Page 117 of A Bond with the Dark

It drips onto the sand, where it freezes like metallic tears. When I open my palm, the Lapis Lazuli is glowing like a firefly, melting, swirling around the diamond ring, and slowly entering it.

The smell of briny air swells as the wind picks up, swirling my hair around my face in the tropical island atmosphere.

I close my hand over the ring again and shut my eyes, and lightning lights up the sky as the moon returns to normal.

The soft feeling of the sun on my skin causes me to open my eyes, and once again, I’m standing on the lake’s edge with Dom, ring in hand, burning my skin with its newfound power.

When I open it, the ring is red-hot, like metal tempered in fire to forge a sword, but my hand is unharmed.

“That’s crazy,” Dom murmurs, attempting to touch the ring in my hand.

“Don’t!” I warn. “It may burn you.”

“I heal fast,” he quips, smirking.

He grabs the ring, and the red glow dies before returning to normal.

“Do you think it worked?” I ask as he examines the now normal color ring.

“I do. It feels powerful. Like it’s heavy and hot, and it doesn’t make sense for how light you think it should be.”

“All right, I’m going to go give it to her. Wanna come?”

“Yeah, this I gotta see,” he says, laughing as I clench my jaw, biting back an annoyed retort.

It’s annoying that he’s sitting back, letting me try to win over his mother alone.

His fucking vampire mother.

Upon reentering the spell room, Adaline’s still sitting in her chair, eyes laser-focused on the text within the book that’s sprawled out on the table before her.

“It’s done,” I say hesitantly, not wanting to interrupt her concentration. “I’d like for you to stick a hand out first, to make sure, before . . .”

“Before I burst into flames?” Her cold eyes fall on me, and I’m unsure if this is Adaline’s attempt at her son’s dry humor.

“Well . . . yeah,” I stammer.

Adaline saunters over to me and holds out her hand. “You need to have more confidence in yourself, girl.”

I drop the ring into her open palm. “It worked.”

“Then you won’t begrudge me walking directly into the sunlight?”

“No, ma’am.” My voice is even.

She flashes her white teeth, fangs not barred, but I can see where they should be. My heart races.

Adaline’s scary.

I’ve been scared of people before, but never like this. She has an air about her that reaches in and grips my stomach like a vice. The strength in her body is evident in the way her muscles are fine-tuned, not massive like a bodybuilder, but just enough that they're accentuated when she’s not flexing. Reminding me of a shield maiden that stepped off the battlefield, I can tell she’s stabby as fuck even when she’s nowhere near a knife.

Placing the ring back on her finger, she walks to the greenhouse and throws the doors open.

My heart stops.

What if it hadn’t worked, and I’m about to kill Dominic’s mother?

Adaline looks back one final time before emerging through the doors into the greenhouse and then out into the outside world.

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