Page 28 of The First Trial
‘What the fuck,’ Enid whimpered beside me, her eyes wide in shock and horror at where they’d all disappeared. She was clutching at her arm, and I noticed with an absent sort of shock that she was bleeding from a deep gouge down her bicep.
Another voice, one deeper than I’d ever heard before, like rocks grinding but somehow smoother, spoke up in a language that sent shivers of trepidation down my spine. It was gutturaland beautiful at the same time, but also exuded a sense of wrongness I couldn’t shake.
I turned wild eyes on the purple Daemon, wondering why he would try to help. What was his connection to Junie, and why did he look so wrecked that she was gone? That wasmyjob, as her only real family. My brain supplied the image of his expression when he first walked up to Junie, and I had to physically restrain myself from launching at him.
‘Whothe fuck are you?’ I demanded, but his only response was to dip his brows over yellow eyes and tilt his head to the side. Confusion. He didn’t understand my words.
I sighed and gritted my teeth in frustration, but decided it would be better to at least know the man who was suddenly so fixated on my twin. He had tried to help me save her, after all.
I pointed to myself. ‘Oz.’ Then I pointed to him with an eyebrow raised in question.
He copied the motion and thankfully understood enough to provide his own name. ‘Phenex.’ His voice was so low, gravelly, andinhumanthat it took a moment for me to decipher the sounds into something even remotely comprehensible, but I managed.
Hawthorne stepped up beside me, his entire body vibrating with untapped rage. Junie was my sister, but my best friend had been in love with her for a long time now. I couldn’t imagine how he would be feeling, especially since they didn’t actually have any sort of relationship. Regret swamped me as I tried not to feel guilty about keeping them apart. It wasn’t intentional. It was the damn curse. I would never trust anyone with her besides him because I knew he would take care of her, and she him. They were a match made in heaven, kept apart by a devil’s curse.
The true definition of star-crossed lovers.
And I hated that I was a part of the reason for the gaping chasm between them.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, his voice hard.
‘Guys…’ Enid tried to interrupt, but we ignored her.
‘He wanted to help,’ I said simply, unable to elaborate.
‘Guys…’
‘Why would he want to help? He’s not even one of us,’ he grouched.
‘I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Thorne. The more muscle the better, and he seemed…friendlyenough.’
‘Guys!’
I swivelled around to glare at Enid, only to stop short at the fear she emanated. It was so potent I could practically taste it.
‘Enid?’ Throne took a step toward her, but stopped when her eyes widened even further at something behind us.
Slowly, we turned to see what had freaked her out so much, only to come face to face with an entire horde of panicked supernatural beings we’d previously assumed were myths. Or extinct. Either way, they werenotsupposed to be here right now.
‘What the fuck is going on?’ asked Hawthorne, his voice merging with dozens, possibly hundreds of others. There were so many different languages, it was hard to keep up or pick out our own amid the chaos, and my head, barely free from the migraine, began to pound again with renewed vigour.
My eyes drifted back to where Juniper and the others had disappeared, and my heart clenched with worry. I wanted her back, or at the very least to have gone with her to keep her safe. But the portal’s magic was intricate enough that only those caught in its siren song were transported to wherever it led.
The voices suddenly rose in a crescendoed wave, washing over us with the intensity of their panic and drowning out our own.
‘Everyone’s going to start trying to place blame soon,’ Hawthorne predicted as we watched the rising angst among the crowd.
‘Is there a way to calm everyone down before people start dying?’ Enid asked. She may have been from the Belladonna Coven, the Femme Fatales of the supernatural world – well, I guess theWiccanworld, since we were no longer the only supernatural species around – but they rarely killed for anything other than money. There was no money to be made here today.
‘Fuck this,’ Hawthorne mumbled, then stomped to the patch of grass beneath where the portal had been floating.
Suddenly, as if responding to his presence, it flickered back to life. Within moments, Hawthorne’s face went slack, and he was rooted to the spot, trapped by its spell the way Junie had been moments before.
And then I heard it. The drumming she had mentioned to me earlier, which I had stupidly dismissed. It was coming from the portal, a soothing sound that called to my very soul. It wanted me, and I knew that where it led was where I was meant to be.
Hoping it would lead me back to Junie, I let the magic encase me in its warmth and allowed the spell to take hold.
Chapter 10
