Page 2 of Wicked Chains (Serpentine Academy #2)

One

Rose

I jerk awake, my heart pounding as if I’ve been shoved off a cliff.

My chest feels too tight, and it seizes up as I gulp in air so fast that it hurts, then my eyes snap open to see three blurry shapes, too close, looming over me.

There’s a sticky blackness clinging to my brain, and under it all, a repeating memory of a sound I will never forget.

Abigail’s last breath, the sound she made when the blade slid into her chest.

"She's awake," someone says, the voice far away and muffled like I'm underwater.

I squeeze my eyes shut and then open them again, trying to force my vision to focus.

The blurry people above me turn into three distinct faces: Soren's black eyes flashing with silver, Drake's ghostly features, and Lucien's aristocratic face carefully blank, though his crimson eyes won’t look away from mine.

"Rose." Lucien's hard fingers circle my wrist. "Can you hear me?"

"Unfortunately," I croak, my throat dusty like I’ve been without water for days.

He drops my wrist. "Her charming personality appears intact."

I try to sit up and immediately regret it. The room spins like a carnival ride, and my stomach lurches. "Whoa. Bad idea."

Drake hovers closer, not quite touching me. "You've been through an ordeal."

It feels like it has been just seconds between watching that man plunge his dagger into Abigail's chest and waking up here. Here, which is right back where I was. I glance around, recognizing the dirty corners and cobwebs of the fourth floor. I’m no longer in the windowless chamber suspended in time, where I'd just watched my ancestor die.

“What happened?” Soren’s voice lacked its usual mocking tone.

How do I even begin to explain it all?

The lantern. Abigail. The Accord.

"I saw her," I whisper, struggling to organize the bits and pieces of memory swirling in my head. "My ancestor. Abigail Smith."

"What are you talking about?" Lucien's voice is sharp.

"I time-jumped, or dimension-jumped. I don't know exactly." I press my hands against my eyes, trying to alleviate the headache I can feel starting. "I was in this room with Abigail. She told me about the Accord, how it's bound to her. Her flesh, breath, and soul."

“The original blood contract is a person? That's not possible,” Lucien says, but there's uncertainty in his eyes.

"Yeah, well, neither is half the shit that's happened today, but here we are." I push myself up again, slower this time, and Drake's hands move to steady me.

“Everything's different now. The Accord is not what we thought. It's not a document. It's her. Was her. It was Abigail."

"Was," Soren says, his eyes narrowing. "You said, 'was her.' Past tense."

The memory plays like a movie in my head. The man stepping out of the darkness, the threat of the dagger, Abigail's face as the blade entered her heart. She had been caught off-guard, but at the end she didn’t look surprised, she’d seemed resigned. Like she knew it was coming.

"He killed her," I whisper. "The man from the bus. He just appeared and killed her."

"What man?" Lucien demands, glaring at me.

"I don't know who he is." I shake my head, wincing at the shot of pain the movement triggers. "But I've seen him before, on the bus from town. He was watching me. And in the vision or whatever it was, he knew me. And he knew Abigail."

"This is ridiculous," Lucien says, turning to pace the narrow space between shelves. "Time travel isn't possible, even with the strongest magic."

Soren’s eyes don't leave my face. "She's not lying. Something happened."

"I'm not saying she's lying," Lucien snaps. “I'm saying there must be another explanation. She hit her head. She’s obviously addle-brained.”

The nerve of some people! “ She’s right here. I’m perfectly sane.”

"The Accord," I say, tightening my grip on Drake's hand. "When Abigail died, something changed. She said it was bound to her existence, so what does that mean for me if she's gone?"

I follow Drake’s eyes to where he is looking down at my arm, at the mark. He shakes his head. The blood mark is still there.

Before anyone can say another word, a terrible noise crashes over us, a cross between a gong and a siren that makes the floor shake and the windows rattle.

"What the hell is that?" I clap my hands over my ears.

"Perimeter breach." Lucien is already moving toward the door, his movements a blur of vampire speed. "Intruders on academy grounds."

Drake helps me to my feet, his touch solid but cold. If the others notice that the ghost boy can touch me, they don’t let on.

We all look out the window at the end of the hall. The grounds below are swarming with figures in dark clothing, moving with purpose toward the main building.

Lucien straightens his already perfectly straight coat. "I need to go down there, find out what’s happening. Stay here. Both of you, guard her. I'll handle this."

Before he leaves, the door to the stairwell opens, and I brace myself, knowing my time has run out, because Headmistress Wickersly has found me.

