Page 124 of A Bond with the Dark

“Ooh, who’s the warlock? She hot?”

“Bash!” Adaline scolds, setting down a big bowl of salad on the table. “Regardless of the long quarrel between you two, you’re brothers. You need to stop it.”

“So,” Bash continues, and his furtive glances at me are not going unnoticed. “How are you gonna break it? From what I understand, they’re part demon. Their curses are unbreakable.”

“We have a plan,” Hattie says. “And speaking of, we better get on that. Who knows how much time we have?”

“Right,” Adaline says, “after dinner.”

“I’ll help,” Bash offers, but there’s something plaintive about it. “However, I can.”

Dom gives him an incredulous look before his eyes wander to mine, shaking his head. “When have you ever done anything that isn’t selfish?”

As Bash is about to respond, Adaline sits a heavy plate of meatloaf on the table, the thud against the oak interrupting the siblings.

“Eat,” she orders.

Only sounds of plates thudding, utensils scraping, and wine pouring emanate from the large room.

The old myth that vampires only ate blood creeps up again. Since knowing Dom, I know they don’t consume human food to fulfill hunger. They use food to suppress it.

“So, can I have your blood?” Bash asks, interrupting the silence. No one answers. “I’ll help with this curse, then you help me with mine.”

“As long as afterward, I never see you again,” replies Dom as he cuts a piece of meat with his fork.

There’s a twinge of disbelief on Bash’s face, and then it’s gone. The warp and weft of old resentments and alliances hanging between them. “Deal.”

“All right,” Adaline says after eating dinner and cleaning dishes. “We better get a move on and start on that spell. We need to get Hattie ready for her mission.”

We’re all standing around the island, chatting amongst ourselves and helping Adaline with whatever we can.

Wiping her hands on a dishtowel, Adaline flings it on the counter and walks toward the hallway. Everett subtly places his hand on the small of her back to walk with her.

I let Dom pull me, aware of where Bash is. Even if he isn’t in my peripheral, I can feel him as one would feel an electric forcefield.

Upon entering the spell room, Adaline moves her arms in a swooping motion that brings the fire in the fireplace roaring to life. Dom, not going to be part of the spell casting, takes a seat on the chairs by the fire and retrieves his phone.

“Hattie, stand there,” Adaline orders, pointing to a place before the fire. Doing as she’s told, Hattie takes her place where her mom had instructed. “Now, we make a circle around her.”

I fall in line next to Scarlet and Adaline, irresolutely grabbing each woman’s hands. They’re cold, but it’s a bone-deep cold, not just their skin. The feeling and tension in the grip is worse, Scarlet’s more so than Adaline’s.

“Repeat after me,” Adaline instructs. “And while doing so, imagine a blanket of invisibility covering Hattie. Picture her like a ghost, iridescent and able to walk through walls.‘Impero te, impero ti invisibillis.Te astringuo lingua. Impero ti invisibillis.’”

“Impero te, impero ti invisibillis.Te astringuo lingua. Impero ti invisibillis,”we articulate, each time our voices growing in volume.

Doing magick with his mom and sister is unnerving and unreal. Still, I concentrate as hard as possible on Hattie pulling this off.

A crystal passes between us, and when it’s my turn to hold it, I pull all my energy from myself, picturing Hattie becoming invisible, and put it into the rock. The crystal burns in my hand, and I hold it before me when it’s almost too hot to hold anymore.

It’s glowing.

I pass the crystal to Adaline, who then gives it to Hattie.

The glow dies down, as well as the chanting.

“When you’re ready,” Adaline says, her dark lashes sweeping up as she blinks, “call upon its power, and it will make you invisible.”

Hattie nods and tucks the crystal into her bra.

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