“I think that’s horseshit.”
He smiled. “Did you just say ‘horseshit’?”
“I’m serious.”
“I can tell.”
We fell into silence again. Crowe shifted his weight an inch on the woodpile, and without thinking, I pressed the blade to his skin. He pushed the gun harder into my forehead.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
The harder I fought Darek’s order, the less control I seemed to have over my body, the more compelled I felt to listen to my hand instead of my head. It was only a matter of time until one of us wouldn’t be able to hold back the urge to kill.
I didn’t want to die not knowing the truth.
“Did you ever love me?” I whispered. “Was I ever more than just a distraction?”
Crowe blinked. “Jemmie.”
“If I’m going to die, I want the truth.”
“Yes. I loved you. I love you. I’ve never stopped.”
My shoulders fell, and Crowe seemed able to ignore the shift in my posture, though his eyes squeezed shut and his gritted teeth were telling me it wasn’t easy. I’d been waiting over a year to hear him say those words. Now he had, and it was bittersweet. Because I was going to die today, one way or the other. I could feel the finality of it settling in. I didn’t need to have omnias blood in my veins to feel fate crushing down on me.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“I wanted to protect you,” he said. “From me, from what I might become, and from everything that came along with that.”
“And now?”
His gaze fell to my lips. “Now I just want you.”
A smile. A sigh. I had a gun to my head, but I was ridiculously happy in that instant. “I’m yours.”
His hand came up, like he meant to touch me. I dug the blade harder against his throat, leaving a small gash. Blood welled in the wound and spilled from it like melted wax over the edge of a candle.
The blood ran toward my hand, the one still clutching the knife. “I have an idea,” I said, inching my palm up the hilt, toward the blade. I forced myself not to move any other part of my body except my fingers and prayed I wouldn’t accidentally drop the weapon before I’d gotten what I needed.
When I felt the bite of the knife’s edge, I smiled. Crowe’s blood was streaming down the side of his neck, and mine was dripping from the pads of my fingers. I tried angling my hand a fraction of an inch to bring our essences together. Crowe’s finger slid back to the trigger.
“What are you doing?” he said.
“Saving us.”
“I can feel you moving. So you should either hurry up or stop it.”
I counted down in my head. Trying to propel myself into action, coiling the necessary energy I’d need to move fast enough to dodge a bullet.
One.
Two.
“Jemmie,” Crowe warned.
Three.
I pressed my right hand to the wound on Crowe’s neck where locant blood met venemon blood for the second time. As the power surged inside me, I threw my left hand up, grabbed Crowe’s arm and pushed it away. The gun went off inches from my face.
My ears ringing from the blast, I reached for the magic we’d just created together. It exploded out around us, gold and sapphire and the indefinable shimmer that was both of them together.
After this morning, I’d thought I knew what it felt like to work blood magic. But I didn’t. Crowe had been in control this morning, casting the spell he’d needed to survive—I’d mostly been an observer.
Casting the magic in a blood-powered spell was ten times more potent.
Time stood still as warmth ran through me. This tingly-all-over feeling. Like velvet. Like rose petals. Like smooth chocolate melting in your mouth. Breathing felt like freedom. The beating of my heart was the thundering of a storm electrifying the air. The ground vibrated beneath me. Colors became more vibrant. Sounds more refined. My magic surged inside me, with his wrapping around it, breathing life into it.
It was like I was seeing and hearing and feeling the world for the very first time. With a grin, I reached up and drew my finger through the crimson ribbons of animus magic imprisoning us. Blue and gold twined together and cut through the crimson power. The mind-control power Darek had stolen from Killian shattered all around us, crumbling like an afterthought.
I slid off the woodpile, my body melting with the magic, and collapsed to my knees. Crowe caught me, hugged me close.
“Jemmie. Talk to me.”
I looked up at him. Stupid, handsome Crowe. More handsome than ever before.
His eyes were black again, but so were mine. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it, the blackness of the magic bleeding into my eyes. It stung just as much as it thrilled. But I didn’t care. The good far outweighed the bad.
“Get up. We have to go,” Crowe said, letting me go quickly. “Darek is going to be doing the spell any minute now.”
The euphoria of our blood magic faded quickly, just like it had before, and I climbed to my feet, Crowe’s arm laced around my waist. I was here but not here, delighted and floating on the revelation of his love yet strangled by the certainty of my own impending death. But I was ready even though it was way too soon. I was part of this, and it was time.
Somewhere far away, I heard the whisper of the Undercurrent, where the blackness lived. And it was calling my name.
EIGHTEEN
“HARDY AND I USED TO PLAY HERE ALL THE TIME WHEN we were kids,” Crowe said as he led me around the junkyard, headed for the riverbank. “There are a few ways to get to that second floor.”
We reached the bottom of a conveyor-belt ramp along the side of the building that must have been used to move logs up from the river to the processing facility inside. The ramp connected to a section of the second floor that jutted out over the Sable and was held up by a few rickety-looking wooden posts. Even from here, I could see that part of that floor had rotted away, revealing the lighted space inside the building. “This is my entrance,” said Crowe, leaning close, his voice just a whisper. “He probably won’t expect anyone to go in this way.”
“Probably because it’s crazy—be careful you don’t end up in the river.”
He grinned, hard and dangerous. “You can go in through the building and get up the stairs. How’s your magic?”
I looked down at my hands, at the wisps of locant trailing from my fingertips. The blood spell had amplified my magic temporarily, but it was already wearing off, as was the feeling of euphoria, leaving me with only dread—even if we saved everybody, I wasn’t going to make it out. “Not a hundred percent yet, but better.”
If I told him it wasn’t, he would feel the need to protect me, and I needed him to protect Alex and my parents and everyone else.
“That barrier around him is going to be wearing off really soon,” I said. “Unless he uses my dad to recharge, that is.”
“We’ll have to take our chances. I’m going to get Darek as soon as I find a way in. At the very least, I can keep him busy. You focus on getting people out and protecting them from Killian’s magic, since he’s under Darek’s control. Start with your dad, because he’ll be able to help you shield the others from any animus magic. Then free Alex and Hardy. Can you unbind magic yet?”
I offered him a brave smile. “I’ll give it everything I have.” All I really had to do was get to my dad—if I failed or went down, he could do the rest.
“There are two staircases inside,” Crowe continued, his lips brushing against my hair. “He’s probably been using the one nearest the front entrance, but there’s a narrow set of steps through there.” He pointed to an old door, just crooked planks barely holding together, that was situated beneath a sagging overhang. “If he’s got a barrier up to wall that entrance off, you’ll be able to take it down.”
“Be careful,” I whispered as he tested his weight on the ramp. “Remember how many people need you. My mom—” My throat constricted over my last request. Take care of her after I’m gone.