Page 106 of A Bond with the Dark

Going to New York with a coven full of vampires to talk to a witch-vampire hybrid about her son who was marked to become a grimspawn—nothing to bat an eyelash at.

31

FIND MY RUIN

DOM

The visceral reaction to being marked by a warlock started with pain at the mark, followed by burning goosebumps prickling my skin, rolling into revulsion roiling in my stomach, and leading to everything aching, rejecting the new cursed branding that now decorates my arm.

As I had my fangs deep inside Chaco, the first indication I knew something was off was that I didn’t get that sated feeling consuming blood from the vein typically encompasses. That, paired with the feeling of the air being completely drained from the dark hotel room, and a deathly ringing in my ears, precluded the vision.

She came to me in a blast of wind, transcending the boundaries of sheer malice, a living manifestation of shadows. The white spilling of her hair bounded around her as though she was floating, accentuating the darkness of her evil aura. Two massive black horns jutted out from the top of her head and curled up and around to the back. The horns, adorned with intricate black embellishments, added to her ominous allure. Colorless eyes pierced my soul, instilling an indescribable terror that defies earthly language. Cloaked in a black dress, her unnaturally pale skin emitted an otherworldly glow, and her pointed black nails, adorned with dark jewels, scraped along my arm as she drew the mark.

When the mark was drawn, and the blood was drained, the hotel resumed the same air, yet the profound darkness that she embodied soaked the room and everything in it like a thick layer of soot.

The thought alone of being a slave to someone else, losing my mind to a force beyond anything I can comprehend, is enough to ruin me, to wreck me from the inside out. Utter loss and hopelessness swallow my breath and the air in my car feels stale and suffocating.

My heart races as fast as my car moves, returning to the house to pack my suitcase. Traveling with Sayah into a den of vampires who want her dead adds to the million-pound weight sitting on my chest, asphyxiating me from the inside out.

I need to call my mom to tell her I’m bringing Sayah to her, but I can’t tell her I’ve been marked over the phone.

No, that will have to be done in person.

I have no idea how she’s going to take that.

“Hello?” Mom says after a few rings.

“Hey, Mom. I’m coming back. Can you pick us up at the airport later?”

“What? Why? What’s happened?”

“Nothing. I want to come home.”

“Is she dead then?”

“What? No, Mom. She’s not dead. I need more help drawing her magick out.”

“Oh. You’re running then.”

“Odin’s ghost mom. I know she has fire magick. I’ve seen it. I need you, Scarlet, and Hattie to help draw it out of her.”

The line is quiet for a moment. “All right.”

“Really? You’ll be nice?”

“I never said anything about being nice.”

“Please. Try to be nice. And don’t kill her.”

“I will try to help you draw her magick out of her. And if we can’t get her to wield her fire magick and those fucking warlocks or the Nykorim come for us, I will kill her.”

“All right. Don’t mention anything about this or that I don’t live here in Colorado, okay?”

“Bloody hell, Dominic, you’ve not told her anything?”

“There hasn’t been a chance to. I will. While we’re there . . . tell Hattie, J, and Scarlet to behave okay. I don’t need them killing her either.”

“Why is it that your reckless heart always seems to get us in trouble?”

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