Page 38 of Illusory (The Marked Saga #8)

It occurred to me as I made my way back up the stairs, away from Trace and Dominic and the lunacy that happened in the kitchen, that I was probably going to need to come up with a different game plan. A better game plan. Because, clearly, freezing them out as I’d been doing was only driving them to the brink of insanity.

Nothing else could explain what had just happened.

I’d simply ended things too quickly; too drastically and they just couldn’t handle it. They’d never be able to see the light if they were too busy holding on to me for dear life. I needed to ease them into it. Transition them into seeing less and less of me until it finally (hopefully) stopped hurting so much.

Except that I had no idea how I was going to do that when I could barely control myself in their company as it was, let alone when they were actively pursuing me.

Needing a mental reprieve from all things Trace and Dominic, I made a beeline for the study and then spent the next couple of hours combing through Elspeth’s grimoire, looking for something—anything—that could help me gain an edge over the long list of people who wanted to see me dead.

Apart from needing to keep myself busy and focused on the dark storm that was barreling toward me (and not on Trace and Dominic), I also genuinely wanted to know more about the Nephilim race and what exactly that would mean for my life moving forward.

While Jaqueline had pretty much done what she did best and abandoned me in my time of need, she’d at least had the decency to leave behind the translations she’d been working on. Most had been focused on finding out how to control my wings, which luckily for me, hadn’t made another appearance since Nikki’s house.

But that didn’t mean that they wouldn’t, and knowing my luck, probably at the most inopportune moment. So, with the help of the internet and a translation app on my phone, I quickly figured out which words I needed to be looking for and got to work. Ala , alas , and alis were the main ones, but there were several other variations of ‘wings’ I had to keep an eye out for as well. After that, it was just a matter of having the patience to scan through the hundreds of pages of handwritten text.

Between what Jaqueline had already done and the little bit I managed to translate on my own, I’d learned that—much like my other abilities—my wings were also very much tied to my emotions. Though I still hadn’t decided if that was a good thing or not.

According to Elspeth and some of her earlier entries, her abilities appeared to have been just as erratic and uncooperative as mine were, especially pre-Ascension. As much as I wanted to skip forward to the end and see if everything ended up working out for her, I couldn’t help but feel afraid that maybe I wouldn’t find the happy ending I was looking for. That maybe things had only gotten progressively worse for her as they always seemed to do for me.

I honestly wasn’t sure I could take any more sad news.

My thoughts quickly wandered from my wings to my own upcoming Ascension. I still didn’t fully understand what an Ascension even was other than the fact that it would likely commence on my birthday tomorrow. I couldn’t help but wonder what that entailed and how the whole thing was going to play out. Would there be some kind of countdown to a specific time when all my Nephilim abilities emerged at once or would it happen slowly over time? I had no answers, and it only made the nauseating anxiety under my skin worsen.

Unfortunately, before I could find any spoilers in the journal regarding Elspeth’s Ascension, I was abruptly yanked out of focus at the sound of Tessa and Gabriel’s heated voices carrying in from down the hallway in what appeared to be some kind of argument between the two of them.

Though I had no idea what the topic of contention was, I could tell it was serious by the way Tessa was hissing out her words at him and then by the way Gabriel was steadily increasing his own volume as if to overcompensate for hers. Honestly, it sounded kind of personal and for a second, I debated whether I should be listening in at all, but then I heard something about ‘not being in her right mind’ and that ‘ it meant nothing’ and I quickly decided that I needed a lot more fucking details.

Shoving my chair back from under the desk, I managed to take one whole stride toward the door before the conversation came to an abrupt end. My shoulders slumped as I cursed under my breath.

Fucking vampire hearing .

Too late to pretend I hadn’t heard anything, I crossed the study and then poked my head out into the hallway to find Tessa and Gabriel standing there like they’d been caught with their pants down. Neither one said anything as they just stood frozen in place, staring at me like the idiots they were.

“Well, this isn’t weird at all,” I said dryly as I folded my arms over my chest and openly examined them. I could still see the tension etched in their faces from the argument, but there was also a nervous air about them that made them both look painfully uncomfortable. “Lover’s quarrel?”

Gabriel looked as though his soul left his body at that exact moment while Tessa turned the brightest shade of red I’d ever seen. But it wasn’t from blushing, though. Pretty sure Tessa didn’t do that. It was more of a I’m-going-to-murder-you-while-you-sleep kind of reddening.

“Seriously, guys. Don’t stop on my account. It sounded like it was just about to get juicy,” I said, only half teasing. “What are you two arguing about anyway?”

“ Nothing .” They answered at the same time.

“We’re not arguing,” added Tessa, speaking more softly as if to throw me off their scent. But it was forced, and it still reeked like hell.

“Right.” That definitely wasn’t suspicious, and they definitely weren’t arguing. Said no one ever. At least it wasn’t my drama for once. “Care to share what you’re not arguing about then? Maybe I can help.”

“You can’t. And we’re not arguing. Gabriel was just leaving.”

Gabriel’s brows shot up into his forehead.

