Page 176 of The Harbinger

“Even binding myself to a taken man?”

“It goes so far as to eliminate the person trying to undermine you.”

Was that his justification for Ivan?

He stepped closer, and I held steadfast. “And what happens if I’m this “chosen”. God, I hate that term,” I scoffed. “It makes me sound supernatural or whatever.” He wrapped his hand around mine, bringing my knuckles to his lips, doing his damnedest to erase his rough touch and sickening confession. “So if I do have this gene mutation, then what?”

“You don’t. I’ve checked. I had Sergei run the test himself.”

“But what if he was wrong? What if this… Nikolai finds it?”

“Let me worry about it, Mia. You try to remember what happened in your past.” He tapped his finger gently to my temple. “Because I want to know everything there is to know about the old Mia.”

Chapter 44

Mia

“Sonowwhat?”

“Now we send it off to the lab and run a special test using DNA sequencing,” Nikolai said with a thick heavy accent as the man who took my blood stashed the vial away in some cooler-like contraption. “We’ll know by the end of the week.”

I kinked my elbow, holding the cotton swab he’d pressed there, and nodded. “And then what?”

“It depends on the results.”

My hands hadn’t stopped shaking since yesterday when all of this had transpired. Sacha had held me for as long as he could but eventually had to make his way downstairs again and finish the funeral or wake, whatever it was called.

He hadn’t returned until well after midnight, where he touched every part of my body with a soothing, gentle caress. I fell back asleep, and he was gone like a cruel dream when I woke.

“Then, when they kill me, you’ll write down my last words in that book over there.”

Nikolai froze, and his brows dropped, his lips pressed together. “They told you about that?”

“Sacha did.”

“Yes, well, it’s my duty.” He watched the nurse finish packing his things, then leaned into me. “But I have a feeling it won’t come to that, Mia.” They stood and walked to the door. “I’ll see you at the party at the end of the week, Mia.”

“What p…” By the time I’d finished my sentence, they’d exited the room and were gone. “…party?” I mumbled.

I peeked under the cotton ball, notating a little dot of blood on it. My skin remained unblemished aside from the teeny red blip on my arm where he’d stuck me. I stood and walked to the bathroom, tossing the cotton in the trash.

The Black Book of Horrors caught my eye as I left the bathroom and headed downstairs for breakfast. Chills rushed down my body as I pictured laying on that stone slab, Nikolai standing above me, writing down my frightened pleas. Would Sacha be the one to do it? He’d said he’d killed countless sacrifices.

Why am I still here?

“Because you’re very sick, Mia. We’re trying to help you. Fuego’s voice rattled in my mind as though he stood beside me. What if I were to tell you I could take it all away? Would you?”

I gasped and stopped at the foot of the stairs, then sat down, my head between my hands.

There’s nothing wrong with me.

“Mia, the first step to healing is to recognize and accept. Let’s work on that today.”

Silence rang out, and I opened my eyes to find Katya waving her hand in front of me. “Are you okay?”

I leaned back, my heart racing. “I’m fine,” I said, repeating the words I’d said to Fuego.

Was he my therapist? Did my therapist do this to me?

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