Page 132 of A Bond with the Dark

“Do you think we need to bring this up? To talk about it?”

“I do. But I don’t see how.”

“Get Bash up here. Ask him. He obviously knows the truth about himself.”

“I don’t want to hurt my mom.”

“I know you don’t. But we need information. Maybe this will help the spell they’re weaving downstairs. Who knows? But if ever there was a time to get all the skeletons out of the closet, I would say that time is now.”

“You’re right,” he says, and he arises from the hammock. “Let’s go.”

I take his hand and stand. “I’ll be right by your side.”

He nods and leads me into the house.

We reach the lower floor. Hattie, Adaline, and Scarlet are busy with the artifact and their spell.

“How’s it coming?” Dom asks, and the three women look up.

“It’s ancient, and the writing was almost indiscernible,” answers Adaline, staring fixedly at the object. “But we’re getting there.”

“Where’s Bash?” Dom questions.

“I don’t know,” says Hattie, her strange pale eyes skimming over me. “Haven’t seen him since before we left. How are you feeling?”

“I’m doing all right,” he returns, fidgeting with a button on his sleeve. “Fighting a crazy voice in my head, but I have it under control.”

“Keep fighting that,” Scarlet swings her restless gaze to him, then back to a book before her. “We’re getting there.”

I walk up to where the three women are sitting around the table in the spell room. The artifact is on the table before them. It’s a large stone that looks like it had fallen from outer space a millennia ago. It’s a rusty brown with holes, but it has bright fluorescent blue lines across it. In between the lines is ancient writing, some in characters that look familiar—like runes—and others that look entirely foreign.

“What do you think the writing means?” I ask timidly.

“It’s a spell,” Adaline responds. “To break a curse. It’ll help with the lycanthrope spell.”

“Because it’s older than any of our spells, it’ll be powerful, but it should break a warlock mark. If it breaks a formweaver link with the moon, it can work on a warlock.” The conviction in Hattie’s voice quells some worry but not all.

“Speaking of warlocks,” Dom says, and my heart faints. Should he bring this up now, Adaline will know I told him the information.

“You wanna know why I am asking for your blood?” Bash is in the room with us without us having heard him.

Vampires are slick like that.

“What are you not telling us?” Dom chides.

Bash is lithe about his movements, entering the lair and traipsing around the table the three women sit at, eyeing his mother. “That would be a question for her, I believe.”

Her look is unchanging. She keeps her calm Viking demeanor and returns his glare to him.

“What is he talking about, Mom?” Dom asks, a questioning expression lingering on his face.

“There’s something you all need to know,” Adaline replies, her shoulders never slumping. However, the tone of her voice should have given her an appearance of being bested. “I have kept it from you for a long time to keep you safe. I knew there would be a time when it would come to this, so I shall divulge my secret. In this dark time, the secret I’ve been living with may help repair a bond between brothers as they face the same darkness.”

All eyes look from Bash to Dom. Bash doesn’t look at his brother. He merely sits down in a chair by the fireplace.

“How is it that you came to know of this secret Bash?” Adaline asks, her feline eyes scrutinizing him.

“Because the warlock came to me. After this mark appeared.”

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