Page 67 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

Damien looked aghast. “Xarek, you don’t know what it’s like! She’ll tear a piece of you out while you’re awake to feel it. She’ll search through everything that makes you you and take whatever she wants.”

Xarek nodded. “And she’ll keep doing that to whoever she wants if we don’t stop her. Everyone in this room will be at risk, Damien. That’s a choice we’re all making.”

Damien’s nostrils flared. “Not all of us had a choice.”

“Damien, if this is too much…” Evangeline started.

“No.” Damien blew out a breath and shook his head. “No, I’ve come this far already.”

She studied him. I expected to feel a prickle of jealousy, and was surprised when I didn’t. I thought of the notes she’d scribbled, still in the notebook upstairs. Trust, she’d written, then underlined it three times.

“All right,” Evangeline said, looking around the table and staring each of us in the eyes. “We know where she is. We can get close, trip some of the outer wards, then use Xarek to draw her out.”

“Best case, she comes out into the open to get him herself,” Theo said. “Worst case, she sends her people to try to get him, leaving her base much less protected.”

“If she sends her henchmen, I can lead them away,” Xarek said. “What if she comes herself?”

Evangeline stared down at the map, then pushed away from the table and began to pace.

“Then we have a trap set,” I said. “A bubble of protective magic, keeping her trapped with us, so she can’t call in reinforcements.” I looked to Theo, who had the most military experience, and they nodded once, approval glimmering in their eyes.

“Can we keep her trapped if she’s as powerful as all that?” Lissa asked. “Not that I don’t have the utmost faith in your abilities, of course. I’m simply not an expert in this kind of thing.”

“We can figure something out,” Isabella said. “Between me, Marcus, and Evangeline, we could keep a pretty powerful spell going for a while. And we might be able to call in some favors.”

“Now does seem to be the time to call them in,” Marcus murmured in agreement. He still hadn’t looked at Xarek.

“If we can’t draw her out, can you still use that spell?” I asked.

Evangeline glanced at me, brow furrowed. “For what?”

“To block off whatever her hideout is,” I said. “So nobody she sent after Xarek can get back in.”

“Might be tricky depending on her wards,” Isabella said. “But I think Theo and I might have a backup plan for that.”

I raised an eyebrow at Theo, whose grin concerned me.

“So, if Xarek might be leading her followers on a wild goose chase, and the witches will be keeping Morgana contained, then it’ll be up to us to actually fight her,” Lissa said, gesturing at the other vampires. “Does the wand need to be used by a witch to work?”

“No, it can be wielded by anyone,” I said. Trust, I thought. “But I should be the one to do it.”

“Why you?” Evangeline asked.

Trust. Just below it, she’d written: Honesty. “The wand will drain her magic, but it’ll also drain mine,” I said, feeling like I was speaking from a very long way away. “My… My life force. It has to be me, because I was bred to be strong enough to withstand the wand long enough for it to hurt her.”

Evangeline grabbed my shoulder and turned me to face her. Suddenly, we might as well have been the only people in the room. Her eyes bored into mine. “What will it do to you?”

“Based on what I saw of my father’s experiments with it? Turn me to ash,” I said. “None of the people he had use it seemed to be in any pain, though, which is nice.”

Evangeline stared at me, her eyes narrowing into slits. “No,” she decided abruptly.

“Ev—” I began.

“No! There has to be another way!”

There was a genteel cough, and I remembered the other people in the room existed. Marcus raised his hand like he was waiting to be called on.

“What, Marcus?” Evangeline snapped.

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