue of his iris’ became swallowed by the blackness of the instant hunger at the sight of me.

“Care to join us now?” asked Dominic, smirking at the sight of Trace’s famished gaze.

Trace shook his head, still not moving an inch despite his feral eyes telling an entirely different story. It was clear to me then that he was at war with himself. At war with his own nature. The torment and confusion were written all over his face and my heart ached for him.

He didn’t want to feel this way. He didn’t want to crave my blood or risk hurting me. But this was who he was now, a Revenant, and fighting against it would only make him suffer longer. And I didn’t want Trace to suffer. Not now and not ever. I needed to help him. I needed to find a way to make this better for him. To make it easier on him. To somehow lessen his torment.

“Trace…” His name sounded so small and meek on my lips, but it was enough to capture his full attention. “It’s okay. I…I trust you.”

His jaw muscle throbbed as he shook his head again, his pupils dilating erratically with hunger. “I don’t trust myself. I don’t want to hurt you again,” he said, wincing as though his memories were causing him actual bodily harm.

As much as I had wanted to give him time and space to process this change, to keep away from him as he had asked me to, Dominic was right. Denying the incessant cravings was akin to denying his own nature and that was only going to prolong his pain and suffering and make this transition harder and longer than it needed to be.

If my blood was what he needed—what he wanted—then I would happily open every vein in my body for him. “I promise I’ll be fine,” I said and then tried to smile at him, to reassure him that I was okay with it. “Dominic and Gabriel will make sure you don’t go too far.”

A look of repulsion distorted his features at my words, and I recoiled, instantly wanting to cower from the look on his face that made me shrivel with shame. I didn’t make it very far though as Dominic stopped me from stepping back and kept me rooted beside him.

Keep going , said Dominic to my mind as though he thought this was going well. As though he knew something that I didn’t.

But I couldn’t.

I didn’t know how to keep going when he was looking at me with such visceral disgust, like I had offended him somehow. Like I was the vilest creature that ever lived.

Then again, I supposed he wouldn’t have been that far off from the truth. I shook my head and whispered, “I just want to help you.”

Trace made an angry sound at the back of his throat, and I fought hard against the urge to rear back again. “You shouldn’t have to do that,” he said, his expression still twisted with anger. “You shouldn’t have to sacrifice yourself to me. I should be able to control myself enough to not hurt you!”

“You aren’t going to hurt her, Romeo.”

“You don’t fucking know that!” roared Trace, unwilling to take the risk. “You can’t know that.”

“But I do,” answered Dominic, his mouth curling into a mischievous grin as though he were playing an entirely different game than the rest of us were. “You aren’t putting her out,” he said and then dropped his voice when he continued, “In fact, I promise you she’s going to enjoy every second of it.”

White-hot fire exploded in my chest and then rushed up into my cheeks to color them with a blaring scarlet letter for all three of them to see. I shifted uncomfortably, wanting to suddenly run away from the entire situation, including myself and my sick vampire kinks, and then it dawned on me.

“Is…is that the reason you’ve been pushing me away?” I asked softly, unsure. “Because you’re scared to hurt me?”

“I did hurt you,” he said through clenched teeth. “What I did was fucking disgusting.”

Everything finally made sense. The anger Trace had been feeling…the disgust. It wasn’t for me. It was for himself. For the fact that he craved my blood, that he’d attacked me, that he couldn’t control himself around me when everything inside of him was telling him that he should be able to. All this time, it was about him, and that… that was so much fucking worse.

I looked up at him and studied him. His tense jaw and pursed lips. His tightknit brows and white knuckles. His eyes filled with regret and shame. Everything was clear to me in that instant, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it sooner.

He saw himself as the predator— the perpetrator —and me as the victim. That even now, standing here and offering myself up to him, I was somehow making a terrible sacrifice in order to satiate him. That I was doing him some kind of favor by being there.

