Page 45 of Heavy is the Crown
They are hunting for her.
– Mori Family Grimoire
Ava
“Drago, I went for a drive. I’ll be back, I promise,” I say into the phone as I downshift coming around the corner. The white STI takes the sharp turn beautifully. The exhaust lets out a loud rumble as I accelerate again. When I woke up this morning, it felt like I was crawling out of my skin. I knew I needed to get out of the house for a while. The urgency for freedom took control. So, with Drago still sleeping, I repeated my actions from a few days ago.
“Ava,” he growls. “Do you remember the last time you left?” My pussy quivers at his voice and the memory.
“Yes, vividly. But, Drago, I’m going insane. I can’t stay inside anymore; without Shadow, I’m crawling the walls. He’s out there somewhere hurting, and I can’t get that out of my mind.”
There’s a long pause before I hear, “Am I not enough?” The way his voice breaks hurts me physically; tears form in my eyes.
“Drago,rakkaani,of course, you are. But we both know Shadow is our person, and until he is back, I need to stay busy. So, please, just give this to me. No one knows to look for me here. I’m in a car that no one associates with any of us. I’m not going into the city. I’m staying on the back roads.”
He doesn’t say anything, his breathing the only indication the call is still connected. “I love you,” I say. But I don’t get a response before the sound of crunching metal and the screech of brakes yanks me violently from the call. My body moves on autopilot, conditioning from years of racing and watching my brother race kicking in as I try to control the vehicle.
(“Godly” – Tommee Profitt and Vo Williams)
The STI jerks to the side from the impact, and my head hits hard against the window. I cover my face out of instinct, releasing the wheel from my hands, as the glass breaks apart. I feel like a rag doll as my body is jerked this way and that; the only thing preventing me from actually being thrown around is the five-point harness. The airbags deploy, knocking the wind from my chest and gobbling up my screams. I think I hear Drago yelling my name, but I can’t focus on it long enough before the sound is cut off and all that's left is the noise of the crash.
After what feels like hours, the car finally skids to a halt. My vision blurs with dizziness and my ears are ringing. My limbs feel odd as I start to pull at my harness, start to try to assess what the fuck just happened. Smoke pours from the hood of the car, obscuring my view of the street in front of me, but the scent of sulfur invades my nose, making me want to retch up the little food in my stomach.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I chant. I tug harder at the straps securing me to the seat, panic woven into my limbs now. I know what sulfur means. The straps finally pull apart, but the door iscrumpled inward, making it next to impossible to open. I reach for my magic without care, attempting to wiggle out of the car. I'm sluggish, my magic barely able to rally enough to shove open the crumpled door. I’m finally dumped onto the concrete from the open door. My body screams at me as I go to push myself up.
Like a million spiders crawling over me, magic that's not my own suddenly pulls me upright off the cold ground. I grit my teeth against the feeling, but my limbs refuse to listen as I try to fight back, fight through the terror starting to grip me. Frantically, I search the area with my eyes, desperate to locate the source of the magic that holds my body prone. Before I can spot it, the mystery magic yanks me forward and drops me back onto the concrete, further from the smoldering wreckage.
This is fucking bad. So, so bad.Squeezing my eyes shut, I send a silent prayer that Drago will get here in time. That even though we have only a partial bond, he’ll track me. Regret for not feeding off him courses through me.
The weight of the magic presses into my body as I try to shove myself up. When I open my eyes, I half expect to see a visible force holding me down. Then the sound of boots crunching over glass pierces the silence, and real fear pushes through me as my eyes finally come to focus on a tall man walking toward me.
“Hello, Ava.” The man's voice is deathly soft and, oh, so familiar to me. “I’ve been looking for you. You are quite difficult to find in this shithole of a city.” The man bends down toward me, cocking his head as he assesses me. A sinister smile spreads over his face.
“Oisin,” I whisper. The man who was once like a brother to me looks vastly different from the last time I saw him. The scar still cuts through his left eye, the pure white of it standing out against his black hair, which hangs down in strings that partially obscure his right eye. That eye burns red, but there is nowarmth in his face, no love or concern. Only poisonous malice. Confusion grips me as I try to reconcile the person I once knew with the man in front of me.
He snaps his fingers, and the magic holding me raises me up, just as he comes to a stand, so I’m face-to-face with him. My body is rigid in the magic’s hold, my toes barely brushing the ground. “So glad you remember me. I was worried after you ran, you’d forget about me.”
“What is going on?” I ask, unwilling to believe that Jackson could have anything to do with this.But why would Oisin have been looking for me?
Oisin tucks his hands behind his back as he walks around my body. When he is behind me, his magic finally releases me, dropping me hard to the ground. I push up, refusing to stay where I am, despite my body screaming at me to stop moving.
He sneers down at me. “You are weak. Your magic is basically gone. We’ll have to remedy that immediately.” He snaps his fingers, and a woman appears. I blink a few times, trying to understand what I’m seeing. “I believe you remember Arcanna’s mother.”
Lady Ornate smiles coolly at me, wearing long white robes that she's got stitched together with golden rope, her breasts shoved against the thin fabric.
“She’s my high priestess. She’ll help with the initiation when we return to Hell.”
Indeed, she wears the sunbeam crown many priestesses wear, but evil seems to pour from her.
“You weren’t a high priestess,” I growl.
She smiles at me. “True, but His Grace here allowed me to enter when I was initiated.”
Panic grips the edges of my psyche as my world tilts on its axis. I’m scrambling to catch up to the truth in front of me. “You . . . you are from The Order.”
He lets out a long, deep laugh. “I am The Order.” He snaps his fingers, and his magic pulls me into the air as Arcanna’s mother walks forward.
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” I scream. But she ignores my request, plunging a needle into my neck and pulling blood from me. I yelp at the feeling. Then she roughly pulls it out and walks back over to Oisin.