“Not leaving…I meant, going somewhere else. In the house,” she amended, waving her hand in the air like she couldn’t be bothered to tell a proper lie. “ Right , Gabriel?” She eyed him pointedly.

He bounced a glance at me and then turned back to Tessa, tensing his jaw. “We’ll finish this later,” he said lowly, apparently not in the mood to play along with whatever strange game she was playing.

“Great. Can’t wait,” she grumbled as Gabriel stormed down the hallway and then disappeared around the corner.

Although neither one had said anything revealing during their little heated exchange, I’d managed to glean a few facts on the matter. One: they were definitely arguing. Two: it was something personal that they didn’t want anyone to know about. And three: something was definitely up with Gabriel lately. I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something was just…off about him. Come to think of it, Tessa was also kind of off kilter as of late, too. Maybe they had a secret romance going on? Or maybe it was just the pressure and stress of everything going on.

I kind of hoped it was the first one.

“So, are you going to tell me what that was about?” I asked as she crossed the hallway to where I was standing, hoping that she’d be more willing to share the details now that it was just me and her. You know, sister-talk and all.

“You don’t want to know.”

“Oh, I so beg to differ,” I said, unable to fight away the smile yanking at the corners of my mouth.

She paused in front of me and glanced over my shoulder into the empty study. “What were you doing in there all alone anyway?” she asked instead of answering the question.

“Reading a certain dead ancestor’s grimoire. So, about that thing I don’t want to know about.” I waggled my eyebrows at her.

“Maybe some other time,” she said and then carried on down the hallway, leaving me with the sneaking suspicion that ‘some other time’ was probably never going to come.

* * *

My grimoire translating session lasted another hour before my eyelids began to feel like sandpaper and I decided to call it quits for the night. Other than learning that my wings were tied to my emotional state—for better or worse—I hadn’t gotten any closer to figuring out how to actually use the wings, let alone control them at will, though truth be told, I hadn’t really expected to be able to translate any of Elspeth’s journal, so I was still considering it a win.

Tomorrow was a new day, and I promised myself I’d get right back to it first thing in the morning—when I was feeling more rested and less irritated. All I had to do in the meantime was avoid getting worked up and the wings would likely stay put until I needed them not to. At least that was what I was hoping for, anyway.

My mood didn’t improve any when I returned to my room and, in fact, it only seemed to get worse. I felt restless and out of sorts, like I wanted to climb out of my own skin just to get away from myself, while somehow still feeling completely empty on the inside. Something told me that the thin grasp I had over myself was hanging on by a fraying thread and I honestly wasn’t sure how much longer I was going to be able to hold it all together.

And, of course, it probably didn’t help that my body was running on fumes either.

As delicious as Isa’s chicken and potatoes had been, I’d only gotten to eat a few bites of it before Dominic and Trace decided to lose their minds and drive me out of the kitchen with their crazy talk. The only silver lining to having completely lost my appetite was that this time, neither Trace nor Dominic attempted to follow me after our conversation ended. I took that as a sign that maybe they were finally starting to see the truth as I had seen it. That there was no future for us no matter how much we wished it weren’t so.

That was my hope when I ventured out of my room some twenty minutes later, convinced that my escalating anxiety and crawling skin was due to the fact that I needed to put something in my stomach. I paused at the bottom landing to straighten my shirt and gather my bearings before braving my way down the corridor that ran past the living room where I knew they were all convened.

Maybe they’d ignore me and let me go about my business if I just kept my head down and—

“Jemma?” called Gabriel as I tried to dash by the room as though we all weren’t already acutely aware of each other’s presence. “A word please.”

Damn you, Gabriel!

Stopping mid-step, I quickly weighed out my options, wondering if it was too late to pretend that I hadn’t heard him and flee instead. Deciding that it was, I chewed the inside of my cheek and slowly swiveled around to face them, immediately wishing that I’d gone with my first idea instead.

Dominic was lounging in the armchair closest to the bar, his ankle crossed on his knee and his usual drink in hand while Trace was standing by the fireplace with his arms folded across his chest and the flames from the hearth flicking up behind him, making him appear even bigger than he already was. A throbbing pull tugged at my chest and my feet shuffled forward as though I had no control over them.

As bad as that was, my inability to even look at them without instantly wanting them wasn’t what had made me regret my decision to stay. It was the irreparably broken and utterly hopeless looks on their faces that stabbed at the disfigured thing in my chest. Because I knew I was the one who had done that to them. The one who had dashed their hopes and dreams and hearts, and there was nothing I could do to fix it, no matter how desperately I wanted to.

My heart stumbled to a standstill and my gaze darted to Gabriel sitting on the couch, unable to stand looking at Trace and Dominic for a second longer. It took every bit of willpower and maturity I possessed not to turn on my heel and run away from them both like the chicken I was, or worse, run into their arms and beg for their forgiveness.

I wasn’t sure what either of those urges said about me, but I was sure it wasn’t anything honorable.

“Would you mind explaining to me what the hell is going on here?” snapped Gabriel, gesturing to Trace and Dominic, as though pointing at them would clue me in to what he was talking about.

It didn’t—not that I’d had the guts to look at them again anyway.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, my tongue practically sticking to the roof of my mouth.

