Page 20 of Irreverent (The Marked Saga #7)

I parked my car by the side of the road that bordered the river and then walked on foot to Old Solomon’s Bridge where Nikki had so politely invited me for a chitchat. My eyes quickly scanned the area for any signs of demons or other ungodly creatures that didn’t belong, but I found nothing but a very pregnant Nikki Parker waiting in the middle of the bridge, her forearms draped over the side railing as she peered down at the river.

“Thinking of jumping?”

I asked as I walked up beside her and glanced down at the rushing water.

“I bet you’d love that,”

she muttered under her breath before turning to face me. Apart from her huge belly, she hadn’t gained a single pound during her pregnancy. “I’m guessing both my men are dead by now?”

“Pretty much,”

I answered, leaving out the fun fact that I’d actually let one of them go.

“Good servants are so hard to come by these days.”

“Well, last I heard, you have them showing up by the dozens.”

Her red lips pulled into a wickedly pleased smile. “Oh, are there stories about me already?”

I rolled my eyes at her. “You’re loving every minute of this, aren’t you?”

“Every minute of what, pray tell?”

“Of the attention. The power,”

I answered sharply. “You’ve been waiting your entire life to be something to someone, and it’s finally happened.”

“Jealous much?”

I laughed and shook my head at her. “Granted, you’re still nothing to the only person that ever mattered to you.”

Her pompous expression turned to ice.

“I mean, he is the reason why you called this meeting with me, isn’t he?”

Her aquamarine eyes thinned into slits of murderous fury. “How nice it must be to walk through this life so oblivious to everything around you.”

“And what exactly am I obvious to? You? Nah. You’ve been a thorn in my ass since the day I met you.”

“Oh, nothing gets by you, does it, Jemma? You’re as sharp as a tack and as pretty as lamb,”

she said and then tried to touch her hand to my cheek, but I quickly slapped that motherfucker away.

“Don’t touch me,”

I warned her, disturbed that she’d even tried.

“Or what? What are you going to do to me, Jemma? Take away the one thing that’s ever mattered to me? Ruin my one chance at happiness with the only man I’ve ever loved? You’ve already done all that and worse.”

“Is that what you called me here for?”

I asked as a flock of ravens cawed above us, circling the river back as though they’d spotted rotting animal flesh in the vicinity. “To sprout off a list of all the things I supposedly did to you? Turn the fucking page, Nikki. This shit is getting old.”

“Not for me it isn’t!”

she snapped, her voice echoing over the water as though it were chasing itself. “You still don’t get what you did, and you certainly haven’t paid the price for it. But you will.”

“So you’ve said.”

I rolled my eyes at her again.

“See, that’s the thing about me. I always keep my promises.”

She turned and faced the river again, smiling over at some unknown marker. “It might not happen right away. You might even mistake them as empty promises. But sooner or later, I deliver.”

“Mm-kay,”

I said and then blinked at her. “Is there a point to any of this or did you just miss seeing my face?”

“Remember all those months ago when I brought Trace back from the dead?”

she asked, though she didn’t bother turning to meet my eyes. “Do you remember what I told you about how I brought him back?”

A bomb of fear exploded in my stomach, its ghastly claws unfurling as it spread through my belly and scraped my insides. What had she said that day in All Saints? That she tethered his soul to something earthly, was it? What the hell did that even mean, and why was she bringing it up now?

“I’ll take that as a yes,”

she said when I failed to produce an answer. “See, that’s the beautiful thing about magic. What you create, you can also undo so long as you cast the right kind of spell.” Her head snapped back to me, her eyes as sharp as knives. “And I always create the right kind of spells.”

“What are talking about, Nikki? What did you do?”

I hissed, my hands gripping the railing with enough force to splinter the beam.

“Oh, nothing at all. Well,”

she said with a cunning smile. “Nothing yet.”

“I swear to god, if you hurt one hair on his body—”

“You’ll do what? Hurt me? Kill me? You couldn’t possibly do either of those things,”

she said, making it seem as though she were virtually untouchable now. “Besides, we both know you’re not a baby killer, Jemma. You’re a lot of things, but you’re not that.”

“You don’t know what I’m capable of doing,”

I warned, not knowing how far I would go to punish anyone that hurt my family or loved ones.

“I suppose we’re a lot alike in that way.”

I laughed in her face. “I’m nothing like you.”

“You’re fueled by love, aren’t you?”

she asked, and I couldn’t deny it, so I didn’t. “What about revenge? Doesn’t that fuel you as well? Is there really something you wouldn’t do avenge the person you loved? To avenge Trace?”

Liquid hot rage erupted in my veins. “That’s not the same thing.”

“Looks the same from where I’m standing,”

she said, her gaze distant and forlorn as she looked out into the horizon. “Whether you’re avenging your true love, or you’re avenging your own broken heart, there’s really no difference.”

“There’s plenty of difference. One if selfless and one is self-serving.”

“Everything we do is self-serving or we wouldn’t bother doing anything at all.”

“Only you would think that.”

“It doesn’t matter how you look at it. The outcome is the same. Revenge always carries a steep price, and someone has to pay it.”

I scoffed at her. “And I’m guessing that someone is me?”

She turned and faced me again, running a palm over her swollen belly as something akin to fire danced in her eyes. “You don’t just get to ride off into the sunset with him. Not when I went through all the trouble of saving him. I brought him back for me—not for you to steal him out from under me again.”

“I didn’t steal anything, Nikki. He’s a living, breathing person. He makes his own decisions,”

I said, trying to talk some sense into her for god knows what reason. The girl was denser than a brick wall. A total lost cause.

“Well, he made the wrong decision,”

she said and then brought a closed fist up between us, turning it around slowly as if to showcase it. “What do you know about magic, Jemma?”

“Magic?”

I asked, shaking off the whiplash from her change of subject. “Not much.”

“Did you know that every good spell needs a fail-switch?”

she asked but didn’t bother waiting for an answer. “That’s spellcasting 101,” she said and then uncurled her fingers, revealing a cylindrical rock-like gem in her palm.

My eyes narrowed as I took in the beautiful, oddly shaped crystal that seemed to glitter under the late afternoon sun.

“This right here is the talisman that has kept that protective little barrier around Trace’s mind since the time I brought him back from the dead.”

Panic shot through me and I instinctively tried to snatch the talisman away from her, but she moved too quickly for me, pulling it out of my reach before once again dangling in front of me like a carrot.

“It’s the only thing that’s keeping Trace from falling apart at the seams, and it’s the one and only thing that’s allowing him to have any kind of relationship with you at all. A relationship you were never meant to have. And now, it is no more,”

she said as she squeezed her hand shut, grounding the crystal into in her palm as though her skin were made of concrete.

“NOOO!”

I screamed as she opened her fisted hand and let the pulverized dust scatter away with the passing wind. “You fucking bitch!”

I could’ve have killed her right then. I should have killed her. But in that moment, I couldn’t think of anything but Trace. Of reaching him as quickly as I could.

My feet hit the ground like bullets as I ran across the bridge and back to my car, throwing myself into it and grabbing my cell phone from the cup holder. My heart raced at a million miles an hour as I dialed Trace’s number and held the phone to my ear. Please let him be okay. Please let him be okay. Dear god, PLEASE LET HIM BE OKAY.

The line went to voicemail.

Everything in me turned to ice as I threw my car in drive and then raced clear across town to All Saints, praying with everything that I was and everything that I had that Trace would be okay when I got there.

That Nikki hadn’t just done what I thought she did.

Little did I know, my entire life was about to come crashing down on me once again, and this time, I wasn’t sure there would ever be a way to ever put it back together again.