Page 154 of Jagged Souls

“Or take it from this room.” I add an S after the V, then wipe my blade across my thigh, fold it, and slip it back into my pocket. Still holding my shirt up with one hand, I use the other to gather up a bit of blood and draw a silence rune over my initials.

The magic of the oath pulses through me – hot and cold, life and death, a blessing and a curse. “It is done.”

Aleric tosses me the book, and I catch it. My eyes widen as my gaze flies back to his in a rage. “This is Caden’s Book of Shadows,” I say through clenched teeth.

“Hence why you can’t fucking talk about it.” He grins cheekily. “Sau will be pissed to know I have it.”

“You stole it.”

“What? No!” He slaps both his hands over his cheeks and turns to Vlad. “How could you let me stoop so low! Letting me take the pups from the school to force them to compete to live another day is one thing, butstealing?Dude! You’re supposed to be my moral compass!” He turns to me as my jaw tics. One of these days, I’m going to kill him – once he stops being so fucking useful as an ally.

He smirks at me as he drops his hands. “What are you looking for anyway? I might be able to save you some time reading it.”

He’s fishing for information, wanting to see what else he can use against me. Ignoring him, I flip open my father’s grimoire. Feelings of loss and discomfort settle in my belly as I stare at his name, signed in thick black ink across the first page.

Caden Shadow

He wrote this after he married my mother – the Shadow last name is always the one taken.

And he didn’t abandon us because of me, because I failed to hit my ascension. Because he knew I wasn’t his but was the firstborn of another man... He left because ofher.

The emotions inside of me swirl, a cesspool of memories rising up to complicate them even more. He used to always have time for us. It didn’t matter how many drawings or bugs we wanted to show him. Or at what hour we decided to wake him. He was always there – loving, laughing, and he never treated me any differently to hisrealsons.

Until he started to drink.

Until whatever Mother did to him cut too deep to bear; he isn’t innocent for his actions, but neither is she.

My stomach clenches, wondering about the secret she’s still keeping hidden. Is it in here? The reason father finally left? Was it merely the cost of creating the blood bond like she claims? Or was it something else? Something –

“Watch him while I go eat,” Aleric says, and I push those thoughts aside. “If he tries to leave with it or make copies, come get me. I could use a good hunt. The kids runsooooslow.” He vanishes with a drawn-out sigh, but neither Vlad nor I pay him any mind.

I flip through the leather-bound book, searching for the information I need.

“How are we going to save him?” Vlad demands, his voice tight, his thick arms crossed over his chest.

Not them.Him. The man he can’t help but care for.

I walk over to an armchair and collapse inside it, my head lowered to read. I skim the pages, flipping past spells and notes about magic and creatures of sacrifice, searching for something about blood bonds.

“I don’t know yet,” I say honestly. We’ve gone through four teleporters so far, and they’ve all said the same thing. Eduardo’s safety spells aren’t difficult to break, but he’ll know as soon as we tamper with them. I need a witch who is stronger than he is, more clever, but Ryker, the Boss on the other side of the portal, refuses to kidnap anyone of status. It’s too risky, and there isn’t an amount I can pay or a threat I can make that will make it worth his while. He’d rather lose the portal entirely than draw the attention of the Elv’ve’Nor. Smuggling people to Earth and dealing in illegal human goods is only a fraction of his empire.

And I don’t have the resources or knowledge to slaughter his soldiers and hold off any reinforcements until I find a powerful teleporter myself.

All we can do is watch the teleportation circles so we can grab Antonio or Eduardo if they try to use them. Neither of them have been seen though; the witch must be leaving the boat to get food and supplies, but he’s using a circle we don’t fucking know about.

If we break into his network, we’d be able to track all of them eventually, but the risk of him having more than one network is too great. He could just destroy the one we have access to, and then we won’t have any way in at all.

So we’re forced to wait.

But I can’t wait any longer. He has mywife.

“But the book will help?” Vlad demands.

“Not Rudy,” I say softly. My chest tightens as I look up at him. “Khalid says they haven’t broken him yet.”

“What are they doing to him?” His voice is tight, his control held only just. It’s the first time he’s asked, but I know he’s been slipping down the same edge I’ve been for a while.

“Attempting to breed him.”