AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Irritated at the lack of help or answers, I finally break down and ask Nicola where Iva’s personal quarters are located. She’s happy to oblige, as long as I say please.
Fates give me patience. Because if you give me strength, I’m going to kill this bitch.
“Please,” I grind out, and she accepts my half-assed gesture.
She leads us to the third floor inside an opulent bedroom. All along the east wall are enormous built-in bookcases. Some of the columns are filled with books, but many—so many—of the others are filled with gray canisters.
Moving closer, I realize what I’m looking at.
Glass jars.
Glass jars filled with ashes.
Thick, vibrating energy radiates from them. I know that feeling—I’ve been missing it since Iva suppressed my Aegis.
And then I finally understand…
This is how she had so much power—why she lived so far past the norm for our species.
This is why the Aegis were being slaughtered.
Horror brings bile up my throat.
How many lives is she responsible for? I wonder, trying and failing to count the jars displayed like trophies.
“Hey, come look at this,” Ian calls from the other side of the room.
On the wide, king-size sleigh bed are remnants of ashes on the duvet and sheets, but it looks as if someone has hastily scrapped them off the fabric.
Dread sours the feeling of triumph in my belly.
Too easy. All of this was too easy.
Who knows what kind of nut job could have those ashes? And given the number of jars in this room, we might never find her. Those ashes could be anywhere.
My worry practically grows a new head as the realization, that until a wraith sends her to Hell, someone could bring her back.
It takes days to send each of the Aegis souls on. We go through every single jar, the final count over two thousand. Only fifty of those souls were handed over to the wraiths to consume.
Fifty that were evil out of two thousand souls. My mind still refuses to make sense of the carnage.
After we go through the jars on the shelves, we raid every nook and cranny of Iva’s room, coming up empty. I plop down on a fragile settee—secretly hoping I break it—and catch a faint noise near my left ear. I stop moving and shush the room, silently waiting for the sound again.
There.
Beyond the thick material on the north wall, a weak moan escapes the tapestry. No one else seems to hear it, but I know someone is behind that wall. West and Rhys work together, ripping the curtain from its rungs to reveal a small wooden door.
West steps back and kicks it in with his wide, heavy boot. The stench wafting from the depths of the black room speaks of death and blood and torture.
Rhys lights up his right hand and steps close to the ailing body of an emaciated, unconscious girl.
This is her—the girl I’ve searched this whole house for.
Her dark hair covers her face, and when I pull the matted strands back, my world nearly spins off its axis.
My legs refuse to hold me, and I crash to my knees.
“What is it, Gorgeous?” Rhys asks.
But he couldn’t know.
Only someone as close as we once were would recognize her now.
“That’s Mena,” I say on a gasping sob. “That’s my sister.”
