Page 122

I had to kill her before he was forced to.

I pulled the blade up, gripped to stab, and would have plunged it straight into her heart. But I was too slow.

Hot, searing, jangling pain erupted in my belly, right below my navel, freezing me in place, my dagger clattering to the dirt at my feet.

A strange cry broke in my throat as she yanked me forward until we were nose to nose. I clamped shaking hands on her wrist and fought, struggling to push her away, but my arms were too weak.

Her lips peeled back from her teeth and she hissed, “He’ll never belong to you.”

But, a split second later, she was slammed sideways as a shadow of midnight eyes and raven-black hair screamed “Noooo!” and took her to ground.

The jerk of her hand pulling the blade free sent another crackle of consuming pain through me and I collapsed, curled around my stomach, pain searing until I was unable to breathe.

“Remove it! Whatever you did—unravel it!” Voski snarled, pinning his mother to the ground and shaking her. “REMOVE IT NOW!”

“It wasn’t m-magik. It was a blade. You can’t defeat that, can you, Vane?” she gasped.

“I’m not afraid of you anymore,” he hissed. “I can defeat anything that comes from you,” he snarled, then clamped a hand to her throat and ground her into the dirt as she gripped his wrist. “You said power doesn’t ask, it commands. Well, hear me, Mother: You’ll give me the Dominus mark. Give me the darkness that rides your blood, every ounce of it. You’ll never touch it again. No one will. Ever.”

The moment his teeth closed on the word, her limbs flew wide, her back arched off the ground, and the scream that tore out of her throat—past his grip—rose to rival the dragons in the sky above.

Through half-closed eyes, and the haze of pain, I watched, terrified, as Voski was flung bodily off of her in a burst of power and light, throwing him as easily as a rag doll, halfway across the clearing.

Friend or Foe?

~ VOSKI ~

My body crackled with heat and pain and light. I was thrown back with such force, I bounced when I landed. My ears rang. My sight narrow, darkened around the edges. And the only thing I could hear was my own pulse thundering in my ears. I lay for a moment, blinking, assessing my body.

Though slightly winded, I wasn’t injured. Yet, I could feel something in my chest. And a burning sensation on my skin.

I had felt that before.

I panicked.

Scrambling to my feet, I clawed at my clothing with trembling hands, yanking my jacket open, and pulling the sides of my shirt apart, popping buttons as I did so.

Then I froze.

Right at the center of my chest, directly over the spot where the bond between Grace and me swelled, next to my heart, lay a mark like the sun. A perfect circle with wavy lines emanating from it had appeared on my skin, and though it looked benign, my skin burned, as if branded.

Tattooed? The skin was darkened in precise lines like a tattoo, but in a deep, warm brown, rather than black-green ink.

The Dominus mark. It had returned to me.

Had I killed her?

My head snapped up as the chaos around me finally reached my senses.

Screaming people. Roaring dragons. Flames in the sky. And many feet away, but directly in front of me, my mother. Not dead. She was on all fours in the dirt—screaming.

“How! How did you take it? I’m not dead—how did you take it from me?!”

Gone was her normal aplomb, and smug cheer. There was no sign of her unruffled and impossible-to-shock façade.

She crawled toward me on shaking limbs, screaming, eyes wide with confusion and fear.

She was still alive. But also… disarmed.