She shivered, her entire body shaking with it, but her gaze when she turned to look at Raven was steady. “Why is Dominick’s call so familiar to me?”
Raven scrubbed a hand over his short hair and muttered under his breath.
His eyes seemed to dance with fire, with stars, with deadly, bright sparks of power. “Because he was turned by the monsters who attacked you nearly a hundred years ago.”
For such a bombshell revelation, it was very quiet in the car.
Lula’s only reaction was to lick the blood off her bottom lip.
I couldn’t process the information, my brain too scrambled with noise. So, I closed it off, pushed it away. Ignored it.
“Will Dominick’s blood heal Rhianna?” I asked, needing something concrete on which to focus.
“Itmight,” he admitted reluctantly. “I don’t have a say over that outcome—by which I mean it is not strictly within my power to affect that outcome.” He tapped his thumb on his knee.
“The witches are a wild card,” he said. “They have very powerful magic on their hands in Bun Bun. She’s good at this kind of thing, elixirs of life and whatnot.”
“Then they don’t need us.” My voice was too loud in my ears. I wanted out of here. Wanted Lula out of here before she confronted Dominick—
—without me—
—before she fought him alone.
“You’re a god,” I went on. “Why don’t you fly in there and steal back Rhianna? Why don’t you take the vampire’s blood?”
“Brogan,” Raven said gently, as if he were trying to set me down carefully, trying to keep me from breaking along shattered lines where the glue wouldn’t hold. “I am doing more than I should. I am meddling in something that Fate has set into motion. I am using my powers in a way…in a way that will almost certainly cost me.”
Lorde got to her feet and put her head on my knees, looking up at me and whining softly.
“It’s not the first time I’ve put a stone on the scales to make it tip the way I want,” Raven said, “but this involves the spellbook. Anything—everything—to do with that book comes with consequences. To humans, supernaturals, gods, the universe.”
“So, you won’t get involved?” I said, “What good are you?”
“I never said I was good,” Raven said. “But you’re right. Someone needs to save the child. Variance can’t. He’ll be chewed up and spat out into little gobbets of flesh if he fights Dominick. He shouldn’t leave the protection of the coven.
“But the book has resurfaced. Gods are battling on this earth. All wheels spin, and the beginning will always become the end. Dominick might have lost all sanity, but he has not lost his will to survive.
“It was always going to come to this,” he said. “You’ve spent years searching for the monster who destroyed your lives. This is the beginning of that hunt’s end. Through Dominick, his blood, his death, you will find the bindings that tie him to the monsters who nearly killed you both.”
Lula closed her eyes and swallowed. “You’re a trickster god,” she said. “We can’t take you at your word.”
“No, you cannot. Whose word would you take?”
She shook her head.
“We need some time to think,” I said. “Away from vampire territory.”
Raven grinned. It was boyish and wicked. I had a moment to be glad he was on our side, or might be on our side, or at least wasn’t currently against us.
“I know a place. Hang on.” He snapped his fingers.
Nothing happened. It was still dark out. We were still in the truck.
But the air had changed. It smelled sweeter, for one thing, and more humid. Also, the wrong bugs were singing.
Lorde got up so she could look out the window, andwoofed.
“I would have done this earlier,” Raven said, “but Bathin is a real pain in the ass, and wanted to meet you in Texas.”
