Page 39 of Under a Wicked Moon
The door swung open. The six-foot-something mage folded his arms across his wide chest. His short dark hair and raised geometric sigils on his neck and arms were a pink contrast to his pale skin. He gave all four of them a pinched expression. His appearance had arrested around the late thirties, even though hewas hundreds, maybe thousands, of years old. His bulky muscles looked more akin to someone who hauled stone for a living than a guy who moonlighted for kicks as an ER doctor around Europe. Ky had never seen him in anything other than scrubs or a lab coat. In jeans and a black button-down shirt, he exuded a misleading sense of elegant normalcy, albeit in a villain-esque way.
This was the oldest living being any of them had ever been around, not counting the angel they’d worked with twice this year.
“You’re late.” Dom’s lips pressed into a white slash. His eyes glittered diamond-sharp and cold.
“Are you going to keep us out here all night or get this business sorted?” Roman asked.
The mage examined Vivi. Both eyebrows slowly rose. “These boys aren’t good at introductions. I’m Domini Tavlin. You can call me Dom.”
“Dom? Like the main character in theFuriousmovies?” Vivi asked.
“Exactly like him. Maybe I am he, only taller and much better looking.” Dom’s lips twisted into a smirk. He turned and strode inside. “Good to meet you, Vivienne.”
“How’d he know my name?” she whispered.
“Guess we follow,” Flynn muttered.
“Don’t touch anything,” Dom called behind him. “Some things in here don’t react well to being messed with.”
“This place is lit with energy. Can you feel it?” Vivi asked Ky. She held her hands a few inches away from an ancient cuneiform tablet mounted to a wall. “Incredible.”
Ky squinted as he passed the tablet to examine its tiny impressions. “Mesopotamian.”
She paused in front of a limestone head whose face had long ago eroded into a smoothed surface with minimal contours.Enough definition remained to make out eyes and where a nose had been.
He caught her hand before she touched the face. “Everything related to Dom is dangerous. We have to assume that includes his art, if this is actually his place.”
As they moved deeper into the house, the aroma of garlic and fresh bread almost sent Ky to his knees. He missed preparing food far more than eating it. The smells, the crafting of a personal cuisine that resonated, the putting food together in a non-formulaic way, creating dishes he loved and knew everyone he fed would savor… He missed it.
They entered a dimly lit sitting room with several settees he gauged to be eighteenth-century, spun in reds and golds, and a huge wood-burning fireplace that radiated intense heat. Dom waved to the furniture, indicating they should take a seat.
Ky and Vivi squished hip-to-hip on the settee opposite the druid. It was a tribute to its carpentry that it held without so much as a groan of complaint. Flynn and Roman claimed stuffed chairs close to the fire.
They all stared.
Dom blinked.
Finally, Dom released an irritated exhale. “Do you prefer I put you at ease and ask why you’re here?”
When no one answered, Dom said, “You want to find out what you can’t remember and know why they don’t want you remembering. Who wants to go first?”
“I will,” Ky said.
Dom waved at the spot next to him. As Ky relocated, Dom said softly, “They didn’t take care of you. Do you think they planned to kill you soon?”
“I felt like my countdown clock was getting low.”
“You ready?”
He’d never be ready.
Dom was going to deep-read him in order to see into the recesses of his mind. Ky didn’t want him knowing anything beyond the last few weeks. But it was inevitable he’d see all of it.
A light touch on his forearm and Ky felt like his mind was hijacked. No magical reveal of lost memories ensued. Worst of all, he remained paralyzed for as long as Dom touched him. He couldn’t even open his mouth to say stop. What was probably only moments later, but for Ky felt like hours, Dom removed his hold.
Dom made a “hmm” noise and worked his teeth back and forth.
Ky bit back the urge to yell at him to tell him everything. The look on his brothers’ faces said the same thing. With Dom, you kept your mouth closed until he was ready to speak. Irritate him, and he might tell you nothing.
