Page 57 of Savage Sacrifice
“Jonah,” I breathe, remembering him more vividly since Belladora called his name in the vision, and he smiles at me. It’s genuine, filled with hope, and it leaves me off balance and unnerved.
“You’re real,” he states, pausing at the end of my row, and I nod, a tiny huff of laughter bursting from my lips.
“So are you.” He winks playfully as he tucks his hands into his pants pockets, and I take my chance, cutting straight to the point. “Do you have anything you wish to share about the blood kin curse at all?”
His entire body stiffens as his lips part, but whatever he wants to say won’t come out. Instead, he shakes his head with a gruff grunt before settling his stare on me again. “Break the curse, Polaris. It’s what you were destined to do.”
I rear back in surprise. “Says who?”
He shakes his head again. “A center is always a center, Polaris. Illusion or not.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugs, just like Octantis did before, pointing a finger at me.
“Only you.”
The thump of the door swinging against the wall cuts through the air, followed by the sound of laughter and students, drawing my attention away from Jonah for a moment, and when I turn my head back, he’s gone.
The class passesin a blur and I take nothing in, my mind locked on Jonah’s parting words. The second the bell rings, bringing the class to an end, I bolt from my seat, but before I can dart toward Octantis, he’s gone, having already slipped through the door behind his desk.
I purse my lips, letting the rest of the class filter out before I take the steps down two at a time, but when I swing the door open, all I find is a storage closet.
A freaking closet.
Dammit.
Frustrated, I sweep my hair back off my face and march back up the stairs, rushing down the hallway before I find myself back outside in the quad. Any hopes of him magically appearing before me with answers are slim, so it’s no real surprise when it doesn’t happen. My cell phone vibrates in my pocket, and I dig my hand in to see what the notification is for.
Ben:Raincheck on that coffee.
Relief floods my veins.In the whirlwind of the members of the original witch’s coven, I forgot all about meeting him for coffee.
I have time to waste, and I know attending another class is going to be useless right now anyway. My mind is even more preoccupied than it was when I first woke up.
I react with a thumbs-up emoji before stuffing my cell phone in my pocket and making a beeline for home.Temporaryhome.
No one is there when I step into the house, and I hurry upstairs to my room, falling back against the door with a sigh. Overwhelmed, I dig my cell phone back out and scroll through the limited contacts I have saved.
My thumb hovers above Blaze’s name, then Wylder’s, Tatum’s, Asher’s, and Lincoln’s before I settle on my preferred option: Minnie.
I drop my backpack by the door as I dive toward my bed, bouncing with a grunt as the dial tone echoes around me. I don’t even know how their numbers are in there. Surely that’s not something that would transfer over with the blood kin curse, so it has to have something to do with the girl in question when they were here yesterday. I don’t even remember being near my cell phone, but everything was a blur, to be honest.
“Hey, are you okay?” she blurts down the line, panic in her voice, and I bite back a smile.
“I’m fine. Overwhelmed and stressed, but fine,” I insist, and I hear her sigh with relief.
“Overwhelmed and stressed, I can work with. Let’s switch to video,” she mutters, and I accept the invite the second it appears on my screen. Her face fills the display a moment later and I smile.
“Remind me why I didn’t think of this last night so I could at least pretend to fall asleep with someone,” I mutter, and she snickers.
“That’s your treat for tonight now,” she says with a wink, and I shake my head at her as I shuffle up the bed so I can sit against the headboard.
“How is everything there?” I ask, and she shrugs.
“Good. No progress, but the world isn’t crumbling. So, what has you stressed and overwhelmed, apart from the fact you’re missing me?” she asks, eyebrow cocked in question, and I verbally vomit the entirety of my psych class to her, from Octantis, to Jonah, to the magical closet.
When I’m done, silence stretches for a brief moment before she nods. “Yeah, that sounds stressful and overwhelming for sure. Maybe we—” Whatever she was about to say is cut off as a door slams off camera and she frowns.
