She hissed at him to shut up again, then plunged her fingertips into the bowl of blood, gesturing for him to do the same. Despite his apparent mockery of her methods, he did as she asked.
Their fingers brushed beneath the blood, warm and slippery, sending tiny shockwaves of magic and pleasure up her arm.
Jaci didn’t have the courage to look at him. Couldn’t bear to know whether he’d felt the same connection… or hadn’t.
Instead, she closed her eyes, concentrated on the slick warmth of the blood, and uttered her spell.
Cast and bound the darkest hex
By shadow we shall not be vexed
What time and magic have concealed
Flesh and blood shall now reveal
Even before she finished chanting, his blood was already whispering its secrets. Flashes of color appeared behind her closed lids, like arcs of lightning in orange and blue and silver. She repeated the spell once more, and the flashes intensified, then scattered, revealing a complex weave of thousands of multi-colored threads, all of them bound together with a dark, heavy power, pulsating as if it were a living thing. She couldn’t see it clearly, but shefeltit, hiding in the spaces between the colored threads, the absence of all light, a darkness so profound it threatened to suck her in.
In her mind, she saw herself reaching for the threads, gently untangling them with her fingers. But even in the relatively safe space of her mind, the very act of touching the weave left her dizzy and disoriented, her whole body burning as if she’d tumbled into a thorn bush.
Whatever this curse was, it was beyond her magic. Beyond her understanding.
And if she didn’t break the connection soon, it would taint her as surely as it had tainted him.
Panic shot through her limbs, and she pulled back in her mind, trying to release the threads. But the magic didn’t want to releaseher. Something held her there, those invisible thorns digging into her flesh, burning, tearing, leeching the blood from her veins…
“No!” With a strangled cry, she finally wrenched free, jerking her hand from the bowl and breaking the connection. Her eyes flew open, shocked to see Gabriel slumped in his chair, his bloody hand clutched on his lap as though it burned, his chin resting against his chest.
“Prince?” she called, reaching out to touch his face. His flesh was hot and feverish. “Can you hear me?”
No response.
“Gabriel?”
Slowly, he lifted his head. Opened his eyes. Stared at her in a way that made her blood run cold.
His eyes were a soapy white, devoid of their familiar green. Devoid of their familiaranything.
The being sitting in front of her was no longer Gabriel.
“Show yourself, demon,” she commanded, her heart threatening to gallop out of her ribcage. If this was the hellbeast who’d bound Gabriel’s curse, she was pretty sure she and her vampire were both going to die today.
Gabriel’s usual cocky smirk twisted into something much more sinister, and the voice that passed through those lips came straight from Jaci’s worst nightmares.
“Been a minute, Lab Rat,” the demoness said.
Suddenly, the rotten sisterhood card made perfect sense.
“Viansa,” Jaci whispered. She couldn’t get her voice to work. Couldn’t even breathe.
The mouth reformed again, twisting into Viansa’s cruel snarl. “This is just a preview. I can’twaitfor the real reunion. It’ll be epic, and you’re—”
The voice cut off suddenly, the vampire’s features relaxing back into their usual grimness. The milky film faded from his eyes, the green irises reappearing seconds before he passed out again.
Jaci waited. Counted to a hundred. Waited again. When she reached out with her senses, she couldn’t detect any more demonic energy. None but her own, at least.
Viansa was truly gone—for now.
Jaci blew out a breath. How the fuck had her sister even gotten here? She wasn’t strong enough to fully manifest, butsomethingmust’ve connected her to this moment. This place. This… vampire?
