Adessa's golden, cat-shaped eyes land on me as she slams to a stop in the doorway. "Gemma? What are you doing here?"
I try to nod, but my head won't budge.
"Why are you . . . ?" Her eyes sweep the room before she kneels down beside me, inspecting me then yelling, "Liberum!"
The numbness leaves my body, and I jump to my feet, wanting to get as far away from this place as possible. "We have to get out of here. Now."
"What's going on?" she asks, rising to her feet.
I give her a quick recap of what's going on with Aislin, biting my nails the entire time, worried Aislin is going to show up.
"So she's marked, but she can remove the mark. Interesting." Adessa considers the situation while pacing the floor. "And you don't know where she went?"
I shake my head then head for the front door. "But with how pissed off she is, I'm guessing it has something to do with a torture device or a crazy-ass spell that will turn me into a rodent or something equally as gross."
Adessa captures my sleeve before I make it very far. "I can fix this, take the mark off her."
I scrutinize her as my muscles wind into knots. "How do I know you're not marked?"
She rolls her sleeves up then sweeps her hair to the side and shows me her shoulders and neck.
Satisfied, I lean against the doorway. "You think you can remove the mark, then?"
"If you can remember how Aislin removed the mark," Adessa says, twisting a pendant around her neck.
"I think I can."
"Tell me, then. And try to remember every little detail."
After we sit down on the velvet sofa in the living room attached to the store, I get really fidgety. "Aislin could come back any minute," I warn. "We should probably go somewhere else and talk about this."
"If we go somewhere else, we'll have to track Aislin down again." She stretches her hand toward the ceiling. "Me tenebris et tueri nos." A dark cloud funnels from her hand. "There, that'll keep her away for a bit." She dusts her hands off. "Now go ahead and explain the spell to me."
I feel the slightest bit better. "Well, the first thing she did is go to the graveyard to summon some kind of witch spirit to give her more power. Then she created the spell itself. First, she cuts into the middle of the mark so blood drips out."
"To bleed out the evil." Adessa nods her head. "That makes sense."
"Then she inserts some kind of potion--I think she called it Vitis . . . vinifera--which is supposed to free them from the evil connection. Then the last thing she does is chant some sort of spell . . . liberare vos . . . ligaveris, I think."
Adessa springs to her feet and lifts open the top of the apothecary table. Inside are bags filled with various kinds of herbs. She takes one out and shuts the lid.
"Does this look like what she used?" she asks, holding a bag of crushed green leaves in front of my face.
"I think so." I squint at the bag. "But it doesn't matter if you have all the stuff. You need the power of that ghost flame woman."
Adessa smiles warmly. "Has Laylen ever told you anything about me?"
"Um . . . a little."
"Well, did he ever mention how old I am?"
I shake my head, remembering how pissed off Sophia used to get when someone assumed her age.
My heart suddenly squeezes in my chest as I remember all the soulless years I spent with Sophia and how confused I felt when Aislin broke the news to me that Sophia and Marco might be dead. Aislin discovered that information when she was trying to locate Keepers with a Tracker Spell; only, the spell informed her they no longer existed, which more than likely means they're dead.
"I'm two-hundred fifty-eight," Adessa sates proudly. "And do you know how I've lived this long?" She stands up with her shoulders squared and her chin elevated. "Because I'm that powerful."
Without warning, she spans her hands out to her sides and tips her head back. "Isabella, come to me!"
A roaring fire ignites in the middle of the room, and a flaming woman materializes in the center of the flames. She lets out a deafening wail, and I cover my ears as Adessa chants under her breath, settling the fire woman down.
"You've been hiding something from me, Isabella," Adessa says sternly. "Is there something you'd like to tell me?"
The fire woman hisses at Adessa, blowing smoke into her face.
"Don't take that attitude with me," Adessa says. "You've been lying to me for a very long time."
The flame woman tips her head back and screeches again.
"Stop being a pain in the ass and hand it over." Adessa sticks out her hand and waits.