“You didn’t hurt me, Trace. I promise you didn’t. Dominic is telling you the truth. Your bite…it’s not meant to hurt. It never hurts. It—” I paused and took a small step toward him, leaving Dominic behind me. “It feels good.”

His brows drew together, barely perceptible as he searched my eyes for deception, but he wouldn’t find any. What I had said was the truth. There was damn near nothing as exhilarating and enjoyable as a Revenant’s bite. He needed to know that, if for no other reason than to quell the guilt inside of him.

“I want you to,” I went on, my voice sounding far more needy and sultry than I had intended it to.

At my admission, his death-hold grip on the bars loosened and he straightened to his full height. He met my eyes for a brief second and then he was gone, disappearing from my sight as though he had only ever been a figment of my imagination. As though I had hallucinated him into existence.

Panicked, I turned to look at Dominic for answers, and in an instant, Trace was behind me, his hand on my shoulder as he turned me around to face him. I gasped in surprise and Gabriel immediately shoved forward, ready as always to take a bullet for me.

“Back off,” warned Dominic, his arm coiled around my waist protectively. It took me a few seconds to realize he wasn’t talking to Trace. He was talking to Gabriel.

Gabriel responded with a low growl at the back of his throat, both hands curled into round spheres at his sides as he eyed the two vampires boxing me in. He didn’t like it one bit.

“I’m okay,” I assured him softly and then smiled. As much as I hated seeing him distressed, especially when the reason for his worry was me, I knew this needed to be done.

Squaring his shoulders, he gave me a final look and then finally took a small step back. My gaze returned to Trace. To his blackened eyes that had been once again consumed by hunger at the sight of me. It was going to take some time to get used to that look on him . I didn’t hate it, though. In fact, I didn’t hate it at all.

Eagerly, he took a predatory step forward as if anxious to claim his prize, but Dominic tugged me back, keeping me flush against his own body. He was in control here and he wanted everyone to know it.

“We’re going to do this nice and slowly,” he informed evenly. All the aloof mischief from earlier had disappeared from his person, leaving an all-business like demeanor in its place. I normally preferred his playful side to his serious one, but in this instance, I was glad he wasn’t messing around. “A small taste from her wrist to start with.”

Trace jerked his head in a nod as he ran his tongue along his bottom lip as if remembering the taste of my blood in his mouth.

Still holding me with one arm, Dominic brought his other hand down to meet mine, holding the back of my hand against his palm as he traced small circles along my pulse with the pad of his thumb, before grasping my wrist and raising it to Trace.

The sound of Trace’s fangs descending coaxed a shiver from my spine.

“Not so fast,” said Dominic, drawing my hand back a little. “You’re going to need to work for it.”

Trace responded with an angry snarl that made my mouth run dry.

What was he doing? Now was not the time to play games with Trace.

“That thirst you’re feeling at the back of your throat,” continued Dominic, his honeyed voice low and even and completely unaffected by Trace’s power display, “you’re going to need to get used to it. Very quickly. Because it is always going to be there, especially when you’re in the presence of Slayers—this one in particular.”

Gabriel crossed his arms, his leather jacket protesting from the movement. The look on his face told me he knew exactly what Dominic was talking about.

“The only way to isolate that thirst is to learn how to control it. It’s a process of restriction and reward, a little give and take.” Dominic smirked. “Delayed gratification if you will.”

Trace nodded stiffly, listening intently to Dominic’s instructions, but his voracious eyes were fixed on my pulse as he clenched and unclenched his hands.

“Until you can learn to control the thirst, you will always feel as though there are two warring creatures inside of you. The man you were and the insatiable beast that longs for blood and destruction. Reassure him that he will have his just desserts…but only when he learns to submit ,” instructed Dominic as Trace wet his lips again, his fangs peeking out at the gesture. “Despite what it may feel like now, you are still the commander of your vessel. You can resist the urge, as painful as it may be, so long as you choose to do so.”

Trace shook his head, his pupils stretched across the entirety of his iris’ as he clenched his jaw like he was struggling to keep his composure.

“Quiet the beast and take the helm.”

