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“I think she wants us to leave,” Nolan says to his mate.
Fallon scoffs. “You can bet your pretty feathers I’m not leaving my sister alone with this monster. Not a fucking chance.”
“You should listen to your sister,”Jasper says from behind me, but his voice is wrong.
It trembles with magic and an echo that comes from another realm.
The death plane.
We all turn as Daithi secures his place in Jasper’s body and speaks through him. He grins at Fallon as if he’s already won.“You think I didn’t have a fail-safe in place? Such a womanly thing to do, not to consider the bigger picture. Now, if you’ll be a good little witch, hand over your sister and I might consider leaving you be.”
Fallon grabs my wrist and pulls me to her side. “I’m a queen now, Daithi. You don’t get to tell me what to do.” She shares a look with me. “We’re the ones in charge. The time of the patriarchs isover.”
He chuckles as he takes a handkerchief from his vest pocket and begins cleaning his fingers.“Is that what you think? Well. While you’ve been playing queen in this little patch of land of the living, I’ve been building a bigger kingdom. One that knows when to listen to its betters.”
A rumble sounds from all around us and the ground begins to tremble. My heart leaps into my throat as the whole house rattles, threatening to collapse.
What’s he doing?I ask my sister, because Ifeelsomething coming.
My skin crawls with an eerie sensation and my chest burns as Jasper’s heart continues to beat with an unnatural rhythm.
Then I notice the screams.
Thousands of them.
Do you hear that?I ask. Normally, I’m the only one who can interpret the cries of the dead, but this time they’re echoing through my entire body as if they’re actually here.
“Yes,” Fallon replies out loud. She’s cutting off the blood flow to my fingers, but I don’t care.
If she can hear them, it’s because Daithi is calling the spirits of the death plane… and he’s bringing themhere.
A skeleton bursts through the floor a moment later, followed by another two.
I don’t have to guess who they are. I’ve been hearing their cries the entire time I’ve lived in this cottage.
It’s the family of the prior owners, and apparently, they were buried underneath the house. Given that it looks like a couple and their child, it had been an unsavory ending.
Nolan reacts fast, pulling a gun seemingly from nowhere, and the resulting fire shatters the skeletons into pieces.
It doesn’t do much good, though, because they just start to knit back together.
Daithi laughs.“My children can’t be killed, silly angel. They’re already dead.”
Fallon tugs me back with her. “Time to go, Nolan.”
Nolan sprinkles the potion, opening a portal behind us. “Don’t have to tell me twice. I’ll send Bane and Nox to deal with this.”
Phantoms aren’t going to help this situation!I shout into Fallon’s mind.I know it seems logical to bring in Bane and Nox, but trust me, only I can deal with this. And I. Am. Not.Leaving.
Fallon’s jaw clenches as I wrench my hand free.
From my experience with Daithi, once he sinks his teeth into something, he doesn’t let go.
And I know if I abandon Jasper now, I’ll never get him back. I’ll be dooming him and myself in the process.
A particular vein in her forehead pops just like it did when we were children and I fought her on something. Except this isn’t a childhood tussle. This is life and death—literally.
She reaches for me, but I back away. She sets her jaw again. “If you think I’m leaving you here with this monster, you’re wrong, Issy.”