The fire woman huffs. Then, with a scowl, she blows a breath of smoke into Adessa's palm.
"Go now." Adessa flexes her fingers.
When the fire woman dissipates, Adessa turns to me, grinning. "Now that I've taken care of that, I think I can make the spell work, but I'm going to need your help with something first. It's very dangerous, but very important to me. I'm going to be straightforward with you, Gemma. What we're about to do is very risky."
I look down at my stomach, remembering what Alex said, that I needed to take care of myself.
"I'm not sure I can."
Adessa tracks my gaze, and her brows shoot up in surprise. "You're with child?"
I nervously nod. "I think so."
She considers something before stepping forward and reaching for my belly. "May I?" she asks and I nod. She gently places her hand on my belly, and a smile touches her lips. "She's a strong one."
"She?" My heart hits my chest hard. "How do you know it's a she?"
"It's one of the gifts I have, among many others." Her brows knit as she continues to stare at my belly. "Do you want to protect her?"
"I do, but it's unbelievably hard when everything around me is so dangerous." Tears burn at my eyes. "I've been hit by so many spells, fallen so many times . . . I'm getting worried."
"She's fine." She glances up at me. "And she can be fine, even when you're not."
I wipe the tears away with the back of my hand. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I can put a spell on her that will allow her to survive even if something happens to you. I can help you save the one you care about the most," she says, "and in return, you'll help me save what I care about the most."
I'm surprised how easily I agree. With a simple nod, I protect my daughter and put myself in danger again.
But somehow, it feels like the most right thing I've ever done in my life.
ALEX
I'm going to fucking kill him, strangle him to death. At least, I want to. But I can't. Killing Laylen would nearly kill Gemma, and she'd hate me for it. Besides, that would be stooping to my father's level, and no matter how hard he's tried to turn me into one of his murderous soldiers, I refuse to be that horrible person. I'm stronger than that. I have to be for the world, for Gemma, for my child.
I hold back on the strangling and, instead, knock Laylen out with a snow shovel. Once he collapses to the ground, I drag his body under a tarp beside a pile of firewood so no one will find and hurt him. Then I try to come up with some kind of plan to salvage this mess.
I have an unconscious, killer vampire on my hands, and the two people who could help me are missing. Not to mention, one of them is bat-shit crazy at the moment.
In the middle of my plan making, I somehow end up in a field with Gemma. Initially, I'm confused, but then I remember the last time we met like this, and I smile to myself. She's dreaming of me.
After I leave the dream, I thrum my fingers on the sides of my legs as I pace back and forth in front of the woodpile. I don't know how this happened, how Aislin and Laylen found us, but it seems way too coincidental that, the moment we left the Banshee's house, the two of them showed up. There has to be a connection
Either I can run away, go back to the airport and fly home, or go back and see what the Banshee knows.
When I arrive back at the house, she's wailing her cry of death. I barge in without knocking, and th
e pleased look on her face is enough that I see red.
"Good. You're alone," she purrs. "Just what I wanted."
I stride toward her and shove her against the wall.
"Who are you?" I demand, pushing her again.
She trips back and lands on the floor, wincing as she twists her ankle. "Don't you think I should be asking you the same thing?" she growls.
"You don't get to ask questions." I crouch down in front of her and press the tip of my knife to the base of her throat. "Now, who are you?"
When her lips remain sealed, I press the tip of the blade into her skin just enough to draw a few drops of blood. She winces then, with a venomous growl, the color of her eyes turns from green to blue and her hair from brown to blond, transforming into the Banshee from the alley
I shake my head. "I knew it."
"You didn't think Draven would just hand you the information without a price, did you?" she snaps, baring her teeth then trying to bite my hand.
"I did pay a price." I poke her again with the knife. "Remember, he gets a year of my life."
"Like that matters to him. What he really wants to know is why you're seeking a Banshee." She scoots across the floor and backs herself into the corner. "Who are you really? And why do you need the help of a Banshee?"
