Page 66 of Hellfire to Come
Except I hadn’t remembered. Not really. I had convinced myself it was a dream. A hallucination. Some leftover fragment of nightmare tangled in the threads of Frederic’s spell.
But it wasn’t.
They were real.
She was real.
And so was what happened.
“I thought...” I started, then stopped, trying to get my mouth to work. “I thought I made it up.”
The air shifted. All eyes turned to me.
“I wasn’t just held imprisoned. I mean, I was, but... there was something else. Someone else.” My voice was shaking now, brittle as glass. “Two men dragged me. I remember it. Myhead was spinning and everything was dark, but I heard them. Arguing.”
I looked at Dominic, then Brooklyn. “They said ‘she’ wanted to see me before the Council got back.”
Echo’s brow furrowed. “She?”
“I don’t know who. But she wasn’t part of the Council. I know that. She wasn’t one of them. She was something else.” I swallowed. “Someone they think they control but they don’t.”
Chester shifted uncomfortably. “You sure it wasn’t just a dream? What?” he snapped when Echo elbowed him. “We have enough shit to deal with without additional boogeyman being added to the mix.”
“No,” I answered when I could finally speak again. “Because I smelled her. And you can’t imagine smells, not like that. She smelled like…” I gagged slightly. “Like lilacs. Like something that should make me feel safe. Protected. Weirdly enough, it did make me feel better when I was around her.”
“Safe?” Brooklyn was looking at me with worry scrunching her features and I hated that I had to be the bearer of bad news.
“She smelled very similar to how Dominic smells.” I swallowed the lump clogging my throat.
“Another shifter maybe?” Dominic ever the logical one started connecting the dots immediately. But not even he could guess what I actually knew for certain now that I saw.
“A shifter, yes.” My hand reached for Brooklyn’s, and I grasped her fingers so hard I could hear her bones groan. “A female panther, with eyes like yours.”
Echo and Chester inhaled a sharp breath at the same time, their heads snapping toward Dominic who watched me with confusion.
“Eyes like mine?” he parroted. “That’s impossible, Alice. Only my family had this color eyes from the panther community. And they are all dead.”
My mouth opened to say something, anything really.
No words came out.
The door to the common room cracked open and all of us turned to look at it.
Rowan half stepped out half hung on the door handle, pale as a ghost, dull lifeless sigils flickering erratically all over his skin. Dark circles formed half-moons beneath his eyes that had lost all their color and looked see-through right now.
His gaze locked on Dominic immediately as if he listened to our conversation all along.
“Dominic…” Rowan rasped, his voice thready and raw. “Your…” Coughs raked his body and Dominic jumped up and rushed to catch him when he tilted—just about to fall over.
“My what, Rowan?” Dominic leaned over the witch, pressing his ear to the barely moving lips.
A sharp intake of air was followed by Dominic stumbling back and almost dropping the witch.
“What is it?” Brooklyn was instantly by his side, holding them both steady. “Dominic? What’s wrong?”
“My”—his frantic, shocked gaze met hers— “my sister is alive.”
Goosebumps covered me from head to toe even though I knew what Rowan would say.
