Page 128 of A Bond with the Dark

Putting Bash as far as I can away from my mind, I decide the best thing to do is ignore him and let him fade away.

Maybe there’s a spell I can do that will erase him from my mind and stop him from revisiting my dreams.

Wondering if Adaline will mind much if I peruse through her grimoires, I head back out of the bedroom and down the spiral staircase.

The room is quiet; a few others sit on the couches watching something on T.V. Bash is not on this floor, so he must have retired to one of the bedrooms with his lady.

I go around the kitchen and down the stairs to where the spell room is located.

Adaline’s not in the room.

There’s an eerie feeling in my heart.

This is a vampire’s dwelling; her secrets, herbs, and spell books are here. I do not find it within me to try and go through a book, even if it’s a simple meandering, looking for a spell.

It’s a spell I need to break a bond I have with one of her sons.

The other son.

Maybe it can wait until I get back home to do it.

As I’m leaving, I hear voices from a slightly ajar door down the hall from the spell room.

I remember seeing it in passing when we first came down here.

It’s Adaline’s office.

Trying not to listen as I walk past, I overhear.

“So that would make him a tribrid then?” comes the voice of someone I don’t initially recognize.

“Yes.” This is Adaline’s voice.

I back myself to the wall to listen and not be seen.

“He’s part demon, part witch, part vampire.”

“And you think that’s the curse he’s trying to break?”

I now realize it’s Jasantha’s voice whom Adaline’s talking to.

“It has to be,” Adaline replies, her voice full of worry. “I don’t know what other curse he could be talking about.”

“If he’s part demon, wouldn’t that make him a warlock then?”

“Yes, but one kept the other at bay because I’d been doing my own magick and made the vampire curse. Until now, it would seem.”

“Are you going to talk to him about it?”

“I’m going to try. But not with that Talora woman around.”

They stop talking, and my heart stops with them. I shouldn’t be hearing this.

Bash is a tribrid? But how?

“Well,” Jasantha begins again, and I creep away from the door as quietly as possible.

I return to my bedroom without running into anyone and collapse on the bed.

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