A low rumbling sound emitted from Trace as he squeezed his eyes shut and then shook his head again, breathing in and out sharply as though he were internally battling a beast of flesh and blood. His jaw muscle pumped violently, and his nose flared as he struggled to gain some semblance of control over himself.

After a few tense moments, he opened his eyes again and my heart swelled as I took in those ocean-blue eyes from my dreams before the inky black void quickly rushed in to claim them once again.

Well, it wasn’t much but it definitely looked like progress to me.

“That’s a good Reaper,” crooned Dominic and then extended my hand out to Trace as if to reward him for his good behavior.

I expected Trace to bristle at Dominic’s words, but instead he zeroed in on his prize as though it were the only thing in the entire world that he cared about. His gaze flicked up to mine briefly and then he reached out and grabbed my wrist, wrapping his long, thick fingers around it possessively. Dominic released his own hold before moving his hand down to my waist, keeping me fastened against him.

That one small gesture let me know that he was still there—that he would be with me every step of the way and wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me. I should have been afraid, especially if my recent history with Trace was any indicator of how this would go, but somehow, with Dominic holding me I felt safe. And if I was being completely honest with myself, maybe a little excited too.

Trace licked his lips again, slowly this time, and my stomach coiled, anticipation making my legs feel weak and malleable as I happily waited at his altar.

“Drink.”

At Dominic’s command, Trace struck, his teeth cutting through my flesh like a sharp blade against silk.

The brief pain came and went before it could imprint itself on me and in the next second all I could feel was a hot rush of pleasure sweeping in, licking over my skin and rolling through my veins as it coated my insides with desire and contentedness and euphoria.

A small, muffled sigh escaped my mouth as a ravenous, almost feral growl sounded at the back of Trace’s throat, vibrating against my wrist and then shooting in through my bones. Goosebumps prickled my skin, and my head fell back, feeling full and weightless all in the same breath.

Dominic’s hold on me tightened, his fingers now splayed against my stomach to steady me as Trace drank from my vein, his insatiable hunger drawing him in closer to me, caging me in between the two of them. My heavy gaze slid down to where his mouth was pressed against my wrist, licking and sucking, and suddenly, I needed more. More contact, more touching. More of him.

I shuffled forward, moving closer to him, fully prepared to throw myself down at his feet and beg for him to take me apart, to rip open every last vein and bleed me dry.

Another growl sounded, deeper and louder this time.

Dominic jerked me back against himself. “Alright, Romeo. You’ve had enough,” he decided, his silky voice sounding as though he were moving further and further away from me. As though he was falling through an endless tunnel of time and space.

Or maybe it was me falling, tumbling happily in and out of reality as I floated around on cloud nine.

“More.” I pushed forward toward Trace, pressing my body into him while somehow dragging Dominic with me. Even in this sorry state of thinly veiled awareness, I couldn’t seem to make a choice between the two, my body instead deciding that it should simply have them both.

“Stop him or I will,” said Gabriel, his voice a warning that barely registered through my fog.

“I said that’s enough, Romeo,” repeated Dominic as he shoved at Trace with his free hand, attempting to dislodge him from my wrist while keeping me fastened to him with his other hand.

His efforts, however, were met with another thunderous snarl as Trace tightened his grip on me and used it to yank me against himself, and away from the safety of Dominic’s arms.

It occurred to me then that I probably should have been frightened, but even as Trace spun us around and then pitched me back against the hard, steel bars, all I could think about was that I wanted more . That I didn’t want him to stop, but before I could utter a single word aloud, Trace was already being ripped off me and then hauled backwards by Dominic and Gabriel just as they had done the night of his first wake.

Trace thrashed against their hold like a wild animal, desperately trying to free himself, to get back to me, but I could tell by the deadly look in the brothers’ eyes that they weren’t going to let him go for anything in the world.

Silly boys , I thought to myself, smiling idiotically. It was just getting fun .

And then my ass hit the ground like a meteor crashing down into earth, and everything went black.