Page 43 of Seared Fates

I scurry, tripping over my feet—God, I hope they’re my feet—and bang my knee on something as I reach for the light. Slapping it hard enough pain ricochets up my wrist.

Whipping around, arms up to defend myself, I frantically search my flat. Eyes bounce to the floor, then the walls, until they land on my bed.

But there isn’t another person in my flat.

It should be a relief.

Yet panicked horror coils around my ribs and constricts tighter and tighter, until even if I wanted to breathe, I couldn’t. Not when I see what’s open wide on my pillow, innocently as if I’d fallen asleep reading it—the blood mage spell book. The First Tome.

Wide-eyed, not even risking a blink, I dash towards my phone beside my bed and snatch it up, certain the book might contort into some abhorrent human shape and attack. But not even a page twitches.

I take one step back, then another, fumbling to unlock my phone. My hands are sweating too much and shaking too hard, and my vision swims. I back into the kitchen, bare feet splashing into a shallow pool of chilled water, and my back hits the open freezer door.

My trembling gaze never leaves the spellbook in my bed as I unlock my phone, and, without thinking, I call the last person added to my contacts.

There’s one ring and then—

“Kai?”

At the sound of Vidar’s voice, my legs finally give out, and I slide into the pool of cold water.

“I need you, Vidar,” I whisper, each forced word shaken as it passes through my tears. “You need to get here. Please just get here.”

There’s noise in the background. Vidar says something. Or shouts it.

I’m so fucking over being scared all the time. Tired of fighting against this current trying to pull me under.

“Are you hurt?”

I shake my head.

“Kai!” he shouts my name, desperate—like I might not answer him back, and that’s something he does not accept.

“I’m n-not hurt,” I say, voice quivering. “Stay on the phone with me.”

“I’m coming to you, Kai. I’ll be there soon. Keep talking to me.”

I definitely say words, though I’m not sure what they are. Maybe I keep repeating that he needs to get here. He needs to stay on the phone with me. That Vidar can’t leave me alone. I think he tells me he’s coming and not to hang up. I think Vidar promises to never leave me again.

It’s all a haze as I wait for him. Huddled on the floor and counting every second by the steady drips of melting ice splashing into the puddle beneath me.

There’s a screeching noise of metal being torn open from the phone, then rushing footsteps.

And finally…

“Kai!” Vidar’s voice echoes from my phone and from behind my front door. “It’s me!”

Scrambling up, I lunge towards the handle and throw it open to find Vidar standing there, silver eyes huge and chest heaving.

“What happened?” he demands.

My phone clatters to the ground, and as the block of ice shatters and my lungs fill, I throw my arms around my soulmate.

“Fuck, you’re shaking.” Vidar picks me up, and my legs wrap around him. “I’ve got you. I’m not letting you go, Kai.”

“The book got out of the freezer,” I hiccup into his neck. “There was a h-hand. It was a person, like the girl, a-and it was touching my mouth.”

Vidar growls and crushes me against him, like he’s trying to push me into his chest. He stomps towards the bed and snatches up the spellbook. Immediately, the scent of scorched flesh finds me and the sound of sizzling, like bacon on the stove, and smoke rises from where the book burns him.