Page 150 of A Bond with the Dark

“Mean anything to you yet?”

She shakes her head. “Not that I am aware of, but once we get Bash’s warlock killed, I can look into it.”

“So, my siren song doesn’t work on you?” Jasantha asks almost timidly, as though knowing there’s someone her song doesn’t work on grates on her.

“Nope,” Bash chides, inhaling a sip of his bourbon. “But it has been super fun making you think it has all these years.” He laughs, and her eyes turn purple.

“All right, I’m ready to kill you now,” Dom says, rising from the couch. He walks over and retrieves a silver butter knife from the kitchen.

“Dom,” I say, standing as well.

“You can bring him back, Sayah. And this will be fun. For me.”

Bash shakes his head, and his dark eyes bore into Dom. He sets his glass down and walks over to the table. “All right. Just hoping this works, and she can kill this one too.”

“Ready?” Dom says, holding the butter knife close to his heart.

“Wait!” Adaline says, stepping in between the two of them. “Because Bash dreams of Sayah, wouldn’t that make him connected to her and able to bring the warlock here with that?”

“We can’t trust that,” Dom says. “It’s safer this way; we know she’ll come.”

“Sayah, how exactly did you bring Ollie back?” She asks me.

“I didn’t mean to. A tear fell into his chest wound.”

“It was mixed with your blood,” Dom reminds me.

“Then we need her to bleed a little bit, don’t we,” Jasantha says in a lofty voice she uses when wishing to wound, a devilish grin playing at the corners of her mouth. “I can make that happen.” As she rises from the couch, her eyes turn purple, she holds out her hand and her fingernail grows, fangs protruding as she does. She hisses on her way up to me.

“J, stop,” Everett commands.

The look on her face is that of disappointment. Her eyes return to green, and her fingernails and fangs return to their normal length.

An idea sparks in my mind, and I remember the way it had felt when my own new fangs protruded from my mouth. Wondering if I can simply wish them out or if there’s some more profound force behind it, I say, “Let me try something.”

Feeling a subtle tingle in my gums, the new power that lives in my bones is almost alive with buzzing, like I had swallowed a live wire that’s now lodged in my veins. Beginning to pull at it, I focus on the fangs, squinting my eyes to force them to come to the surface. Feeling the razor-sharp pang of those sharp new teeth extracting from me somewhere, I open my mouth and gasp a little at the pain.

“I got this.” I smile and bite my arm, feeling the terrible crunch. My skin tears open, and the taste of my blood spills into my mouth. “Ready?”

“That’s hot,” Bash says, and Dom is ready to kill him again.

Dom plunges the butter knife into Bash’s heart, and Bash gasps with horror. Bash’s dark crystal blue eyes go from light blue to white; his skin turns white and pale as a sheet, and blood pours from his eyes, his nose, and his mouth. It’s horrific watching Bash die. A piece of me feels like it’s dying with him. Falling to the ground, he writhes in pain for a second, and then he’s still holding the knife that pierces his heart.

Dom extends his arm, anticipating the mark’s appearance. However, the mark on Bash’s neck remains, refusing to vanish. With each passing moment feeling like an eternity, Dom keeps a vigilant gaze on his forearm, hoping for the mark’s manifestation, yet it stubbornly eludes him.

“It happened right away last time,” he says with hesitation.

“Do you think it went somewhere else?” I ask, bleeding still, concerned about Bash and bringing him back.

“I don’t feel it anywhere.” He lifts his shirt, and there’s no mark on his rippling stomach. Lifting his pant legs, there are no new marks, only tattoos.

“Dom?”

“I don’t know. It’s not showing up.”

“We need to bring him back soon,” Adaline pleads, her face panicked.

“Let him stay dead,” Everett retorts, Adaline’s gaze at him seething.

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