Page 102 of Nocturn

‘They are only letting me stay until you woke. His Highness ordered it.’ Piper’s derision came through on Cassiel’s title.

Cassiel ordered it. After breaking my body, he sends the single creature I would want to see. A man who shattered my pelvis and in the same breath swept up the pieces.

“How long has it been?” I asked Piper.

“Close to a sennight.” Vera’s answer echoed Piper’s in my head.

I bit my tongue, trying to rein in my horror.

Nocturn was in six dawnlight rotations. Finding Egan was of the utmost importance. What if he had taken the grimoire to his father? I scooted up in the bed to mask my unease. My hand smacked into something hard under the fur blanket. I inhaled sharply.

“Has Egan been in here?”

“Yes,” Branwen answered, her mouth twitching at the corners.

Egan had left me the grimoire.

I barely contained my shout of excitement.

“Apologies, Amara, but I must take your . . . wraithling.” Vera cleared her throat and approached. “Do I . . .?” She cupped her hands in front of Piper who turned to give me a look, her little snout twitching.

‘Back to my little cage in the barn full of sexual deviants,’ she mumbled. I pressed her to my chest.

“Soon,” I whispered as low as I could, hoping she understood I was telling her that we would be leaving this place. Spanning my arm out, I let her climb to my hand and transferred her to Vera’s arm.

Vera squealed, squishing her eyes closed, but she did not drop Piper, which was all I cared about.

“Stop being dramatic, it’s a ferret,” Branwen muttered, pushing off my bed and shuffling out behind Vera. “I will leave you to continue resting.”

Their footsteps retreated.

I angled myself to the side so my back faced anyone who might enter, arranging the bottom of the silky chemise around me.

With my nerves aflutter, I pulled the grimoire from under the fur.

What Cassiel had done to me, there was no way around the horror of it. There would be time to fully grasp his act, but not at this second with answers literally in my hands.

I let out a shaking breath. The spine cracked as I opened it, and a wave of mustiness wafted from the parchment.

The Larien scrawl had more of a flourish at the ends; the text was more compressed and toward the middle of the page. I carefully set it upon the edge of the bedding and scooted off the bed. I crouched and immediately regretted it. My leg buckled and I fell on my bottom. Breathing slowly through my nose, I forced myself to stay still until the sharp stabbings inside my leg abated.

A harsh gasp left my mouth. I couldn’t fall apart. Gritting my teeth, I lifted my bowed head and opened the small compartment under the frame of my bed where I had stashed the mylk flowers with my journal. Tucked to the edge were my ink and feather.

I lifted my journal, feather, and ink, placing them on the edge of the bed to free my hands. Bracing, I stood and dropped on the edge of the bed to scoot against my pillow. I preferred a desk, but I had to be able to hide the grimoire quickly. Once the journal was spread, the ink set up against my leg, and the grimoire open, I took a deep breath and began. The lettering settled its shaking as it always did when I first looked at it.

The first word scrawled in thick lines across the top: Designations.

I flipped to the middle of my journal and poised the tip of the quill to scrawl the title.

Squinting, I continued to read, absorbing every single word.

Redbloods, bluebloods, Warlords; they each had different titles. Betas were Bluebloods, magick wielders with one gift. Warlords were Alphas—those with heightened strength, the most physically imposing of the rest, and blood-drinkers.

Yet there were only four in existence, though the manner the text spoke described it as if there could be more. With luck, further in I would find proof my instinct was correct.

One truth that remained true . . . Warlords were closest to deities . . .

I continued reading and discovered why there had not been more. They must be Awakened. The text stopped short of explaining how one was to do that.