Page 146 of Magic of the Damned

“Luna,” Dominic called out, his light footfalls nearing us. I risked a look in his direction to see the horrid expression on his face. Rushing over, he reached me and hissed in pain but continued, ripping me from Peter. Dominic didn’t give Peter a moment to respond. He tossed Peter feet away, then sent a glowing sphere of magic into his chest that crashed him into the wall across the room. Peter slumped to the floor but attempted to return fire. His eyes widened and filled with panic when nothing happened. He made several more fruitless attempts, his breathing increasingly short and raspy. Fear and confusion washed over his face.

“Where’s the Garon?” Dominic asked.

Preoccupied with keeping contact with Peter and successfully performing the spell, with the influx of the new peculiar magic, I’d lost track of it. I looked around the immediate area for it. Gone.

“I don’t know.” Standing, we both searched the surrounding area. Peter remained frozen in stunned disbelief, unable to reconcile with the new knowledge that his magic didn’t counter the Garon and that his magic was gone. Dominic’s mask of anger fell when he looked at me.

“Perform magic, Luna,” he instructed.

I tried to erect a protective spell. Nothing. I attempted a spell. Nothing. Swiping my hand over the room in effort to clear things from my path had no results.

In a flash of movement, Dominic was on Peter, a hold around his neck, claws at the pulse of it.

“What did you do?” Dominic demanded.

The shrewd confidence exhibited earlier had vanished. Peter looked just as confused as I felt. Without his magic, he was at a terrible disadvantage with Dominic. Despite it, he managed a glare in Dominic’s direction.

“Why would I take my own magic?” he barked.

There was a long moment of consideration before Dominic drew back his hand, the unbridled viciousness and mercilessness shown in his sneer. The same look I’d seen when he fought.

“No!” I blurted. He stopped with his claws just a half an inch or so from Peter’s neck. He snapped in my direction.

“The Garon is gone and so is our magic. Someone took it.” I explained the figure with the tendrils that resembled the tendrils I’d seen during practice with the Garon. How I had been secured to Peter and the off-putting magic that mingled with ours. “If someone took it, we may need Peter to get it back.”

“We won’t. We’ll find another way,” Dominic asserted.

The blaze in his eyes made my approach to him cautious. Driven by fury, he wasn’t taking everything into consideration. Recounting Peter’s plans, a number of scenarios went through my mind of what could be done with both of our magic and none of them were good. I wasn’t spiraling into a full-on anxiety attack because it wasn’t another Dark Caster who took the magic. Peter was the only one. We were the only ones. The unthinkable level of destruction the thief could cause if they learned to harness it, scared me. Dominic was looking for a way to use the magic—what if someone had beaten him to it?

“Please,” I whispered. Dragging his eyes from Peter, his gaze was gentle as he looked at me.

“Remember what I told you,” he said softly. He’d warned: “Your empathy will be seen as weakness and your kindness exploited.”

“This isn’t about kindness or weakness. Our magic is gone. Peter has access to spells and magic that you aren’t aware of. Killing him will take away an advantage.”

He released his hold on Peter but used magic to keep him pinned against the wall. Taking hold of my arm, he moved me to the other side of the room, out of Peter’s earshot.

“My mother gave us the Garon,” he said in a pained voice. I heard the implications in his tone. He thought it was his mother. He’d been betrayed so often by his family, he could no longer extend the benefit of the doubt. “Peter took you. That can’t go unpunished.”

Gently, I touched his hand, aware of the scrutiny of our audience. “Make sure it’s her before you do anything with him. Please.” If it was, I had no intention of appealing for mercy for anyone. Accepting another betrayal wasn’t in me, either. It was hard to see Ileana betraying her children, but her suggestions and Peter’s plans were aligned.

“Ask her,” I urged again.

Shooting another spiteful glare in Peter’s direction, without a word, Dominic pulled me to him, plunging me into darkness as we quickly went to the underworld and then to Vita. Standing in front of the ward, he made the silver undulation come to life. Running across it were streaks of crimson waves that pushed us back. His upgrade to the barrier. It wasn’t just a magic flare, it was a stop sign. An urging to just keep moving. A few rote movements of his hand and a spell, it fell and we moved through it.

Dragar stepped into view, a miscreant look on his face, tail whipping behind him playfully. “Dominicus,” he drawled, the smile dropping from his face, the playfulness draining as he looked at Dominic. Wrathful and murderous looking, Dominic stalked past him toward his mother’s estate.

Meeting us at the pathway to her house, concern swept over Ileana’s face at Dominic’s state. A mixture of emotions that he didn’t bother to mask.

“Dominicus, what’s wrong?” The soft maternal request was a direct contrast of what she’d ever shown.

“The Garon is gone and so is Luna’s magic,” he said.

Her brows drew together, and her breath whooshed out the question. “What do you mean?”

“It’s gone.” Although his voice remained strained, there was notable relief. His mother wasn’t responsible. She was given all the information I gave Dominic. By the end, Ileana’s breaths were short and ragged.

“Peter’s magic is gone, too?”

We nodded. Her gaze swept from me to Dominic.

“You know what this means, Dominic?” How could they not. An unknown person had just acquired an insurmountable amount of magic that would give them the ability to do everything Peter had planned, including locking the royals in the underworld.

He nodded. “No one is safe, including us.”

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