But it’s not her. My stomach drops as a figure steps through, and even before I can make out his features, I know who it is. The man who killed Abigail, tall and unnervingly handsome, with those deep, emerald eyes.

"You." I stumble backward until I hit the wall. "You're not supposed to be here."

Drake is at my side instantly, his newly solid form positioning itself between me and the intruder. Lucien is beside Drake in a blur of vampire speed, while Soren completes the triangle, his posture deceptively casual but his eyes say differently.

"Who the hell are you?" Lucien demands.

The man smiles, and it makes my skin crawl. He ignores Lucien completely, his gaze fixed on me over the shoulders of my would-be protectors.

"Rose Smith," he says. "I was beginning to think you'd never find your way to Abigail."

"You killed her," I say, my voice stronger than I feel. "I saw you stab her."

"I freed her." He takes a step closer. "An eternity suspended in time, alone, is not living, Rose." He looks down at his hand and examines his nails. “She knew it was coming. Eventually.”

Lucien moves so fast he's a blur, his hand closing around the stranger's throat. "That's close enough."

The man doesn't even flinch. He simply touches Lucien's wrist with two fingers, and Lucien's expression shifts from threatening to shocked as his entire body goes rigid. He drops to his knees, paralyzed but conscious, his eyes burning with anger and humiliation.

"The late, great Lucien de Lacroix," the man says, almost fondly, crouching to meet Lucien's gaze. "You vampires are always so overconfident."

Soren steps forward, and the slight scent of brimstone and whiskey fills the air.

The stranger straightens, giving Soren an appraising look. "Incubus. Interesting choice of ally, Rose." He gestures lazily, and a sigil appears in the air between them. "But demons are never as powerful as we think."

Soren drops to his knees, gasping. His eyes roll back, and he collapses completely, his chest still rising and falling but his consciousness clearly gone.

"Stop it!" I push past Drake, my fear turning to anger. "What do you want?"

Drake grabs my arm, pulling me back behind him. "Rose, don't?—"

"And the ghost," the stranger says, turning his attention to Drake. He looks at the place where Drake’s hand touches me. “Tragic Mr. Winstead, who is not quite what he pretends to be, either.”

Drake's grip on my arm tightens. "I won't let you hurt her."

The man laughs. "Hurt her? Hurting her is the last thing I intend."

He raises his hand, and a fog begins to form. Drake's body glitches in and out, growing more transparent at the edges.

"No!" I grab for him, but my hands pass through his rapidly fading form. "What are you doing to him?"

"Temporarily relocating him," the man says casually, as if he's discussing the weather. "He'll return once he figures out how to align himself with this plane again. It might take a few hours."

Drake's face is all panic and rage as he disappears entirely, leaving me alone with the stranger and my two incapacitated protectors.

"Now," the man says, stepping over Lucien's paralyzed form, "we can speak without interruption."

I back away until I hit the wall again, my hands scrabbling uselessly. "Stay away from me."

"Rose." He says my name with such familiarity it makes me nauseous. "You have nothing to fear from me. We've waited a very long time for you."

"Who the fuck is ‘we’?" My voice trembles despite my efforts to sound brave.

“Apologies. Where are my manners? My name is Ash. And ‘we’ are the Blood Moon Coven.”

"Why did you kill her?" I demand, trying to piece together the fragments of what I'd seen. "Why kill Abigail?"

“Because that’s what was always meant to happen, Rose. Now everything can become what it should have been.”

My head is spinning, and not just from whatever dimensional whiplash I'm experiencing.

This guy is standing here spouting cryptic bullshit, and meanwhile the only allies I have are either paralyzed or vanished into thin air.

None of this is making any goddamn sense.

“So you knew that Abigail was the source of the Accord, and you wanted to break it?”

Ash smiles. “No, not break it. The blood oath endures.” He gestures to my arm, where the blood mark is. “I wanted to take back what was owed.”

"What do you mean, take back what was owed?" My voice cracks on the last word.

"Your family’s connection to natural magic was promised to us first, Rose. Before Abigail's betrayal. Before she sold out to the Crescent Moon." Ash steps closer. "The Blood Moon Coven had a prior claim. We were allies, partners even. But she chose survival over loyalty."

"That was three hundred years ago! Whatever beef you had with her doesn't involve me."

"Oh, but it does." His hand reaches out, and I move away slightly, but he only touches the wall beside my head. “You're everything, Rose. And now you’re mine.”