"I'm not telling you anything," I say calmly, standing up straight. "Not until you tell me why you brought me out here. What was the purpose of tricking me into coming all the way out to Iceland? Because I know there has to be a reason when it comes to Draven. He doesn't do things just because."
"This is the entrance to the Afterlife," she says simply, gesturing at the walls. "This is where you cross over."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"You don't have a choice. You owe Draven."
"I owe him nothing," I snap, the floorboards creaking below me as I stalk toward her. "That deal was made based on the assumption that the address I was given would take me to my mom, so unless you want to tell me where she is, I'm not handing over a year of my life."
She crawls on her hands and knees for the window and pulls herself up by gripping onto the sill. "We don't just give away information about our kind, not unless we fully understand why someone seeks one of us."
In three long strides, I'm in her face. "Where's my mom? You have to know where she is . . . She's one of you."
Her eyelids narrow to slits. "If you really want to know, then fine. She's in hiding in a place where no one wants to hide."
I wrap my fingers around her throat. "Where. Is. She?"
"I'll tell you." When she grins, somehow I know I'm about to make another bargain, probably one I can't afford. "But it'll cost you."
GEMMA
"Tesha's a friend of mine," Adessa explains as we hunker down behind a car parked in front of a building with flashing neon lights. "If we can get back to the house, I can take the mark off her, and then we can start removing it from everyone else."
I peek over the hood of the car to glance at the female vampire with chin-length hair and pointy ears that I'm supposed to help Adessa save. According to Adessa, the two of them are really close friends, but after listening to Adessa talk about her while we walked to this place, I wonder if they might be more than that.
"But what if the spell doesn't work on her? I mean, you haven't tried it on anyone else yet," I point out, scanning the area for any sign of vampires, witches, or fey who might be lurking around in the shadows.
"You're doubting my magic?" Adessa questions, pressing a glance in the direction of my stomach.
After Adessa performed the spell to protect my daughter, the sound of her heart has been crystal clear. And all that worry I felt about her being hurt has vanished. Somehow, I can feel the spell working, reassuring me that she's going to be okay, even if I'm not.
"Do you have a game plan?" I ask, sneaking a peek over the hood of the car again.
Tesha is now chatting with a man twice her size with fiery red eyes and skin as white as snow. My bet is that he's a vampire, too. Great. Things just got even more complicated.
"I'm not sure," Adessa says with a sigh, leaning back against the wheel of the truck. "I've been trying to get to her for weeks, but it's useless. She either runs away from me or tries to kill me."
"What about another spell? Like a summoning one?"
"She's protected from most of my spells, thanks to me. She can even sense when I'm coming after her, thanks to a stupid connection spell I did a long time ago. At the time, I thought it was a fantastic idea, but now I realize it was stupid." She crosses her arms. "We probably have maybe three or four minutes before she senses me."
"Okay, so what do you want me to do? Because I'm guessing there's a reason you brought me with you."
Adessa gathers her hair into a low ponytail and fastens it with an elastic on her wrist. "Well, you're a Keeper and a Foreseer, which makes you both very powerful and very strong. Plus, you can appear out of nowhere, and since Tesha has never met you, she shouldn't be able to feel your presence."
"Shouldn't be able to?" I question, arching my brows.
"You'll be fine." She pats my hand. "You're stronger than you give yourself credit for."
I'm not sure if she's telling me the whole story, but it doesn't really matter. My daughter is protected, and I owe Adessa for that.
I peer around at the cars, the street, and then the building. "I'm going to Foresee my way over there, grab her, and blink us back here. You better be ready to do the spell because I'm betting that I'm not going to be able to hold her for very long."
Adessa nods, opening up the bag of herbs she brought with us. "Be careful. And don't hurt her."
"I'm not going to, but I'm not going in unarmed, either. I need a weapon."
Reluctantly, Adessa reaches into her pocket and draws out a pocketknife. "It's all I have."
I flip open the dull blade. "I guess it'll have to do."
