Page 170

I stare at her. “Tonight?”

She considers that. “Fair.”

Then the Earth pulses beneath us once.

My heart answers twice.

Sage follows three times.

Then nothing… just silence.

I sit up. “No.”

Her brows burrow. “What?”

But I know that rhythm. We all do.

One. Two. Three.

Silence.

The old call.

I’ve heard it more times than I can count, only it never came from inside my fucking chest before. Except this time, it isn’t coming from drums. It’s coming from inside us.

Sage presses a hand to her own chest. “You feel that?”

“Yes.”

The red ribbon moves slowly. The blood-stained satin unties itself.

Sage watches.

Neither of us touches it.

The knot opens for the first time all night, then the ribbon slides from her wrist and falls into the dirt.

We stare.

Sage whispers, “Did we just…”

The Earth swallows it.

Gone.

Her wrist is bare for all of three seconds before something begins to appears beneath her skin.

A thin red line circling her wrist exactly where the ribbon was.

Her face drains. “No.” She rubs it, but nothing changes. The line darkens. Not blood or a cut… a mark.

I grab her wrist. The instant I touch it, something burns across mine.

“Fuck!” I release her, then a red line circles my wrist.

Sage stares. “Rhett.”

I rub it. It doesn’t move. Doesn’t fade. Then symbols begin appearing along the inside. Tiny, dark and ancient.