Page 1 of Irreverent (The Marked Saga #7)

Exhaling a long, heavy breath, I stared down at Dominic’s motionless body as Gabriel secured the last chain around his brother’s torso. A chain that would keep the dark angel bound and shackled within his new makeshift prison in the basement of my home, the Blackburn Estate.

It had only been forty-eight hours since I incapacitated Dominic and vanquished his sire. Forty-eight hours since I’d seen or heard from Trace. I’d spent every waking hour working tirelessly with Gabriel, Ben and Caleb to build the prison cell that would keep my vampire’s reigning demon contained until I found a way to bring the real Dominic back to me.

My gaze traveled the length of the floor-to-ceiling steel bars. There was a very loud and unnerving part of me that knew that this was crazy—that it was a twisted, painful longshot at best—but I couldn’t see another option. I needed to get Dominic to turn his emotions back on, and at this point, I was willing to descend into the fiery depths of Hell to do it.

Of course, that didn’t mean that I had forgotten about Trace, or that I hadn’t attempted to reach out to him repeatedly since Friday. My stomach was a knotted mess of grief and remorse over the way he had learned the truth about what happened to him all those months ago. I never wanted to lie to him the way I did, to shatter every ounce of trust he had in me, but I hadn’t been able to see another way.

A better way.

Everyone had made it clear from the beginning that telling him the truth was too dangerous. Too big of a risk. That it could eviscerate the wall around his memories that had been protecting his mind from imploding. The last thing I wanted to do was risk triggering a time bomb in his head that would essentially destroy him from the inside out. And so, I did what I thought was best. I did what I had to do, and if he was angry with me because of it, then so be it.

Because I’d do it again if I had to. Only I’d make sure to hack off Pricilla’s head long before she had a chance to open her big, vengeful mouth to him.

Reaching into the back pocket of my jeans, I pulled out my cell phone and glanced at the lock screen.

No messages.

As much as I wanted to hunt Trace down and demand that he listen to me; that he hear my side of the story, I knew he needed time to process the initial shock of what he’d learned and work through those feelings, and I knew he needed to do it in his own way. I could only imagine how confusing and traumatic it must’ve been for him to learn that he had been Lucifer’s vessel and had literally died at my hands because of it.

The image of those gutted eyes still haunted me every time I shut my eyes. The way he looked at me when he realized I had been lying to him all this time. I knew what that felt like. I had been lied to my entire life about who I really was, and I hated everyone who had been complicit in it.

Maybe that was how he felt right now. Maybe he hated me the way I hated them…

“That should do it,”

said Gabriel, inspecting his handy work as he wiped a thin layer of sweat from his forehead with the back of his shaky hand.

My heart thumped hard against my rib cage as I took in Dominic’s ashen color and desiccated skin. I hated seeing him like this, so empty and lifeless and void of all the things that make him luminary and magnetic, but I knew it was what was needed right now. I had allowed the demon living inside of him to run rampant for far too long; watching numbly as it wreaked absolute destruction over my life and the life that Dominic had built for himself.

My stomach soured as I remembered the night he’d attacked me in the woods. The way his empty eyes had mocked me—the way his callous hands had hurt me. The way he had tried to take what he’d wanted without the slightest regard for what that would do to me. And, of course, I knew it wasn’t really Dominic. Because Dominic would sooner die than lay an angry hand on me or use his mouth to wound me. It was the soulless demon inside him.

I knew that.

But it was still my dark angel’s face that plagued my nightmares when I drifted off to sleep at night just the same.

“What do you think?”

asked Gabriel, drawing my attention back to the here and now.

I studied the thick metal chains that ran from Dominic’s wrists and torso to the concrete wall behind his back and then met Gabriel’s curious eyes. “Do you think it’ll be enough to hold him?”

I asked wearily as I slipped my phone back into my pocket and then strode over to the cooler I had stashed in the corner of the basement.

“Everything is reinforced with magic,”

he reminded me and then gazed down at his brother again. “He’s not going anywhere unless we want him to.”

We had Caleb and his special brand of magical talent to thank for that.

Flipping open the cooler lid, I pulled out a blood bag and then walked it over to Gabriel who eyed the bag with disdain while making zero attempts to reach for it.

