Okay, I actuallyreallywanted sausage right now, but I refused to chase Lucian for it.
“Let’s try this. Roll on your back, Khalid,” Sage said.
If it had beenanyoneelse, I would have bitten them. I was not okay with showing my belly to anyone else. I had no idea why she’d asked this of me, but she was my mate and I trusted her implicitly.
Sage asked Liam to sing and started stroking my belly. I instantly relaxed, and my tongue lolled out of my mouth. Yeah, I wasn’t going to zoomie like the common canine, but belly rubs were very nice. I could get used to that.
The only thing keeping me from completely passing out and falling asleep was Liam’s voice. It made sense. I didn’t know what the original Horned God or the reincarnations that came before Liam were like, but music had been around forever.
Liam wasn’t a siren, but it was as if he was tapping into something primal when he sang. He healed the trees, and I could feel my mind coming back to itself. Sage’s hand kept stroking my belly, and my fight-or-flight instincts started retreating.
I still knew we were seriously fucked unless we could figure out who Apep was and how to kill void beings. But the rational part of my brain started to take over and realize I could protect Sage better by researching how to do that than with sharp canines.
My body shuddered, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled naked across Sage’s lap. She ran her fingernails across my abs, and I broke out in goosebumps.
“How did you know that would work?”
Seriously, I already knew she was a goddess, but the moon was streaming over her shoulder through the open window,giving her red hair a silvery glow, and she knew exactly what I needed. She was perfect, and she wasmine.
“Liam has some kind of magic with his music. We didn’t need to rile you up; we needed to calm you down. I figured petting you while he sang might help.”
I laughed because it definitely did. And Liam was probably going to roast me for this later, and I didn’t care.
“I don’t suppose you could still break into the kitchen and steal sausage?”
I’m sorry, but why were weallsleeping in Sage’s bed? I had to sleep hanging off the edge of the bed instead of spooning Sage because Khalid had to be close to her so he didn’t shift again, and Liam threatened me with that fucking knife because he said it was his turn.
He didn’t need to bring the switchblade out because I would have let him if he had asked. I’d been snuggling with her every night, and I wasn’t a selfish prick. Liam stole the blanketsandmy pillow. He also stuck his cold feet all over me.
I eventually realized I was never going to get back to sleep, and breakfast was in two hours, anyway. Instead of lying in bed and thinking about biting Liam, I should probably get upand research. I knew they were all counting on the library and Headmaster Mykene, but after doing alotof digging, I finally found what I knew definitely had to exist.
I hadn’t been in this world long, but I knew damned well there was a place in the dark recesses of the supernatural web where you could have someone cursed, buy something illegal, or hell, even post that potion recipe Lola wasn’t supposed to have. In theory, Lola could have gotten it there, but I honestly didn’t think she was smart enough to pull it off. She’d made several glaring mistakes in her big, evil plot, and I honestly hadn’t figured out why she attacked Liam like that.
Then again, I knew nothing about the reincarnation of Apep. Maybehe’dfigured out the supernatural dark web, and that was why I couldn’t find any messages on Lola’s phone. Shecouldbe using a burner phone with no internet, or they could be passing coded messages on the dark web.
One of the vampires had introduced me to this blood drink in the dining hall. I could really go for one right now. I usually liked to work with Turkish coffee and some papanasi back home, but I couldn’t get that here. With everything going on with Samhain, I really needed blood and had visions dancing in my head of punching a boba straw in Liam’s jugular and drinking until I felt better that he stole my pillow.
Sage would probably be upset, so I tabled that and ignored my thirst. Let’s see what kind of depravity supernaturals got up to in the dark corners of the internet. Before I could even look, someone joined me. I would have preferred Sage, but I didn’t mind Khalid. I actually really liked his company.
“Did you find something? Sage might have figured out how to change me back, but I’m still worried.”
“So, to access the dark web, you need a special browser. To access supernatural websites, you also need a special browser. I figured there also has to be a special browser to access thesupernatural dark web. I found it and downloaded it before we left for the bonfire, but I haven’t had a chance to play with it, and we hadn’t been visited by Sage’s father to know we were dealing with Apep.”
“What do you think you’ll find there? Can I help?”
“I had my own little corner of the dark web. If you gave me a name and a good enough reason to look twice at a person or corporation, I’d dig into it to see if you were telling the truth. If you were, I’d take them down. Other shit goes down there. You can buy black market items, or sometimes criminals use it to pass messages. An illegal fairy roofie potion could be posted there, but if you don’t want to risk someone finding your burner phone, you could chat with your coconspirator.”
“Yeah, but you’re one of the smartest people I know when it comes to electronics. How would anyone else find this before you did?”
Yeah, I preened a little. It didn’t mean shit when most people told me I was smart because they were fucking morons and it wasn’t hard to be smarter than them. But Khalid was brilliant, so it meant something. He was smart in a different way than I was. It was an honor to be bonded with Sage, with him.
“Apep might not be in our year, and they might have been awake before they got here. And I figured out how now that we know it’s Apep.”
That was part of what was preventing me from sleeping. That and my lack of a pillow and Liam’s cold feet. They said it was very rare for one of us to come out of the pool awake. I didn’t think it would happen to two people at the same time.
“Apep could be older and helped Lola remember everything. They might have even started figuring everything out before they got kidnapped and have been searching for their Hemlock. They get kidnapped and end up in a place where other reincarnationsare or wind up, hears Headmaster Mykene’s speech, and decides to bide their time.
“I don’t understand most of these cosmic connections. Liam and Sage have one, and he felt it while they were still at that hostel in Amsterdam. I’m not quite sure why he wasn’t as obnoxious about it in Amsterdam as he is here, but Sage feels it now that she’s around him. She felt it when Lola was trying to hurt him. It stands to reason Apep would be able to feel when his Hemlock was back.”
