Page 61 of The Aether

“Yes.”

Twirling a finger through a small section of hair at the back of his head, Damian fed the strand, urging it to grow. When it was approximately the length of the bracelet, he held out a hand for Vivian’s scissors.

After snipping his hair, he pressed it to the other two locks, fusing them together until it was impossible to tell one color from another. Encasing the entire thing in platinum, he slipped it on his wrist.

“I’ll consume any darker responses either of you should experience. Should anything happen to either of you…” The bleak image forced him to catch his breath. Swallowing hard, he continued. “Should anything happen to either of you, the other will not be able to grieve unless I destroy this bangle.”

“Good. But Sabrina brought up a secondary problem. What’s to stop Morcant from killing her to gain her power if he can’t drain it through her emotions?”

“She’s too strong. When she wakes in the morning, I’ll make her practice a protection spell. She already knows the basics. It’s the same one I used for the property, but on a smaller scale. She can encase herself in a bubble until we get to her.”

Nodding, Vivian strode for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To bring Nate in here. I’ll watch over them throughout the night, and you’ll take the morning shift.”

“In case I never told you, you’re one badass Mama Bear, my love.”

A delighted smile curled her lips. Probably because the word badass came out of a two-hundred-year-old man.

“Never doubt it, darling.”

When he was alone, Damian casually waved a hand and made the bed. He climbed onto the mattress, sitting with his back to the headboard and crossing his legs at the ankles. Left with a private moment to himself, he played out all the possible options in his mind as he watched his daughter sleep. He couldn’t contrive a surefire plan to capture Morcant without using Sabrina as bait.

It was no surprise when Ronan and Castor sought him out.

“Vivian sent us here to ya. She informed us of the wee beastie’s prediction.” Ronan crossed to the chaise and tugged the blanket up higher to tuck around Sabrina’s neck. “Did she give ya a time frame, then?”

“Tomorrow.”

“The hell you say!” Alex looked shell-shocked. “We’re all here, Dethridge. He can’t get in.”

“She knows something she’s not saying,” Damian replied grimly, never removing his gaze from his daughter’s slight form. Tilting his head back, he banged it once on the wall. “I’m all-powerful, and yet, apparently, I’m helpless against this new threat.”

“We can only assume your wards will fail and Morcant will sneak in. It’s his only option.”

“Or someone will be sneakin’ out,” Ronan mused.

Alex shook his head. “No. That child is too intelligent to cause her own demise. What would be the point?”

“We need to find out what the authority knows—”

Paling, Castor collapsed.

With a colorful curse, Ronan dropped to his knees beside his uncle and felt for a pulse as Damian came off the bed.

“Is he alive?”

“Aye, but his feckin’ heart’s galloping away with him.”

Placing his palm flat on Alex’s forehead, Damian attempted to meld his mind with his friend. All he got for his troubles was a wicked-sharp pain to his frontal lobe.

“Jaysus! And where didyoucome from while your body’s layin’ here, man?”

Castor, not the one on the rug, strode over to them. With his stubbled jaw and mussed hair, he looked more haggard than Damian ever remembered seeing him.

“Alex?”

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