Page 141 of A Bond with the Dark

With Bash, his darkness pulls at me, and that’s another thing that makes no sense with this phoenix thing. If I’m supposed to be the undoing of them all, why do I feel that I could love him wildly and heedlessly, all without fear of it consuming me?

“Just last night, you told me you needed my light and will have me. If you knew that the same thing would happen to me that happened to Sadie, why would you say that? Why would you want that for me? And then to say that I am to be the undoing of you all, none of what you’re saying makes any sense.”

“Because part of me belongs to you, Sayah, and I don’t know how dominant that part of me is.” He steps toward me, moving his arm up as though he wants to grab my hand but lets it drop to his side. “There are times, in my dreams, your dreams, that when I am near you, I can’t think of anything else in the world other than being next to you forever. When I wake up from them, I need you, and when I was so close to you for the first time last night, I couldn’t contain it. It was the same overwhelming feeling I had with Sadie. Even though I knew that we would be the undoing of one another, I couldn’t resist. That is the selfish part of me. Now, reliving what happened with Sadie, I’ve had time to think. That with so much evil in this world, you are meant to undo it all, if not at least some of it. I have to resist you too, so I don’t kill you, so you may carry out your destiny.”

Contemplating what he’s saying to me, there’s a part of Bash that wants my death on his lips. But why? The warlock that lives in Dom’s mind lives in his, too, and she wants me dead. Now, she has two vampires to carry out her wish.

“Why can’t you be subdued by Jasantha?” This is my next question, and I ask this above the others for reasons unbeknownst to me.

“Because I made her,” he says simply, his black brows steeply arched. “And so, therefore, she is sired to me. She can’t trance me. But they don’t know that.”

“But if she is a hybrid that was not born of the two bloods, how can she be, and Sadie couldn’t?”

“Because Sadie was a witch. She was born with the blood of the phoenix in her, the light. It couldn’t mix with the dark. And Jasantha was born with dark blood, as sirens are of the dark. So, the vampire curse could live at home in her. When she died with my blood in her, she died with the hybrid trait. Like I said, you have to be born of one or die as one.”

“But if Sadie couldn’t handle the two types of blood mixing, how could your mom? She was a witch, too; how could she be a vampire after being a witch?”

“Part of me always wondered that, too, but the dreams of me biting and Sadie burning stopped me from trying. I assumed that because Sadie was supposed to be the phoenix, whatever blood that is, my mom doesn’t have that blood within her, and that’s why she was able to be a vampire and a witch. That, and she was in cahoots with demons. Her witch blood must have been dampened with darkness, making it easier for the vampire curse to lay at home at ease in her.”

“And we can’t tell Dom any of this?”

“You can’t tell anyone any of this. You have to fulfill your duty now.”

“But what if that means killing you?”

“I have this on me now.” He pulls down his collar, and the mark there is that one shade darker than it had been. Luckily, it hasn’t gotten darker. “I don’t want this. And if we can’t break it, I don’t want to live with what that means. I’m okay with dying by your hand. I’ve lived for over two hundred years. Maybe next time I come back, you and I can be together as normal humans and have that human life everyone dreams about.” He enchants a mischievous smile that somewhat quells my worry for a short time, and then the despair and hushed agony return to us again.

The quiet depths of my soul are churning, a violent tidal wave surging up and crashing into the rocky cliffs of me; my only hope is that the three women inside will find a way to break this curse and put all of this behind us.

But something tells me that not even that mattered.

Even if they do, whatever this phoenix blessing is, I’m sure I’ll find out what I’m meant to do.

“Why do you want them to believe you’re a monster when you aren’t one?”

“Oh, Sayah.”

The way my name dances on his lips stutters me.

“I’m the worst fucking kind of monster there is. I’m no fucking good, whatever you wish to believe.” He cocks his head to the side as though hearing something that I don’t hear. “Shhh, Dom is back. Talk about something else.”

“What am I supposed to be talking about with you?” I whisper.

“Here, take this,” he says, unclasping the chain around his neck and handing it to me. “Please make one for me too.”

“Hey,” Dom says as he approaches.

Bash clears his throat. “I was seeing if she was all right. If she needed any help with her light . . . sun-beckony thing.” He turns on his heels and walks back toward the house.

As Bash flashes away, Dom stares at me, maybe even into me, and I can see that he’s worried about the same thing happening again with me that happened with Sadie and Bash.

“Did I interrupt something?” His tone is drenched in suspicion.

I’m careful in choosing my words. I don’t want to ignite that curse and have him wanting to kill me. “I was crying. I came out here to do the sun talisman on these”—I hold out my hands and show him the jewelry—“and I collapsed at the lake’s edge. He must have seen me and made sure I was okay.”

His nebulous gaze is unreadable. “I find it hard to believe that Bash cared enough about anyone more than himself.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I say, my voice gaining more defensiveness. “Did you get the wolfsbane?”

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