Page 155 of Jagged Souls
“He’s gay.”
“They’re giving him Ricks.” The male equivalent of a V.
Vlad turns from me so I can’t see the pain on his face, but I don’t need to when his soul screams just like mine. I look back down at the book in my hands, searching for any way to stave off the payment of the blood bond. She’s been gone for nine-and-a-half weeks. With how much I pulled on the magic to find her and how much of her emotions I have felt since… Khalid thinks we might only have four or five weeks left before it starts to kill her.
And so I read because I know in the pit of my soul that we will not save her before then.
We might not save her at all...
Forty-Five
HIM
My eyes are going three rounds with my heart, beating the shit out of it, pinning it in a corner and not giving it any room to fight back. To defend itself. It can’t even fuckingbreathe.My father’s words are burrowing into my skull, hammering fist after fist into the pit of my soul, and I surge to my feet on the last page. As that last word delivers the knockout blow.
My whole body trembling, I flip the book upside down, spread it open, and shake it. Praying something falls out. Some last scrap of paper. A wayward note to tell me if the spell he detailed worked. Nothing.
“Aleric!” I shout as I shake the grimoire harder. But I’ve been through every page. I know there’s nothing else tucked inside it. Twisting the book around, I run my fingers along the inside of the front, then back cover, seeing if there’s a hidden pocket anywhere.
“What is it?” Vlad demands, his voice tight, but he does not have the information I want, so I ignore him. I stride towards the door, though I’m not certain if he’ll reappear before I get there or if he’ll let me walk out of here just to see the blood bond bite me in the ass.
My feet grind to a halt, my brain finally pulling on their reins. Of course he’d let me deliberately break my oath and watch as the gods punish me. He’sAleric.
“What. Is. It?” Vlad demands again, his voice ice cold. He phases in front of me, his eyes turning a ruby red as the control on his rage slips.
My Craving surges forward, always lying in the pit of my stomach, a cancer spreading out. It wants to match his bloodthirst, and I take a step back, my nostrils flaring, my hands shaking. Vampires can feed on each other, and his pulse calls to me like a late night snack.
His eyes narrow. “You’ve not been feeding.”
“How well did you know Caden?” I demand, changing the subject to something that actually matters. Vlad was around before the treaty Mother forced them all to sign; he might know something I can use.
His lips tighten, but his eyes shift back to their normal green. Not quite as radiant as Rudy’s, but darker, like the heart of a forest whose roots are awash with blood. He holds on sharper to his control for me – and for him. The Craving is a breaking of the mind, an individual’s reduction from man to beast, but it is also semi-contagious, able to spread like a mob’s mentality. Like pollen through a forest, infecting an entire vamp nest or wolf pack with its madness. Temporarily, perhaps, but the damage would be done.
“He was ruthless, and there wasn’t a line he wouldn’t cross to protect the Shadow Family… or your mother.” He looks away, wrestling with his rage. Given Caden killed Vlad’s sister, I can guess the rest of his thoughts.
“What happened between the three of them?” I demand, finally curious, finally needing to know so I can make sense of the book of shadows in my hands. The one that ends on a spell that’ll destroy the blood bond as if it never were.
He looks back at me, studying me. He knows I’m not asking just for midnight gossip. Breathing out heavily, his jaw tics as he says, “Caden loved your mother, but Aleric wanted her. I can’t speak on her feelings –”
“But she never squirted with your father,” Aleric cuts in as he saunters back into the library.
The urge to hit him is almost stronger than the Craving. I clench the grimoire tight as I hold it up. “Did he do it?”
Is that why he left? Why she’s so ashamed to talk about it? He gave her everything, and all she had were regrets? Or did he do it when he came back?
Aleric shrugs a lazy shoulder, but his eyes are sharp and obsessive. “He was nauseatingly lovesick. Who knows?”
“You said you knew him well.”
“Better than anyone,” he says easily. “Including his wife and brother.”
“Did he do it?” I demand again.
Can I replicate it from afar? Break the bond so we have more time to save Micha?
Aleric stares at me for a long moment before he says, “I think he might’ve tried.”
“When?”
