Page 23 of Snag (Conduit #2)

I take a step closer. Rought flinches as if intending to pull me back, then stops himself. I don’t need to move nearer to the dire awry to confirm what I’m looking at, so I pause in deference to his caution.

Bellamy’s eyes are the same as before. A light lavender, practically white-gray, around her contracted pupils, with a thin dark-purple rim around the irises.

“Not a dire mage,” I say. “A dire … awry.”

“That’s not …” Reck says. “That’s just part of the …”

“Why … ?” I ask Bellamy.

She blinks, thrown by my question. “What?”

“Why?” I tilt my head, deliberately looking at her threads.

Trying to untangle the nasty knot of essence all around her, for a glimpse of her life force, of her fate.

But those threads are shadowed, even muddy, some of them a deep red verging on black.

And though black usually indicates deadened lines of fate, these are somehow still emanating energy.

Even odder, not all those threads are attached directly to her. As if some have been snipped, then tangled up with the lines of destiny or life force that remain.

“What are you looking at?” Bellamy snaps, trying and failing to hide her uncertainty.

I blink away the confusing twist and churn of the dire awry’s essence threads. Though not before I glimpse the blackened gossamer threads connecting to each Guerra sibling she claims. The thread between her and Reck is slightly thicker, indicating a direct blood connection.

“Why reach for the essence in your blood?” I ask. “In the blood of others?”

“Why the fuck not?” she snaps.

“You’ve polluted your —”

“You know nothing,” Bellamy snarls.

I slowly remove my sunglasses. Again.

Bellamy, who might have been too occupied trying to stuff Reck’s cock inside her to fully notice my eyes when we first came upon them in the hall, takes an involuntary step back.

Apparently I’m still having an issue with seeing someone who was destined to be mine in that … situation. Position? Hence my unusual posturing, and whatever is currently radiating from my eyes intensely enough to make the dire awry hesitate.

And that’s not even addressing the sibling connection. Which Bellamy knew about, even if Reck didn’t.

Bellamy is the type of awry who earned us all the name, the designation. A name that, even after centuries of us reclaiming it for ourselves, is used to reinforce our otherness and everything that’s wrong with how we wield essence.

The twisted awry.

Unstable enough to try to fuck our blood relations. Sadistic enough to mentally manipulate a sibling into that act. Triggering some sort of blood-based spell — judging by the scratches on Reck’s neck and the blackened bile his system was attempting to disgorge — to counter any resistance.

I raise an eyebrow, feigning an assuredness I certainly don’t feel. “I thought you got a good look at me last night. Through Kris’s eyes.”

Presh sucks in a breath behind me.

“Apparently those impressions weren’t reliable,” Bellamy murmurs, gaze riveted to me.

“We can chat easier with her in a cage, Zaya,” Reck says, not looking away from the dire awry. If he were wearing the fur of his cu-sith right now, his hackles would have been all the way up. “Standing around in a hall just puts Presh and DeVille at risk.”

Bellamy laughs. “It’s a good thing you’re so pretty, brother, because you’re fucking stupid. You think you can cage me?”

“Because you claim to be awry, you’re all powerful?” Reck scoffs.

“I am awry,” Bellamy snaps.

“Then why the blood casting?” I ask again, genuinely confused and still just a little thrown by it. “And all the sacrifices, I assume?”

“For power!” Bellamy thrusts her hands upward dramatically, apparently also somewhat thrown by my fixation on how she accesses and wields her essence. “ Why the fuck else?”

“You’re awry,” I say. “You have all the power you would ever need. You can pull from anything, everywhere. That’s what it means to be awry. Only pulling from your own blood or the blood of others … that life force is fleeting, temporary even, when removed from its living, breathing host.”

Bellamy just stares at me, not answering but listening intently.

“That’s limiting. Limited,” I continue. “Which forces you to kill again and again, shredding your own soul, your own life force, in the process.” I have to stop myself from rubbing my forearms, even though the echo of Chains’s life force etched across my skin has faded.

“Or to drain yourself with every cut. Tying your castings to —”

“Why the fuck are you giving her pointers right now?” Reck snarls.

Rought clears his throat. “I have to agree, Zaya. This doesn’t seem like —”

I huff. “Fine.”

“Back to the cage?” Bellamy asks mockingly, sneering at Reck. “Like father, like son. You couldn’t even fuck me properly. You think you’re powerful enough to cage me?”

“What the fuck?” Rought mutters quietly.

“I’ll tell you later,” Presh whispers.

