Page 40 of Lunar Diamonds (Celestial Magic #1)

RILEY

I ’d been reading about my family for the past week—particularly the unfinished chapters on my aunts and uncle. The only book I’d read since this all started.

Jonathon Aurora. The darling of the tabloid press. A real bed-hopper, never settling down. Handsome, with a similar complexion to Isaac’s. Dark-haired, blue-eyed, always decked out in designer clothes, always at glitzy showbiz events.

He attracted a lot of admiration as well as scorn. Many questioned his partying and the effects it had on his job. There were newspaper articles glued into these pages about his casual attitude, shirking his duty for sex and booze.

People didn’t feel safe, that fear growing as Kane Kingwood reshaped the world.

There wasn’t much else after that, aside from damning cutouts about the whole of House Aurora.

I closed the book, half-naked beside Drake in bed.

He lay on his front, wearing boxers and a T-shirt, watching the news.

The energy of a new moon buzzed through my body, doing wonders for my stamina, but not my mood. I couldn’t stop thinking about Isaac, Erin, the horrors on the beach.

Reading the book only served to chase away what was left of my Drake afterglow. But at least we were here in this room, moving toward a new place. Talking again, ready for the journey.

You had to take wins wherever you found them. And sharing space with Drake was an epic win for me.

I slid down the bed to join him on my belly, pressing my shoulder to his. “Okay down here?”

He kissed my cheek. “Yes. Are you?”

Isaac was really gone, and a strange, ominous prickle itched across my scalp.

“No news is good news, right?” I answered. Seeing as no one had popped by to tell me we were screwed because the High Coven knew everything, I took that as another uneasy win.

He kissed me again. “What do you want to do?”

I drew down more of the new moon, brimming with renewed power. But it did nothing to assuage my apprehensions about, well, everything.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “Bake more cookies?”

He chuckled. “That might help.” He reached around to rub my back.

I crossed my ankles. “What if I did the same as Isaac? Just went home? Would you…” Was I really about to ask him this? “Would you want to move in with me?”

Not that he had a choice.

Could we live in such a small space? My flat wasn’t this mansion. We’d have to function with one bathroom, one bedroom, and I didn’t know if I wanted that. Yet.

Or did I? We’d already crossed one threshold, why not another?

But what if we ended up hating each other? There would no way to escape, always drawn back to this forced proximity for the next ten years.

What if it’s the beginning of something beautiful?

“I will,” he answered so sweetly, giving me that winning smile.

“Wow. I—” I stopped, mad with myself for forgetting about the fate of the city.

There’d be no moving in with anyone. Coldharbour faced a nasty future in five days.

Crap. I couldn’t sit by and let that happen.

“What’s wrong?” Drake asked, picking up on my anguish.

I told him.

He kissed the back of my right hand. “Noble.”

I barely felt his lips. “I have to speak to Erin. I’m thinking we should report this to the High Coven. They can stop it.”

Drake nodded. “Alright.”

“Is it too late, though?”

“I’ll follow your lead.”

I thought for a moment. “If she’s asleep, a walk will do me good. Do you mind walking?”

He kissed my lips. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

The guy made acquiescence hot.

Together and dressed, we headed for Erin’s bedroom on the south side of the mansion. Not hand in hand, even though that would’ve been fabulous.

Heavy silence lingered in every hallway, the hairs on my arms prickling along with my scalp.

Something wasn’t right.

I paused halfway up the stairs close to Erin’s room.

“What’s wrong?” Drake asked.

“I don’t… I don’t know.” I hurried to the top of the stairs, looking down the hallway. A shiver licked up my spine, icy unease running across my arms. I rubbed at them. “Let’s keep going.”

Erin’s room sat at the end of the hallway.

What was wrong with me? What was the reason for the lump of cold heaviness in the pit of my stomach? Nothing could cross the protection spell around the mansion.

It must be the aftershocks of the night kicking in harder. Yeah, that had to be it.

Erin’s door opened. April lumbered into the hallway, holding her stomach. She fell into the wall, sliding down it, blood seeping through her fingers.

“By Hecate!” I cried, rushing over.

Drake got there first. “Easy there.”

My internal warnings had been right. The unease became all-out fear. “What happened?”

“It’s…. You have to…” She groaned, gritting her teeth.

“It’s alright,” Drake soothed.

“Where are the others?” I asked, braced for attack.

“They’re…” She looked behind me, her eyes widening. “Erin…”

I turned, coming face-to-face with the woman in question. But her face wasn’t hers, melting away like paper in the rain, a magical mask lifting.

Her face hadn’t been right earlier, but now…

The last of Erin melted away, an emaciated man’s face in her place.

What the hell?

Her body elongated, thinning, tufts of straggly gray hair sprouting from a badly scarred head. The shreds of Erin’s clothes littered the floor, replaced by blue jeans and a black shirt hanging from the rakish man.

Blue eyes blinked back at me, as bright as mine.

Oh. Crap.

Swirls of shadow magic laced with flickering silver danced around his fingers. “Hello, nephew.”

“I—”

“Blackout!”

Jonathon Aurora clapped his hands, and I blacked out.