“What I mean is, why do they look like they’ve just been damned to Hell? Or haven’t you noticed?”

Jesus . I tried not to wince from his words because I knew he was being sarcastic, but it still didn’t stop me from feeling like the soul-eating monster responsible for all of this.

“I told you to mind your business,” snarled Dominic, though his words lacked their usual sharpness.

“This is my business,” retorted Gabriel, his moss-colored eyes darkening as though rejecting all the light in the room. “If something happened—if you have information about the Horseman or the Sisters—I have every right to know, especially if it’s going to negatively impact Jemma.”

“For the umpteenth time, we have no such thing.”

“Well, forgive me if I don’t believe you,” answered Gabriel. “You aren’t exactly bound by a code of honor.”

“There isn’t any news on either front,” I quickly interjected, hoping it would put his mind at ease and make him drop the subject. “He’s telling you the truth.”

Everything was bad enough without having to rehash the worst moments of my life in front of Gabriel.

“I promise we would tell you if there was,” I added softly.

“Then what is it?” he pushed, shoving up from the couch, his eyes running rampant all over my face as though trying to uncover the truth hidden beneath the flimsy mask I was wearing. “What happened in forty-eight hours that would make them go from trying to kill each other to whatever the hell happened in the basement yesterday to looking as though they spent the day crying together?”

Dominic scoffed as Trace cursed him out under his breath.

“No one’s crying and nothing happened! Will you please just drop it,” I begged, feeling my eyes burn from tears that suddenly wanted to fall. I couldn’t tell if the tears were from sadness, pain or embarrassment, though. “This isn’t about the Horseman or the Sisters or the Council, okay? You have my word. Just please… leave it alone .”

Gabriel’s lips parted as though he were going to say something else and then he slammed them shut, apparently putting the pieces together. His brows pulled together as he eyed his brother and then Trace before circling back to me. “I see,” he said and then nothing else.

Awesome .

I didn’t think I could feel any worse than I already felt, but I’d somehow managed to sink to a brand-new low as I stood in the living room with all of their eyes on me, feeling like the man-eating pariah that I was.

Served me right for not staying locked inside my room where I belonged.

I stepped back, fully intent on hauling my ass right back up there when Dominic sprang up from the armchair and distracted me, seizing my attention as my greedy eyes watched him stalk over to the bar.

“Why don’t you have a seat, angel,” he suggested calmly, his focus on the two glasses before him as he filled them both up with something dark and strong looking. “You look like you can use a drink.”

I really could use a drink, but I was pretty sure I didn’t deserve a consolation prize from him.

Still, my feet remained glued in place, my body and soul aching to be in his presence for just a few moments longer. Despite the ever-present guilt and sadness, the anxiety and skin-crawling unease I’d been drowning in all day had already eased just being near them again.

Somehow, all the bad always seemed to disappear when I was near them.

He picked up both glasses and then turned to face me, his gaze locking onto mine and staying there. I knew it was wrong of me to take the small moment of reprieve, but I just couldn’t bring myself to walk away then.

Then again, hadn’t I decided that I was going to try a different tactic with them? That I needed to ease them into the breakup? Maybe this was the best thing for all of us right now.

Warmth spread through my chest, breathing life into my heart again and making it beat erratically as Dominic slowly prowled to the spot I was rooted in and extended one of the glasses to me.

“Thank you,” I murmured, my chin quaking from the kind gesture I didn’t feel I deserved and the burden of trying to keep my tears at bay. I hated that I was in a permanent state of being constantly on the cusp of crying. Of course, I wouldn’t cry. Mostly because I knew that if I did, one of them would surely comfort me, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop myself from letting them.

His dark eyes stayed fixed on mine as he took a sip of his drink and studied me, as though trying to gauge where I was at mentally or emotionally. Possibly both. Something tugged in my chest as he brought the glass down and then smiled at me. An open, bright smile that made my knees smart.

“You don’t have to keep hiding in your room, angel,” he said and then lowered his voice a decibel. “We’re all friends here. I’m sure we can be more than civilized, can’t we?”

I quirked my brow at him. Civilized friends wasn’t exactly the terms I’d use to describe us.

“I promise we won’t bite ,” he added with a purposeful wink.

Just hearing the word made my skin break out in tingles and my fingers tremble with the need to reach out and touch him, to fall into his arms and demand that he mark every inch of my body with his mouth and teeth. To throw me down on the floor and just—shit.

God, what the hell was wrong with me?

Maybe being around them like this wasn’t the smartest idea. At least not just yet. The wounds were still too new. Too painful and in need of mending.

“I should go,” I said quietly, my eyes still latched onto his as though I couldn’t figure out how to look away.

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

I’d rather I didn’t too .

The smallest, sexiest smirk I’d ever seen coiled his lips, and for a second, I wondered if I’d said the thought out loud. Before I could figure it out, my feet were moving again, and to my surprise, they were taking me over to the couch instead of leaving the room as I’d intended to.

Maybe I’d just stay for a few minutes. Just to finish my drink. Then I’d leave. No harm, no foul.

I mean, really, what could one measly drink hurt anyway?