Page 6 of Hidden Sacrifice
She glared in response. “You all just assumed I did something wrong on purpose. I’m not actively trying to get myself in trouble, but the more you make me hold your hands, the more likely I’ll find myself in shit,” she huffed. “Can you please take these things off me now?” She looked down to the ropes and then back to Jax.
The ropes began sliding across as the bands first loosened and then fell to her feet in a pile. Jace remained behind her; his arms wrapping securely around her waist. Jasper wore a frown as he struggled without an outlet for his war.
“We need to go back in there. There was something off; I couldn’t figure it out,” Mor said, pulling away from Jace’s hold before brushing off the dirt from her clothes.
“Hey,” I said, grabbing her by the arm as she started storming toward the manor again. “Our powers are locked in that room. We can’t go back in there until we figure out a way to disable the spell.”
“Let’s do that then.” She smiled at me, caressing my arm until she reached my hand. Lacing her fingers with mine, she tugged lightly. She was beckoning me to follow her.
I looked into her green eyes as certainty washed over me. I would follow her to the end of the universe, and I would hold her hand as we awaited the end together.
None of the other boys outwardly spoke against her impromptu, and frankly against procedure, call. They followed along behind us in silence. This was our first hunt together, and already this thing had gone sideways. Mor wouldn’t leave without answers, and none of us seemed to have any ideas on how to handle her, other than following along.
We headed back inside the manor, our shoes thumping across the floorboards as our footfalls echoed off the walls. The entryway into the cellar loomed ahead, and I yanked on her hand. She didn’t need to get any closer to it yet.
Mor rolled her eyes but stayed where she was.
“Move back from it. Let me see if I can identify what spell was used, and maybe even what cast it,” Jax said, his power pushing us against the wall. He was wound fucking tight right now.
He placed his palm on the frame of the door, and a ripple of blue emanated from where his palm touched. Runes and spells were illuminated all along the walls of the entire manor; most of them were deactivated when the building fell apart and the magic aged. The cellar seemed to be the only place left with enough of them active.
White flashed before us as Jax destroyed all of them. I waited in the calm quiet. Nothing.
We all breathed a sigh of relief as nothing happened. Then a rush of power burst from the cellar, knocking me on my ass. The house began to shake violently. I didn’t even have time to move before the ceiling crashed down on me as the whole place was reduced to ruin.
Look up at the sky, little monster. Never forget what home looks like.
“Morrigan.”
I couldn’t tell exactly which of the boys was yelling. I was pinned in by debris, waiting for my ulna to fit back together. Dust coated my lungs with every breath forcing me to cough it out. My power raced around inside me, stitching me back up. Reaching out with my mind, I found Morrigan close to me. I tried to go into her mind, but some mental waiting area blocked me off.
“She’s over here near me,” I yelled, hoping the others would be able to hear me.
Their muffled shouts grew increasingly more apparent. The weight was slowly lifting off me as they approached. I checked back in with Mor and found her mind open but full of static. I think she was coming around as her body healed.
Jax lifted a wall off us using his power, letting me sit up. Mor was coughing, her arm cradled to her chest as she fought to stand. I laid back in the rubble, laughing as I allowed the magic more time to heal me.
“Where’s Jace?” Mor asked, and I felt my stomach bottom out. It was daytime, which meant his powers were already weakened.
“Over here, Darling,” Jace came strolling up, not a speck of dirt on him. “I don’t heal as quickly as demons. You need to remember your vampire power as well, darling.”
“You seriously left me?” Her mouth sprung free as she glared at him.
“I wouldn’t have made it out if I tried to get you. If I were stuck in there, I wouldn’t have been able to help get you out.”
She continued to glare at him. Suspicion rolled off her as it had when we first got to the hunting cabin. His intentions were true, and his logic was sound. We all would have made the same call. She is our priority, but our age gave us wisdom.
Jasper was standing in the rubble. His hands in his hair with a look of horror on his face. I looked past his illusion and noticed half of one of his horns was broken off. It would take a few days to regrow. This wasn’t how hunts worked, and that would nag at him until he found a release. He didn’t thrive in chaos the way I did.
“What’s that?” I followed Mor’s gaze; there wasn’t anything.
“What do you see, Fox?”
She watched the spot intently, her gaze tracking an invisible object as it rose into the sky.
“There’s so many of them,” she breathed.
“So many what?” Jax growled. His face went blank. “Oh,” he breathed with the same amazement that she had. “They’re soul fragments. She can see them like little wisps of colorful smoke. At least a hundred of them were bound in that cellar.”