“If I can’t cage you,” Reck says malevolently, though his shoulders have stiffened at his siblings’ commentary, “then the most powerful awry in the fucking world certainly can. And you just killed someone she took responsibility for.”

My stomach sours at the reminder that I was responsible for Kris — prompted by the universe, in fact — and failed her. That I almost failed Presh and DeVille as well.

Bellamy snorts. “You’ve got this awry on retainer for the Authority? ”

Reck gestures toward me. “You were just impersonating her. Badly.”

“Good enough to fool you,” Presh mutters behind us.

Reck’s jaw tightens, veins straining in his neck, but he ignores Presh’s jab.

“I’m not putting anyone in a cage,” I say mildly, uncomfortable at being included in Reck’s posturing.

We aren’t working together. We barely know each other.

And there is no fucking way I’m helping the Authority with anything, no matter how dangerous the awry currently standing before me is. “The upkeep alone is a nightmare.”

Reck throws a look my way. “You’re making fucking jokes? Now?”

Bellamy’s gaze swings back to me, the movement seeming unhinged.

Though perhaps that’s just the energy writhing around her.

“I’m here for the littlest of us. Daddy wants her home.

” Her uncanny eyes flick over Reck and Rought dismissively.

“You boys can pout and play at being scary beasts, but Daddy knows we girls are where the real power lies.” She fixes her gaze over my shoulder, on Presh.

“Come now, baby sis. I’ll show you all the power that runs in your veins. ”

“I’m not going back!” Presh insists. “Zaya is mentoring me.”

“Her? She couldn’t even stop me from taking your pretty friend’s mind.” Bellamy licks her lips, then grins. “Couldn’t stop me from siphoning all that little shifter’s power, pathetic as it was.”

Presh tries to lunge between Rought and me. But DeVille must still be holding her hand, because he yanks her back. Shrieking, she tries to wrench free of him.

As promised, DeVille unceremoniously lifts her over his shoulder, pivots, and starts back down the hall. Presh beats his back with both fists, snarling.

I watch them for a moment. We all do. But fortunately, Presh’s fledgling power doesn’t spike. Not as it did last night.

“To Grinder,” Rought calls over his shoulder. “Then straight to Rath.”

Not looking back, DeVille waves in acknowledgment, then nearly loses hold of Presh when she throws her body to the side in an attempt to roll off his shoulder.

“See you soon, baby sister!” Bellamy calls down the hall, drawing all our attention to her again. Though I don’t think Reck has looked away from her once.

“Explain this all to me,” I say to her.

“Ugh,” she groans affectedly. “All talk and no play makes Bellamy a bored and bloody awry. The last awry I saw wearing that necklace roiled with power.” She laughs darkly, taunting. “Speaking of cages …”

I blink, my stomach bottoming out.

That … she means …

She’s seen … my aunt? In a cage?

No one cages the Conduit. She has to be lying. But why would —

Reck lunges for Bellamy, stun gun thrust forward. He’s fast, even in his human form, even for my eyes. Though that could be because I’m suddenly and completely numb. Again.

Unfortunately for him, Bellamy has more than enough time to smirk, step slightly to the side, and pull a wicked-looking athame dagger from the pocket of her dress.

I blink.

The dire awry’s wrist is already dripping with blood. I missed her cutting herself. Or she did it on the sly with the dagger tucked under her sleeve, not in her pocket at all.

Bellamy flicks a few drops of that blood toward Reck. Borne on a twist of her essence, the blood splatters across the stun gun, searing into Reck’s hand. The essence sparking around the gun fizzes, then smokes.

Reck grunts in pain, dropping the gun. But without hesitation, he wraps his other hand around Bellamy’s neck, pivoting to slam her against the wall.

She slits his throat with the athame, already muttering under her breath. A bastardized form of Latin, maybe. As if she needs actual words to cast. She doesn’t.

I blink a third time.

Rought surges forward, grabbing Bellamy’s wrist to twist it and the athame over her head— even while grabbing Reck’s shoulder and yanking him away from the dire awry.

Bellamy shrieks indignantly, slamming the palm of her free hand against Rought’s chest— along with an utterly foul spell. A curse so malignant it smells like burnt flesh.

All the blood dripping from her wrist and Reck’s blood on the edge of the blade sparks, then crumbles into ash.

Rought takes the direct hit of that combined power, stumbling back just enough for Bellamy to wrench her wrist free, then — oddly — drop to the ground.

I reach for her threads through the numbness. Though only seconds have passed, my mind is still lagging after Bellamy alluded to knowing or having seen my aunt. Logically, I know that feeling is purely psychological, not at all physically impairing, but it’s slowed me nonetheless.