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Alexei’s head pounded. “You sidelined us while you played with magical gates and withheld information from my mate? You said there was a bomb.”
“No,” his sister corrected. “I said the building might blow because I’m working on a new version of the explosive agent used with C4, and I needed to check the composition. I know how to multitask.” She opened the box, and he almost flinched, but she kept talking as if she hadn’t mentioned the equivalent of a bomb. “Check out what we found in theBook of Truths.” She closed the box and lifted a worn leather-bound volume.
“Don’t.” Worry snaked along his spine, edging out the irritation. His skin went hot with magic thrumming through his veins. “You can’t just bring out a spelled book in here without first laying protection wards.”
Joelle pushed her lips out in a confused and adorable pout. “She said a human wrote it. How could it be magical?”
He didn’t back down. “If it wasn’t, then she wouldn’t have needed the lead-lined safe we use to transport artefacts.”
“Oh.” His mate curled tighter against him, and he loved that she sought protection from him.
“Relax,” Alys said. “It’s a plain old book, but look what the human drew.” She flipped it open, and he leaned closer.
The ink sketch that stretched over the yellowed paper could’ve been a hand-drawn map of the symbols on Joelle’s body. In the last week, he had run his hands over every single mark, memorizing the lines and curves, savoring her taste along with the buzz of her magic.
He snapped at his sister. “Stop teasing things out like a drama demon.” While he knew logically that a book published a hundred years ago shouldn’t piss him off, he felt possessive seeing his mate’s secrets there for anyone to view. He would need to buy every copy of that book and stash in his home library. “What do the symbols tell you about Joelle? And what, if anything, does that mean she needs to do with this information?”
Alys put her hand up as if warding off whatever anger he had brewing. “Listen, I wasn’t convinced of the connection either until Nita found this.” She held up a charcoal sketch that could’ve been a Seer’s version of what Joelle’s face might look like in twenty years. The eerie resemblance made his skin tight.
Holy shit.He glanced at his mate. “You’ve gone quiet. Good quiet or bad?” He wished he had the ability to read her emotions like some of the shifter couples claimed to have.
She stared at him with wide eyes. “Perhaps the author had supernatural blood somewhere in his line, latent Sight talents.”
Alys turned the page to a full-body sketch that could definitely be Joelle with lighter hair. “Or he channeled a deity, and you’re the reincarnated version of his star goddess.”
Joelle stiffened. “Reincarnation goes to souls. I would be considered more of a clone.”
“Whatever,” Alys said. “It makes sense given your Rapunzel-worthy hair’s perfect condition despite the hovels you lived in.” She glanced at him. “Did she tell you I couldn’t cut or color it?”
Alexei wanted to growl. “When did this happen? And why would you touch my mate’s hair? I like it long.” Plus, he’d had those dazzling metallic strands wrapped around his fingers when she’d climaxed, so yeah, he preferred she keep its uniqueness.
His sister glared at him. “What you like doesn’t matter when it’sherhair. When it comes to Joelle originating from a goddess, the only thing that doesn’t fit is you’re a healer. Any other powers you don’t know about? Because if you’re a version of a god—cloned or otherwise—it seems you would have gotten some serious magic mojo.”
That level of powers origin would explain how his mate wiped out a ship, but that wasn’t his secret to share. He thought about the possibilities while he waited for his mate to answer. She stared at Alys, at him, then back.
“On the ship,” she said. “It was me. I caused that. They pointed a gun at Alexei’s head, and I couldn’t…I didn’t…”
His sister showed no immediate response. None of the shock or surprise or even fear that he had calculated as probable reactions to his woman’s magic. Instead, she simply sat and looked into the distance as if searching for answers no one else could see. Finally, she broke her silence. “Huh, that explains a lot. The fallout seemed almost nuclear, as though a blast had gone off. Or a star had exploded. If you went supernova, that would account for the bright light and just poof—everyone dead. Except how did you survive it?” she asked Alexei.
He rushed to answer before Joelle might. “She saved me.”
“Riiight.” His sister’s drawn-out tone said she didn’t believe him, and she looked to Joelle instead. “My brother’s here now which is all that matters. Terror must’ve triggered the new magic, specifically fear for your mate’s life. But how did you keep it repressed all these years?”
“The shackles.” His mate’s whisper came out small and heartbroken. Her guess made sense. The Order’s leader had created her and then locked her powers away. “They must’ve worked like the binding braces that the witches put on their young. Noxx said she wants to reanimate her sister who was killed by supernaturals, that I will be able to power the world with my magic. That she stole the siphon to drain me when the time was right. She sounded like I had been created as an energy source for her science project.”
“That’s some Dr. Frankenstein shit,” Alys said. “Did she tell you anything else about your magic?”
“That my powers could destroy everything.”
“All right then. You and my brother make a good match in every way. When demon hybrids know their rulers can crush them, they tend to fall in line faster and stay there. Now, the only other thing I discovered is that your ancestor or source or whatever you want to call her? She went by different names in various cultures. In theBook of Truths, she’s known as Our Lady of Stars, which fits with the meteorite stuff.”
Joelle shook her head. “But how would Noxx have gotten DNA to replicate a goddess?”
“Perhaps she had a piece of this.” Alys shoved the closed box across the desk.
“Uh uh.” Alexei put his hand over the lid before his mate could open it. “What’s inside and why did you need to keep it in a magic-proof safe?”
His sister shot him a lopsided smirk, which told him how much trouble they might be in. “Just a measly scrap of fabric that fell out of the book.”
