Page 18 of Magic of the Damned

“I don’t understand any of it. I’m not part of it and you know it,” I said, lying through my teeth. I was certainly tangentially involved; I just had no idea to what degree. But since the murder cult upstairs was prepared to kill me because of it, I had no intention of confessing. It was something I needed to work out later, but it wouldn’t be with Dominic or the others. I wanted to get as far away from them as possible.

“Oh, but you are. I just need to figure out how.” He took hold of my hand and slipped off the ring, revealing the markings.

My chin jutted in defiance to show my innocence despite the evidence. His brow furrowed as he gently bent my fingers back to show me the markings, as if I hadn’t seen them before. He had to know I’d seen them before.

“I saw the way you responded to the picture Callum presented. You balled your hands to hide your fingers, which is when I noticed the ring was different.”

Borrowing a page from his playbook, I gave him a look of cool indifference.

It brought a dark smile of interest to his lips. “At first I thought you were a powerful witch who managed to get access to forbidden spells. That is the way of the witch, always pushing boundaries, thirsting for power and ways to leverage their privilege. When my spell didn’t uncloak you, I knew you had to be more. Stronger. A Tenebras Obducit—a Dark Caster. If you were, the Conventicle need not be involved. I wanted to handle you the way I handled the others.”

Hearing the brutal edge in his voice, I could imagine the way the others were handled. I swallowed. After a long, considering look, something vaguely empathetic showed on his face.

“Great power that can’t be checked or reined in leads to chaos and the wielder of such power feeling omniscient. That can’t be allowed.”

“You seem to have a great deal of power and no one upstairs seemed to be able to rein you in.”

A smirk tugged at his lips but he forced it back into a cruel straight line. “I’m never to be reined.” It was a simple response that spoke volumes. He’d stepped over that line of confidence. The man was a certifiable jackass.

“Luna, Luna, Luna.”

My name came from him in a low, deep, melodious sound. A draconian chorus with a dangerous harmony. He circled me again, watching me carefully. My heart pounded and everything in me screamed to run, but Anand guarding the exit made that impossible.

“What mess have you gotten yourself into?” he whispered.

I swallowed and shook my head. “I don’t know.” The statement escaped before I could stop it. What had I gotten myself into?

Again, he was in front of me, studying me with avid curiosity. He spoke softly, as if to himself. “You’re not a witch or a Dark Caster, but you are responsible for releasing the prisoners from the Perils. How was it done?” His gaze slipped to my finger again.

I had no response for him.

He sighed. “Tell me what you know of the Perils.”

Dominic was trying to discover a link where none existed. What I knew of it was only what I’d gathered from the conversation upstairs.

“A prison for supernaturals. Where you keep your worst.” I couldn’t imagine anyone worse than the ones upstairs, but obviously I was wrong.

His head barely moved into the nod. “Perils of the Underworld, where I am its guardian.”

Whenever I watched a show where a person passed out after getting terrifying information or horrifying news, I always called BS. No, double BS. What? You forgot to breathe? To do the very thing so intrinsic to your body’s survival that you hold your breath to deprive it of oxygen, but the body’s like, “Nah, bitch, give me the good stuff. Give me oxygen.” And forces you to breathe.

Now I felt the need to issue a formal apology. Because my body seized. All the things that seemed automatic, essential, a necessity just felt foreign. My mouth dried, my breathing was ragged, shallow, and definitely not enough to survive, and fight or flight was simply nonexistent. I stood there for what seemed like eternity trying to get my body to respond appropriately. To react. And to participate in anything that would remotely be considered self-preservation.

“What?” I eked out.

“Luna, you’ve released my prisoners from the Underworld. You may not have been the weapon, but you were the tool.”

Believe me, you’re a tool, too.

Oops. Didn’t mean to say that aloud.

With a wry smile he started pacing around me again, his hands behind his back, my name said over and over but not in the alluring, sultry way. It was a rough, disparaging string of words. Nearly excruciating in its execution.

“Tell me, Luna,” he said behind me. I whipped around to face him. “Should I destroy the tool for a short-term solution, or find the weapon?”

Fighting with the guardian of the Underworld wasn’t going to fix my problems. In fact, it would probably make them worse. I was moored to this. Despite my protective responses rearing in overdrive and telling me to run like hell, this situation wasn’t going away. But if I was going to be a player, I wouldn’t be intimidated into my decision.

Squaring my shoulders, I looked him straight in his fiery amber eyes. Despite the hard intensity of them, I held his gaze. “If you were interested in the short-term fix, you wouldn’t have intervened.”

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