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Whatever. Tomorrow night we’re sucking this demon rock from my chest, and I’ll will have won my freedom from both marks I now bear.
23
After Thorn’s text, I realized I must return to my apartment to retrieve the other two stones. I have the finger with me, and the first one is firmly lodged in my chest, but the other two are still where I stashed them under the floorboards under my bed.
I’m not sure Chastity would appreciate me returning after all the magical cleansing we did the last time I was there.
I dialed her number, hoping she left the phone on and she was taking calls.
My bestie didn’t answer. Or maybe Chastity wasn’t taking my calls.
Well, hell.
I tried again, but the phone rang and went to voicemail.
Should I go home now? It would be wise to hole up in Thorn’s little house and stay behind the wards, then call Chastity in the morning.
But I’m antsy about leaving the stones in the apartment. What if Moira sent one of her people to sniff around and found the stones? What if my old pack, encouraged by Kye and enraged by Peta’s death, attacked the apartment, and Chastity got caught in the crosshairs?
No. I needed to get the stones now. And warn Chastity again about the dangers of staying in our digs. Perhaps she should return to New Orleans to stay with her grandmother.
After ensuring the finger was securely in my pocket, I left Thorn’s safe house and grabbed the bus. I headed downtown to Sixth Street and my apartment that Chastity and I cleansed so thoroughly I expected an angel to sit on my kitchen counter.
But it wasn’t an angel there.
I scented Moira’s grandmotherly cloying perfume as I opened the door to my apartment. My insides went cold, and I gripped the demonic finger in my cargo pants as dark thoughts invaded my mind. That bitch dared to wander into my territory and needed to die.
It was a thought as primal as hunting prey with the pack and walking patrol to keep strangers off pack land.
But that wasn’t right.
I stood in my sunshiny yellow kitchen, gripping the marble island, trying to master my murderous instincts. The voices whirled in my head, roaring back with a vengeance as if Thorn’s mark didn’t exist. And then I realized that two stones I stashed here, the eye and the heart, were calling me, telling me to take them from the interloper that invaded my house.
I didn’t spot her in the living room, and as small as it was, I wouldn’t have missed her. To be sure I wouldn’t get attacked by some associate of Moira’s, I pushed open the bathroom door on my right and then, Chastity’s bedroom door on the left and found no one there.
That just left my bedroom, which lies around the corner of the living room.
Putting one foot in front of the other, I walked as softly as possible. I’m so intent on moving with stealth that as I round the corner, I’m surprised by Moira standing at the entrance of my bedroom holding the two stones wrapped in silk and the obsidian blade that Thorn had given me.
“Ah, there are you, my dear,” she said sweetly. Moira smiled as if glad to see me.
As if.
“Moira,” I said coldly. “What are you doing in my house?”
“I’m looking for something that belongs to me, dear. And look what I found? Two stones of power and an athame. You’ve become quite the collector of cursed objects.”
I lowered my chin and glared at her from lidded eyes. A sensation akin to a snake gliding on the ground crawled through my body.
“Give those back, and I will not kill you.”
She scoffed. “My dear. You don’t have enough power to kill me. Not even Thorn does. It’s been a point of contention believe me.”
She placed the obsidian knife on my coffee table and unwrapped the silk around the stones, though, like Thorn, she didn’t let them touch her skin.
“I’m impressed. Do you know what these are? What they can do?”
I stepped forward, intending to yank my stones from her hands.