“You need to feed,”

I reminded softly and then held out the thick plastic bag to him.

Since Gabriel and I had been working day and night on the cell together, I had used the opportunity to keep him on a tight feeding schedule in the hopes of controlling his bloodlust while acclimating him to human blood at the same time. It was something that needed to be done in order for him to regain control over himself, and so far, it seemed to be doing the trick. Well, when he cooperated, that was.

“I don’t need it. I’m fine,”

he objected, turning his attention back to his brother.

But he wasn’t fine, and we both knew it.

“Your hand is shaking.”

I inched the bag closer to him and waited patiently until he dropped his shoulders and finally took it from me. Albeit begrudgingly.

Allowing him privacy to feed, I walked inside the small 9x9 cell where Dominic’s lifeless body was slumped back against the concrete wall. His legs were outstretched in front of him, and his head was propped to the side, as though he had simply fallen asleep while sitting there.

Crouching down in front of him, my fingers intuitively moved to his face, brushing gently across his temple and then down his cheekbone, searching. My stomach sank as I noted the complete lack of connection between us. No alert to his presence. No strong, heady emotions coiling back and forth between us. No pull. There was absolutely nothing there, and I hated how wrong it felt.

That wasn’t to say that the things I felt for him were gone, or that I didn’t still love him deeply. It only meant that those emotions were no longer a near tangible entity flowing back and forth between us on an invisible string. A string that had tied us together since the day the bloodbond was created. That link was gone now, and the connection closed, and I knew it would stay that way for as long as he remained incapacitated.

“So, what now?”

I asked, my eyes roving thoughtfully across Dominic’s face, praying with everything that I had that this crazy plan would work. That I would one day be able to see that enchantingly sinful glint in his eyes when he looked at me. That I would one day feel the thrill of being in his arms again.

Gabriel moved up beside me. “I suppose we take the stake out and see what he has to say for himself.”

Seemed like the obvious next step.

Pulling in a steadying breath, I curled my fingers around the wooden stake, fully intent on removing it, and then froze as anxiety shriveled my stomach into a raisin. Fast, dizzying images of my hands removing Dominic’s restraints and the aftermath of that simple gesture inundated my mind—too speedy to make sense of, but too weighty and explosive to ignore.

Dammit.

Gabriel peered down at me pensively. “I can do it if you prefer to stand back,”

he offered, misjudging my hesitation.

I shook my head back and forth. “This isn’t going to work,”

I whispered hoarsely.

“Of course, it will. The reinforcements are—”

“No. It’s not that.”

I withdrew my hand and then straightened to my full height; my distant gaze still fixed on Dominic as the strange vision-like scene replayed in my mind’s eye. “He’s going to compel me the second I pull the stake out and he realizes what’s going on.”

Gabriel stilled beside me as I hissed out another curse under my breath.

We were totally screwed.

All that work. All that planning and building and bolstering. And for what? The second that stake came out of Dominic’s chest, we’d be done for, and we both knew it. How the hell had we not seen this coming?

“Let’s not panic just yet.”

I scoffed at him. “Too late. I’m already panicking.”

“We can still do this,”

he said, turning to face me as a frown puckered the space between his eyebrows. “It will simply have to be me instead of you. I’ll be the one to remove the stake and I’ll be the one to work with him.”

“That’s a lovely notion, but it’s not going to work. He wasn’t in love with you, Gabriel. He didn’t risk his life to save you. Everything he did…it was for me,”

I reminded, and while I felt bad for announcing the sad state of their brotherly bond—or lack thereof—it was the truth. There was no sense in denying it. “I have to be the one to do this with him if we stand any chance of getting him to turn his emotions back on.”

Gabriel ran a hand down his face and then dipped his head in a nod. As awful as it was to hear, he knew I was right. Up until I’d come into the picture, the two of them barely had any relationship at all. We both knew he would not be able to reach into Dominic’s heart and resuscitate it the way I could. To melt the ice around his cold demon heart and make him feel again. I’d done it before. Surely, I could do it again.

We just had to take care of that one teeny-tiny stake-removing problem first.