"Please, don't hurt her," she begs again. "No staking her in the chest or anything like that."
"I'll try not to." I start to close my eyes when she grasps onto my arm.
"Gemma, I love her," she whispers, her eyes pleading with me.
I nod my head, my thoughts briefly drifting back to Iceland and how Alex's mom--or who I thought was Alex's mom--said Alex loves me. It terrifies me to my very soul, but in the craziest, most breathless, overwhelming way possible. I know there's no way he could love me since I'm still alive. Or maybe he does, and I don't feel the same way for him yet.
I shake the thought from my head.
"I promise I won't hurt her."
Adessa lets go of my hand. "You'll have to be the one to puncture her mark. It's on her left wrist."
Nodding, I shut my eyes and picture the front door of the casino, and just like that, I'm standing in front of Tesha and the tall man with fiery red eyes.
"Well, what do we have here?" Tesha says, eyeing me over with hunger in her eyes.
"A treat," the man says, lunging for me.
Slamming my hands against his chest, I shove him back with all my strength. He barely stumbles, but it gives me enough time to grab Tesha's arm, shut my eyes, and whisk us back to the car where Adessa is waiting.
As soon as we land on the asphalt, I push Tesha down. Her fangs snap out, and she nicks my arm with one of them. Grabbing her wrist, I wrestle her down and make the incision across the triangular mark on her arm. She snarls, trying to bite me, but then, as if she can't resist herself, sinks her teeth into her own arm where the blood is seeping out.
"Adessa!" I shout, trying to pin Tesha down. "Do it now!"
Adessa frantically kneels beside us, her hands trembling as she opens the bag of Vitis vinifera. She sticks some flakes into the open wound, mixing it with the blood. Tesha bites at my arm again, and pissed off as hell, I slap her.
She blinks, stunned, and then her eyes turn murderous. "I'm going to kill you for that," she growls.
"No, you're not," Adessa's says, raising her hands. He skin bla
zes with a flame so powerful I can feel the energy flowing through my own veins. "Liberare vos ligaveris!"
The flames roar and Tesha screams as the mark slithers off her skin and melts into the ground, liquefying into the asphalt.
I'm so relieved it worked. Now Aislin and Laylen can be saved, too. That is, if nothing has happened to them already.
I sit back on my heels and take a few measured breaths, trying to ease the wooziness that suddenly overcomes me.
"I'm so sorry." Tears pour down Tesha's cheeks as she crawls over to Adessa and wraps her arms around her
"It's not your fault." Adessa rubs her hand up and down Tesha's back.
Nope. It's mine. All mine.
Unable to stop myself, I crawl away from them and throw up in the grass. After I've emptied my stomach, I sit down on the curb and rest my head on my knees until Tesha and Adessa walk over.
"And who is she?" Tesha asks, looking down at me, and Adessa smiles at Tesha in a way that makes me grin.
After Adessa gives Tesha the details of who I am, I Foresee the three of us back to Adessa's store. The moment we land in the living room, we're faced with another huge problem.
Adessa sees Aislin standing in the shadows of the room, and she immediately elevates her hands into the air, ready to fire.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Aislin warns, straightening her stance. "Otherwise, we all die."
"You did a Magic Binding Spell?" Adessa's voice carries both horror and awe.
Aislin shrugs. "I've gotten way more powerful since the last time you saw me."
Adessa eyes her over, her gaze lingering on the mark. "I can see that."
Aislin's lips curl into a grin as she emerges from the shadows and steps into the light, towing a chain with her. "Remember these," Aislin asks, jerking at a chain.
A woman with black hair emerges from the shadows right behind Aislin. She's wearing a corset top, lace-up leather boots, and sprouting from her back are a pair of wide, black-feathered wings.
"A Black Angel?" I gape at Aislin. "How did you get one of those?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Aislin sneers, tugging on the chain again.
The Black Angel trips forward, a low growl rumbling from her lips as she glares at me. I try not to look her directly in the eyes as I circle the room, my Keeper instincts kicking into high gear.