“No matter what I do,” he says, tracing my face, my throat, my breasts, “I can’t stop wanting you. Christ, what have you done to me?”
His last words echo, an accusation that shudders through my bones. Reality comes crashing over me, like a bucket of icy water from the melted walls.
I can’t stop wanting him, either. But I have to. Because if he’s as addicted to me as I am to him, if he craves my touch the same way, then there’s no way what happens now will end here. If we do this—if I let him inside me in every way—then there will be no turning back.
Wanting me like this will kill him.
I draw a deep breath, bracing myself to say the inevitable. Hating myself, because finding ourselves in this position again is my fault, just as much as his.
It’s not what I’ve done,I want to tell him.It’s what I’m doing. What I’m fated to do.
But I never get a chance to, because, like it’s been waiting for this perfectly imperfect moment, a premonition hits.
Chapter
Forty-Three
This time,when the red haze descends over my vision, there’s no fighting it. I try breathing deeply, like Cooper showed me, but it doesn’t help. The door in my mind creaks open, revealing the red-tinged room beyond, and the undertow tugs at my feet, pulling me forward.Come,it coaxes.See.
I don’t want to go. I want to stay right here with Donovan, even if he doesn’t believe a word I say. But here comes the double vision, the world of my premonition layering over this one. I see Donovan stroking my hair, hear him saying my name. But I also see myself walking closer and closer to the open door, then stepping through into?—
I expect to find myself in the small white room, the way I usually do. Or worse, in my childhood home, in the moments before my parents were taken from me forever. But instead, I’m standing in that damned garden, the one that smells of honeysuckle. The melodic notes of Pachelbel’s Canon fill my ears, and when I look down at myself with a dawning sense of horror, I’m wearing the same gorgeous, delicate wedding dress. My bare toes peek from beneath the hem, the nails painted a gleaming champagne hue to match.
I open my mouth to scream. I try to run. But no sound comes out, and just like before, I find myself floating over the rose-petal-strewn grass toward the groom beneath the arched, white-flowered arbor. Toward Donovan.
He looks so handsome. So happy to see me. But he’s not alone. Because from among the crowd seated on the folding chairs rises one hooded figure after another. Blood Witches, concealed among my friends and the residents of Sapphire Springs. They stalk down the aisle, toward the place where Donovan stands.
“Donovan, run!” I shriek. This time, my voice rises loud and clear, drowning out the musicians. But Donovan doesn’t obey. He just stands there, looking perplexed, watching his death barrel toward him.
I want to save him. To stop this. But the world of the premonition shimmers, the undertow pulling me back through the doorway, into the world I’ve left behind.
I expect to land back in my body, to feel Donovan’s touch. Instead, my consciousness floats upward, hovering somewhere near the vaulted ceiling. From my vantage point far above, I see Donovan shaking me. My head lolls back, my eyes open but glazed, my body limp. He runs his hands over me, then shoves them through his hair in desperation. The cords in his neck stand out as he shouts for help. But no one comes.
He must think I’m dying. Or having some kind of seizure. My heart wrenches as I watch his agony, unable to tell him otherwise.
Donovan might act like he wants nothing to do with me other than to bury himself inside my body, but seeing this, I know better. For whatever reason, against all odds, he cares about me. Rejecting him, the confusion over Cooper…I’vehurthim, and he’s been protecting himself the only way he knows how: by pretending he doesn’t give a crap.
Him. Me. Cooper. All of us are trying to keep him safe. But looking at him right now through the strange double vision of my premonition, I know we’ve failed. Because we can save his life, sure. But that doesn’t do fuck-all to cure a broken heart.
The undertow tugs at me again, sucking me back through the doorway, into the desecrated garden. In the seconds I’ve been gone, the hooded figures have formed a circle around Donovan. Just like the day my parents died, one of them pulls a knife from their robe. I recognize the raw arrogance in the gesture, the undiluted sense of triumph.
It’s my father’s murderer. Still alive and kicking, after all these years.
“Our day has finally come.Non sine sanguine gloria,” he bellows. And the other figures echo, “No glory without blood.”
Like the doomed band on the Titanic, the musicians are still playing. The cellist drags her bow across the strings, the instrument voicing a raw, guttural note as the leader bares his forearm and slices it with the blade. Blood wells up, and beneath it, half-obscured by crimson, the scroll-and-dagger symbol appears on his skin. It glows the same way the stones did in the Hall of Mirrors, as if lit from within. Looking almost like a?—
No. It can’t be.
Donovan’s arm. The curlicue of ink. The tattoo he never bares in its entirety.
I don’t have time to follow my train of thought to its horrifying conclusion before the rest of the hooded figures follow suit, slicing their forearms. One by one, the symbol materializes on their skin. One by one, they dip their fingers in their own blood. And just like it did in my memory of my parents’ deaths, the scroll-and-dagger emblazons itself in the air.
It burns there, its edges ragged, as the rest of the wedding guests scramble to their feet. I don’t know if they can seethe symbol, but they sure as hell can seesomething.They shove past each other, leaving purses and suit jackets behind. Even the musicians have dropped their instruments and taken flight. Alone among the crowd, Mrs. Grant, Mrs. Fontaine, Mrs. Hernandez, and Ella Campbell stand their ground. Their hands curve through the air, tracing intricate shapes, and their lips move, chanting the same words again and again:Cavea ad tenebras continendas.
I don’t know what it means. But I can see what it does.
Sparks fly from the coven members’ fingers. They flicker, then merge and elongate into chains of fire that stretch toward the Blood Witches, seeking to contain them. To bind them.
