Page 134 of A Bond with the Dark

“Yes,” replies Dom, and he looks at me with that same guilt Adaline has on her face in his eyes. “She called her the phoenix.”

“The phoenix?” Bash queries.

“Yes,” Dom answers. “Why, does that mean anything to you?”

“No. Just wondering why she said that word is all.”

But there’s a telling in his eyes that says he knows more than he’s admitting to.

“So where are we with this mark breaker thing you all got going on?” Bash asks, his night-black hair in disarray.

“We need more time,” Hattie answers a little defensively. “And concentration. So, if you guys can just go the fuck away?—”

“Hear ya loud and clear, sister,” Bash yells, getting up and flashing to the door. “I’ll be in my room if anyone wants me.”

Clearly abashed, this time he departs with a palpable huff.

“Let us know if you need anything,” Dom offers the ladies. “But please, hurry.”

“We’re hurrying as fast as we can,” Adaline replies.

Dom leads me out of the room.

As we enter the main floor, Bash is alone in the living room, sitting with his hands on his chin, a look of disquiet on his face.

I look at Dom to see if he’s going to talk to his brother, but he makes no motion like he’s going to.

He pulls me up the stairs when Bash speaks to him, halting us.

“I bet you’re happy to find out we’re not full-blown brothers.”

“No,” Dom replies despondently, not turning to face him. “I’m not happy about it. I’m not surprised. But I’m not happy.”

“Well, it makes it easier to hate me, I’m sure.”

“You want us to hate you. Everything you do, you want to be a monster. So, we treat you like one.”

“The thing with Sadie, it’s not what you think.”

“Don’t. Ever. Speak. Her. Name. To. Me,” Dom says, the imperious quake of his voice jostling.

I can feel the rage catching fire in Dom’s bones, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to tempt that kind of emotional change in him. Who knows how close that curse is, teetering him on the edge, and something—anything—could push him over it, like jostling a leaf.

“I’m just saying, it’s not what you think.”

“I said, don’t speak of it to me.”

His voice takes on a rage that I’ve never heard in him before. I watch the change happen and although it happens fast, it seems it was in slow motion. His eyes grow white with green rims, not black—which tells me it isn’t the curse taking hold of him but his vampire rage—his skin turns almost translucent. The cat-like nature of his eyes glower into me, like I’m the target. Quickly, I dive out of the way, and with a speed as I’ve never seen, he stampedes at Bash in a murderous rush and flies into him, landing them both on top of the glass table and shattering it to bits.

Bash spins back onto his feet and pile-drives Dominic into one of the windows. Luckily, they’re the tapered, double-paned windows because they don’t break. Dom grunts and punches Bash. It’s unlike a normal punch. The house shakes.

Unfazed, Bash’s head merely turns a little sideways at the blow, but then he grabs Dom by the throat and, with that same speed, propels him into one of the beams, rumbling the house again. The breath is knocked out of him, and he takes a beat.

He rams Bash into the fireplace, taking the poker and thrusting it into his middle section. Blood seeps everywhere, and when Bash looks at me, his blue eyes are unchanged. He opens his mouth unnaturally wide, and his incisors grow two times their size, revealing the pearlescent ivory daggers in his mouth. He pulls the poker out and then clamps down on Dom’s shoulder, more blood spewing from the wound.

Yelling with anguish, Dom yanks free of the bite, Bash has blood staining his white teeth, and it’s thick and pooling at the sides of his mouth, dripping down onto the hardwood floor. Dom wrenches Bash’s head into the mantle where his skull cracks open, again more blood, bones shining in the shimmering wetness.

The caveman-like grunts coming from the living room, the rumbling of the house as they fight, and the crashes and spills are enough to get Everett to come flying in and separate the two.

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