Or, my exhausted mind counters, maybe the mystery Sentinelcan’tcome knocking on the door because they’re not nearby? I don’t know the ins and outs of selecting Chosen, but if I can mark Torrez or others simply because I want to, can other Sentinels send their magic out into the world and have it mark the best match for them?
Can selecting Chosen work like some kind of primitive Sentinel Bachelorette? Only instead of a rose and a sham engagement, the Chosen get a lifetime commitment—whether they want it or not—and a fuck ton of new magic and abilities? Did I somehow magically facilitate a match? An image of me holding a clipboard, wearing a Chris Harrison-esque suit, while women sing “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” to me, flashes through my mind. I shake away the weird ass picture and focus on the here and now.
I need caffeine or, better yet, sleep. I’m on the verge of going bat shit crazy.
Knox and Bastien are spitting out threats and struggling against Aydin, Evrin, and the rest of my Chosen, trying to get to Enoch and his coven. I take a deep breath and let the tension and fight leak out of my body. I relax in Torrez’s arms, and on my second deep exhale, he lets me go, clearly trusting that I’ve now gained control of myself. I step into Bastien and Knox’s line of sight, and Knox looks at me as I square off with him and the rest of my Chosen. Bastien doesn’t seem to see anything other than Enoch, Nash, Kallan, and Becket, who he very clearly wants to rip apart. Indignation and hurt flash through Knox’s eyes, and I want to punch my magic hard for making Knox feel that way.
I activate the runes that allow all of us to speak mentally, and shout,“Stop!”The guys cringe at the invasive volume of my command, but it has the desired effect, and they turn their attention to me. Frustration and anger radiate off each of them in thick waves, and before I can even open my mouth to say anything, Knox cuts me off.
“Don’t you fucking say it, Vinna.” He shakes his head vehemently. “I won’t accept them.”
His gray eyes have gone from stormy to solid stone, and I’m shocked by the venom in Knox’s tone and the finality in his statement. I can’t really blame him for feeling that way. Ididjust try to rip Enoch apart too. I probably would have if Torrez hadn’t pointed out my shitty attention to detail. “You don’t want me to tell you that they’re not Chosen? Is that what youdon’twant me to say?”
Knox opens his mouth to argue but stops as my words register.
“Wait, what?” Bastien and Valen ask at the same time.
“The runes are on the wrong finger. They’re not Chosen runes. They’re not even my runes from what I can tell.”
All of the guys drop their gazes to my hands, and then their eyes flit behind me to take in the marks on Enoch and the others.
“These aren’t mate marks?” Enoch asks, confused, and Knox takes a step forward to go after him again. Sabin stops his advance, but Knox stares daggers at Enoch, and his whole body vibrates with anger.
I turn to face Enoch and step in front of Knox slightly. He’ll have to go through me to get to them, but hopefully it won’t come to that. Enoch’s eye is swelling, and from the look of Kallan’s bruising cheek and the cut on his eyebrow, he clearly took a couple of hits to the face, too. I suddenly feel like shit about the fuck-ton ofattack first, ask questions laterthat’s floating around the room.
“No,” I answer.
I step toward Enoch and his coven, and I don’t miss when Kallan tenses at my approach. I look at him and hope that my lapse in judgement hasn’t fucked up our friendship beyond repair. I’m not sure what the standard time for friendship-recovery is when one person tries to kill the other, but I don’t push him. I stop a few feet away and hold up my hand, my fingers splayed and my palm facing me.
“My Chosen runes all run down the lines of myringfinger. Your runes are on yourmiddlefingers,” I point out.
Kallan and Enoch aren’t the only ones to look at their hands, and I try not to feel even more unsettled when I see that Becket and Nash are marked too. They all stare at their runes, and the room grows quiet for a couple of seconds.
“Wait, but these ones look the same,” Enoch announces, and he twists his hand so that I can see the side of his middle finger and the small symbols etched there.
I step closer to him and grab his hand, moving it so I can see the symbols that run up one side of his finger and down the other side. Sure enough, I have the exact same runes there.Well, that sure as fuck complicates things. I guess there goes myI didn’t do thistheory. I look at the others’ hands to double-check. The runes on each side of their middle fingers match the runes I have in the same place, symbol for symbol.
For whatever reason, I’m just missing the symbols that they have running up the center of their fingers. The first rune, the one that starts just below Enoch’s nail, is a black circle. Inside the circle, it looks as if an eight-pointed star has been cut out. Below that mystery rune are four others that I’ve never seen before. My thoughts drift to Torrez and the same issue we seem to be having of missing runes.
Is this the same problem? Did I somehow mark them but do it wrong?
I’m not sure why I keep asking myself any questions; it’s not like my magic has a habit of explaining anything that it does. I reach for Kallan’s hand, and a surge of relief washes through me when he doesn’t flinch away or stop me. I run my eyes over the same marks on his hand. Oddly, he has an extra mark on the side of his palm. It’s a twin to the mark that showed up on me when I magicjacked Elder Kowka the day the elders took me away from Lachlan. I hold up his hand and then look at his coven.
“Anyone else get this rune?” I ask, pointing at it, and they all double-check before answering no.
“We all have more marks on us, but each of them is different,” Enoch informs me, and a new wave of frustrated confusion flashes through me, but I mask it. What the fuck does he mean that they have more marks, but they’re all different?
Enoch turns around and pulls up the back of his shirt. He has two lines of runes that run down his spine. Runes that I would know anywhere because they’re for my long sword and my staff. Nash pulls up the side of his shirt, revealing the runes for my short swords on each side of his ribs. I look at Becket expectantly, and that’s when reality slams into me like a fucking freight train.
Shit. Does he know what just went down with his dad?
I give him a small smile, and he offers me a tentative one back. I can’t help the tinge of suspicion that seeps into my thoughts as I watch him, waiting for him to show me which of my runes he somehow ended up with. I think back to the day the elders were testing my magic. Becket and his dad seemed close, closer than I thought Enoch and his dad appeared to be. Could Becket have been in on what his dad was up to?
I look over to find Torrez leaning against the wall. When my eyes meet his, he immediately pushes off and strides over.
“Yes, Witch?” he asks me, his voice deliciously growly and momentarily distracting.
I shake away any reaction I have to his tone, and I lean into him, dropping my voice. “Can you do that wholesmell the truththing that you do?” He nods, and I sneak a deep comforting pull of his scent before turning back to Becket.
