Page 89 of Illusory

“So, um, did you want to run some combat drills with me?” I asked Gabriel, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice so as to not appear too needy or give the impression that I was panic-running from Trace and Dominic.

Which I was.

Of course, it wasn’t all ulterior motives and grand schemes either. It had been a really long time since Gabriel and I trained together the way we used to at Temple, and suddenly, it felt like something I really needed. Besides, between the three of them, Gabriel was definitely the safer bet right now.

“Actually, I was thinking now might be a good time to start working on a way to retrieve the Sang Noir from Temple since we’re all…well, since we’re all here together,” suggested Gabriel as he effectively squashed my great escape plan. “As much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, the Council is breathing down my neck to set up a meeting with you regarding the Horsemen,” he went on, his eyes already looking bogged down with the weight of the world. “It’s only a matter of time before they do something brash, and I’d rather not wait for it to come to that.”

And by brash, he meant the Council’s plan to coerce me into some anointing ritual that would essentially strip me of my identity and turn me into the Fourth Horseman, thus activating their Power of Four.

If we had any hope of stopping that whole-ass mess, and sending the Horsemen packing altogether, we needed to get our hands on Angel magic, and as it stood, the Sang Noir was the only book on Earth that came close to it.

“So, we get the book then.”

“We get the book,” he agreed, leaving out one tiny detail.

The tiny detail being the matter of whether he haddiscussed any of that with Trace since he was the one that was going to have to teach me how to port into Temple in the first place.

“Great…so…” My gaze slid to Trace then who was still watching me with a strange look in his eye. I averted my gaze as a nervous flutter unsettled my stomach. “Have you…discussed the plan with, you know, everyone that needs to know about the plan?” My gaze boomeranged between Dominic and Gabriel, hoping one of them would understand what the hell I was talking about.

“Everyone being me?” asked Trace, a small frown playing around his lips.

“No. I mean, well, yeah. Like all of us.” I shook my head, swallowing against the tiny lump that had lodged itself just below my tonsils. “It’s just…we have to get the book, and I know it’s a big ask right now and that things are still…you know, new for you, and I really didn’t want to have to—”

“Ask me yourself?” he guessed.

“No.” I shifted my weight again. “Make things harder on you.”

“Right.”

I chewed on my lip as I met Dominic’s eyes then, looking for some kind of lifeline, and faltered at the way they gazed back at me with such visceral broken sadness. More pieces of my heart whittled away.

“So, are you going to?” asked Trace, drawing my attention back to himself.

“Am I going to what?” I responded, momentarily confused and then gasped as he vanished into thin air from his chair before reappearing directly in front of me, his body towering over mine by at least a full foot.

Our soulmate bond buzzed under my skin at his sudden proximity.

“Ask me yourself,” he finished and then wrapped his arms around me and smiled, his dimples blinking at me like a beacon of light as the cold biting air swept in and took us away.

28. STOLEN KISSES

The sound of screeching chairs and frantic shouts left me so quickly that I hadn’t even been sure I’d heard them in the first place. Everything around us disintegrated and all I could think about was the bone-chilling cold cycling over my skin and through my body as Trace held me against himself and ported us away.

Away from the safety of my home and the watchful eyes of Gabriel and Dominic and back to the Macarthur family cabin he had taken me to all those months ago.

A cabin that also happened to be dozens of miles away from even a hint of civilization.

Panic exploded in my chest as the room slowly solidified around us. The second I was sure my feet were back on solid ground, I pushed his arms off me and reared back, my heart slamming thunderously against my ribcage at the knowledge that I was in a very precarious situation with a very new vampire that only had a very mild grasp on his humanity at the moment.

Whatthe hellwas he thinking doing this?

I wanted to ask him just that—to scream at him for bringing us here and not asking my permission, to demand that he take me back to the Blackburn Estateright now, but there were too many thoughts churning around in my head at once. Too many questions I couldn’t fully organize. Too much panic seizing everything at the same time.

“Don’t be scared,” he said as I shook my head back and forth, retreating further and further away from him even though I knew I had nowhere to run and no place to hide. “I won’t hurt you.”

Except that that was precisely the kind of thing that people who hurt people said right before they hurt them. Not that I thought Trace would want to purposely hurt me, but he wasn’t exactly in full control of all his faculties yet and I really didn’t want to stick around to find out just how much he was or wasn’t.

“Please take me back to my house, Trace. I want to go back,” I said, the tremble in my words distorting my voice almost beyond recognition.

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