Page 30 of Irreverent (The Marked Saga #7)

The storm was still raging outside when I made my way back upstairs to the kitchen, each flash of lightning illuminating the backyard briefly before a clash of thunder quickly followed. Gabriel was sitting at the table by the bay window, watching the storm as though there were something more sinister in its midst. Something calling out to him. His arms were crossed along his chest and his brows were knotted into a pensive frown.

“What are you doing sitting here in the dark?”

I asked, noting that the room was draped in shadows save for the faint light above the stove and the sporadic flashes of lightning coming in every so often.

“Waiting for you,”

he answered, turning to me with the same deep crease between his brows. “How did it go?”

I flopped down onto the chair across from him and let out a depleted breath. “It could have gone better,”

I admitted, feeling a little defeated at how easily Dominic had steered the conversation into his own lane. “He really doesn’t seem very worried or bothered by the fact that I have him locked up in my basement.”

“It doesn’t mean he’s not,”

he pointed out. “If I know my brother, and I do, he’s not going to let you think you’ve won that easily.”

That was true. If he was shaken up by his current circumstances, he certainly wouldn’t reveal that to me. It wasn’t the way he played these games.

“After tonight, I’m starting to realize that forming a bloodbond with you was probably the easy part.”

“Yes, well, he certainly isn’t going to make this easy for you,”

he agreed somberly. “He’s going to hit low and hard and he’s going to try to break you down, piece by piece. You’re going to have to remember you’re dealing with someone lacking all semblance of humanity. He isn’t going to be afraid of hurting you.”

That was precisely what I was afraid of. “Shouldn’t you be heeding your own advice?”

I asked, pulling my legs up to my chest. “You seemed pretty rattled by what he said before.”

“Perhaps, but I’m not the one that’s going to have to bring him back from this. You are.”

I blew out a breath and met his weary, watchful eyes. “And how exactly am I going to do that?”

I asked, realizing how massive the mountain was ahead of me. “I’m assuming there isn’t some switch I can reach to make him turn his emotions back on.” Because that would be way too easy, and my life was anything but that.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.”

He leaned forward, propping his arms on the table as his grimace deepened in thought. “While he may be Dominic on the outside and still have the same personality and experiences, he’s now lacking the part of him that made him human. The things that moved him and made him tick. There are no real feelings there. No love, no fear, no jealousy, no compassion. Essentially, none of the things that give us our humanity.”

My body sagged as though the life had been drained from me. This was getting bleaker every minute this conversation went on. “So how am I going to make him feel again if there isn’t a single emotion there anymore?”

“Very slowly and with patience, like filling up a swimming pool with a spoon.”

Sympathy skewed his expression as he stared back at me. “You’re going to have to start from square one.”

“What does that mean?”

I asked, needing for him to be more specific—to lay out a roadmap in front of my face.

“Basically, you’re going to have to make him fall in love with you again.”

My jaw went slack, but before I could question him, I turned at the sound of approaching footsteps in the hallway. Tessa appeared at the kitchen entrance a second later with a huge stack of books cradled in her arm.

“Where have you been?”

I asked, realizing I hadn’t seen her for most of the day. She looked a lot more tired than usual and that was saying a lot since Tessa generally had that exhausted, dead-in-the-eyes look about her on most days.

“At Temple,”

she said as she made her way over to us. “Why are you two sitting in the dark?” she asked, bouncing a glance between the both of us as she sat down at the table. Also in the dark.

I shrugged. “Too lazy to walk over to the light switch.”

“What were you doing at Temple?”

asked Gabriel as he relaxed back in his chair.

“Research.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at me.

“Did you find something to help Trace?”

I asked, my heart quivering in desperation at just the thought of it.

“Not yet,”

she said and then quickly went on upon noticing my sullen expression, “but I did get my hands on a few books that may be able to help us.”

Gabriel reached forward and pulled one from the pile and I quickly did the same.

“Is this someone’s journal?”

I asked as I ran my hand over the leather-bound book. Artifact would’ve been a more accurate description judging by how old the thing looked.