I turned to face Gabriel and grimaced at the defeated look on his face. And just like that, it was my turn to keep us from sinking into the stormy waters of defeat. “Pull yourself together, Gabriel. This isn’t over yet. It’s only a small setback,”

I insisted, refusing to give up before we’d even started. Frankly, we’d worked too damn hard to get to this point to give in that easily. “We just need to put our heads together and think. There has to be something we can do.”

He nodded again, but there wasn’t much enthusiasm behind it.

The two of us stood there, side by side, and stared down at Dominic for a long, quiet moment.

“We could do the sessions together,”

offered Gabriel, bouncing a look between the two of us. “I’ll stay close by and incapacitate him if he tries to compel you…or counteract it if he succeeds.” And by counteract, he meant bloodsharing with me in order to override Dominic’s compulsion.

Granted, it wasn’t the worst idea. It would certainly take care of the compulsion problem, but at what cost? I needed time and intimacy with Dominic. I needed for him to rely on me as his only source of sustenance and conversation. To need for me the way a dying flower needed rain. To open up to me under the shroud of absolute darkness. And we’d never be able to achieve that kind of closeness if Gabriel was there chaperoning the entire thing.

“That’s…one option,”

I answered gingerly.

“But you don’t think it’s a good one,”

he guessed.

“It’s not that. It’s just that…”

I bit the inside of my cheek as I searched for the words that would convey what I knew in my heart would be our best shot. “I need to be alone with him if I have any hope of breaking through to him,” I finally answered, my voice sounding almost apologetic. “With you there, it could take months—years even before he ever opens up to either of us.” And frankly, I just couldn’t wait that long. I needed him back now.

“That’s a good point,”

he said and then crossed his arms.

If only there was a way to break the bloodbond. Or at the very least, lessen its power over me. That would take care of all of our problems in one swift move. But how? How could we do the impossible?

The solution had evaded me at every turn, much like it had when Dominic and I first became bloodbonded in that dingy dungeon and I had no idea what to do about it, or how to even—

And then it hit me. Like a supernova to the face.

If Dominic had been able to stop Engel from compelling the Amulet away from me by creating a bloodbond between the two of us to override Engel’s, then who was to say I couldn’t do the same thing to him by creating one with someone else?

“Oh, my god…”

I hissed on a breathy whisper as my heart jackhammered against my ribcage.

Gabriel turned to me expectantly, his arms still folded along his chest. “What is it?”

“I think I know—”

The words jammed at the back of my throat, afraid the Angels of Doom and Gloom might hear my plan and swoop in to destroy it before I even got the words out.

“You think you know what?”

he asked when I didn’t finish.

I met his eyes as adrenaline pummeled hard through my veins, heating my blood and making my entire body vibrate with energy. “How to break the bloodbond.”

His head jerked back. “Break the bloodbond?”

he repeated incredulously, as though he didn’t trust his ears. As though that weren’t even in the realm of possibilities.

It was so simple and obvious. It had been right there in front of my eyes this whole time, yet I had never been able to see it. Not until now. “I know this is going to sound crazy but hear me out.”

“I’m listening.”

He nodded wearily.

“I think I might be able to break my bloodbond with Dominic by creating a new one with someone else. A newer, stronger bond. It’s basically what Dominic did to stop Engel from bonding with me,”

I explained and then tried to swallow past the sandpaper at the back of my throat.

“A new bloodbond?”

he repeated to himself as his forehead furrowed.

“If we follow that same logic, we should be able to disrupt my bond with him, maybe even override it permanently. Or at the very least weaken it enough to stop his compulsions over me.”

The moment I spoke the words out loud, I knew I was on to something. It was as though all the little pieces were coming together to make perfect sense. As though the path were being illuminated for me right there in my mind’s eye.

Gabriel appeared to be processing it, though judging by his lack of reaction, he hadn’t fully caught up yet. In his mind, this was just a hypothetical conversation about a hypothetical vampire. A random ‘someone else’. But it wasn’t. And there was no gentle way to tell him as much—to drag him down my brand-new rabbit hole unscathed.

“Gabriel?”

His gaze snapped up to mine. “Yeah?”

I was going to have to chuck him into it headfirst. “I need you to bond yourself to me,”

I finally blurted out and then grimaced as all the color drained from his face.