Page 169 of A Bond with the Dark

“We need to talk about everything your mom told you in that vision,” Dom says, and it salts the wound now festering with anger.

“Really, Dom?” Bash snipes.

“Well, what the fuck else is there to do?” Dom yells. “I didn't fucking know it was her parents. The whole reason we are here and they died, and I'm in love, is because of us trying to get rid of the fucking grims! That is what we came here to do. If we don't do something about it, her parents dying and me lying and everything else will all have been in vain!”

“What do you suggest we do then?” Bash expands. “Sit down and have a pow-wow kumbaya and sing songs while holding hands?”

Dom's eyes go violently white and flicker to black.

“Stop,” I say to Bash. “I have to keep you two from going dark.”

“How are you going to do that?” Bash asks.

“By feeding you my blood.”

Bash's eyes glitter and Dom's return to green. “That sounds nice,” Bash says eagerly, and Dom looks over me and threatens him with a glaze so intense the Earth could've caught fire.

“You bite her, you die,” Dom says now.

I know he's being protective, but part of me wonders if that's true now. First, he burned me; now, I could burn him.

“You're right,” Bash concedes. “I don't want to find out. So, how will you get this blood into us then?”

“Vials, I'm thinking.”

He sucks his teeth. “Vials of phoenix blood. Sounds tasty.”

“In the meantime,” Dom interjects Bash's silent reverie about my blood, “we need to return to New York. If Hattie finds another artifact, we may be able to break the curses anyway; then we won't need your blood.”

“I will not be going anywhere near your family,” I say, turning my back on both of them. I reach the cliff's edge and look at the churning and dark waters below. Shivering, I wish my power would come to light right now and those wings of fire would fly me far away from here and everyone.

“Sayah,” Dom says from behind me. “You don't have to come back with us now. I know you need space and time to sort this all out. Take all the time that you need. But we do have to face this. Since you are the phoenix. We need you. Otherwise, the world will be overrun with those gods' awful things.”

I turn to face him. “I know that, Dom. And I will help you guys. But . . .”

“But?”

“I don't know if I can be with you anymore, Dom. I know what you did was unintentional, and you didn't know it was my mo—” I choke up and the words come out all stuttered. “I know you didn't know. But you lied from the start. And I can't stay in a relationship like that. I can't. My last relationship was filled with lies, and I vowed to myself I would never do that again.”

“Sayah,” he says my name like it's his elixir, like he's dying of thirst, and my name is that last drop that his tongue missed. “Please . . . don’t . . .”

He tries to grab my hand, his eyes red, rheumy, and shaded with tears. “No, Dom. I can't. Please. Let that be what it is right now. Let's get through this whole warlock shit and get my son safe and you two unmarked.”

“And then?”

“I don't know, Dominic. Right now, nothing. Go our separate ways. Be done.”

“Um, guys?” Bash says from behind us.

“What, Bash?” we both say.

When he doesn't say anything at all, I turn and see his face has gone pale. His gaze fractures at the sight of something over my shoulder. “Sayah, don't move.”

“Why? What's wrong?” I ask, my heart dropping at the worry that paints his beautiful face.

“There's a wolf. Sitting. Up on the mountain, looking right at us.”

Usually, this wouldn't frighten me as much, as we're in the mountains and can run to safety. But the look on Bash's face tells me it's notthatkind of wolf.

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