“These are actually the grimoires of some of The Order’s most prolific High Casters. There’s everything from their personal diary entries to their spells and incantations, though most of the pages containing dangerous spells have been cloaked for security.”

“The Council allowed you access to these?”

asked Gabriel, his tone making it clear that he was surprised as heck by that.

“They didn’t really have a choice,”

she answered and then flicked a guilty look my way.

I lowered the book and furrowed my brow at her. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “I may have bent the truth a little bit.”

“What did you do?”

I repeated.

“I told them that you needed this in order to even consider what they’re asking of you.”

And by that, she was referring to anointing me as the Fourth Horseman. Something that I was growing increasingly weary of. “Smart move,”

I said as I fingered through the pages, knowing I would have said the same thing.

“I’m glad you think so,”

she began wearily, her eyes falling heavy on me. “They do want to see you tomorrow morning, though. The Senior Magister wants to check in with you personally since you haven’t returned any of his calls or texts.”

I shot her a sour look. “Gee, thanks for that.”

“It was that or nothing.”

She shrugged unapologetically. “Anyway, I figure if there is anything to be found on reanimation gone wrong, one of these grimoires will have it. I spent the day reading through as much as I could, but there’s a whole lot of books and just one of me.”

Pausing, I met her eyes as my throat tightened. She had promised me she was going to help me find a way to bring Trace back from whatever perpetual sleep state he was stuck in, and while I had heard the promise and watched as she made phone call after phone call and met with Caster after Caster, it struck a different chord with me to imagine her actually sitting in the Temple’s library combing through endless textbooks and grimoires. For me.

“Wow. Thanks, Tess. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

Nodding, she tried for a smile, though it was small and worn out, as though she’d forgotten how to do it altogether. “It’s not much, but it’s a start, right?”

My throat grew tighter, though I forced any tears that may have wanted to make an appearance to stay put. I hated when she was nice to me. It was so much harder to stay mad at her when she was being nice.

“So, what about you two?”

she asked, flattening her hands on the table as she gave us each a look. “Any progress on the bloodbond front?”

“You could say that,”

I said, my smile beaming from ear to ear then. “Gabriel finally compelled me today.”

Her eyebrows shot up as she turned to look at Gabriel. “Really? Damn, Gabriel. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

His expression dropped. “Thank you for your vote of confidence,”

he answered tartly.

Tessa chuckled; the sound raspy yet somehow soothing. “You know what I mean.”

“He just needed an extra push,”

I said cryptically, and kept it at that. No need for Tessa to know about the insane lengths I went to in order to get Gabriel to compel me. “The good news is we’re fully bonded.”

“How do you know?”

she asked, her eyes filled with question.

“We woke the beast downstairs and of course, he immediately tried to compel me.”

Her eyes rounded out. “Tried? Meaning he couldn’t compel you?”

“Nope.”

Tessa sat back in her chair and crossed her arms, a strange look washing over her face. A look I wasn’t particularly familiar with. And definitely not from her. “Well, I’ll be damned,”

she said, still staring at me with that same weird look in her eyes. Honestly, it looked a whole lot like pride, but I wasn’t crazy enough to believe that.

“It’s just the first step,”

I quickly explained, batting away the foreign concept before it seeped into my heart and made me mushy again. “Tomorrow starts the real work.”

She stared at me for a quiet moment, and I resisted the urge to squirm under her inspection. “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? I know you love him, Jem, but this is a monumental task and there’s no guarantees it’s even going to work. Are you sure you’re up for it with everything else you have going on?”

she asked, genuinely curious, as though she were worried that I might be spreading myself too thin.

“I’m sure,”

I said, knowing that I never really had a choice to begin with. I loved Dominic and when you love someone, you don’t leave them to their demons and give up on them. You don’t walk away when the light in their life leaves them and all that remains is darkness. I knew with every fiber of my being that Dominic would do the same for me. He’d never give up on me. He’d never walk away from me or leave me to the wolves.

He’d fight for me.

Wear himself ragged for me.

And I was going to do the same.

“I’m not giving up on him, Tess. Even if that means I have to keep him down there for the rest of my life.”