“You know? I do believe you, ladybug. I really, truly do.” She leaned down to be at eye level with me, her tone severe. “But, I am not after your honesty or your past. I’m after what’s buried in your head, no matter how deep it is in there, that willhelp me get what I want. Youthinkyou don’t know where their enchantments are. But, we just have to pull it out of that little noggin of yours. No matter what it takes to trigger it.”
“So, what? You’re just going to torture me until I lie to you or break?”
“Torture? Oh, that’s so crude, darling. I consider this more like bonding.”
“Bonding? With a knife? That you stabbed through me?”
“Hey, you are the one who is mated to a huntress. I would think this would be like foreplay for you two.” She smiled venomously. I hissed at her again. She ignored me and kept talking. “It’s okay, though. We will just have to make our memories together.”
I didn’t realize that Lilah had pulled the blade from my shoulder at some point until she waved it near my face. It no longer had the colorful opal swirls around it. Now, it was tainted with Lilah’s blood magic. The sight of it repulsed me, not just because of the blood magic, but because I couldn’t bear seeing Quinn’s blade like this. I turned my head away.
Lilah gripped my cheeks and held me in place. Smirking, she slowly trailed the flat part of the blade over one of my cheeks. I hissed when the blade made contact with my skin. Then, she shifted the dagger and deftly dragged it down my cheek. I cried out as more pain and blood bloomed. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, Lilah licked the blood from the cut with her tongue.
My stomach rolled.
I roared.
I tried to bite her as revenge, but she pulled away before my teeth could make contact.
Her laughter was ear-piercing in how sharp it was. “Mhmm! Your blood is absolutely delicious. Definitely one of my all-time favorites. My compliments to the source!”
“You won’t get away with this, Lilah!”
“Would you listen to you! Sounding like a little hero! How precious! I don’t have to get away with this, ladybug. I just have to get what I need and then get far away from you. But, the longer you take to give me that, the more of your blood and power I get. Isn’t that fun? Now, how about we try this again?”
Her evil smirk of too-bright white teeth was the last thing I saw before I was snapped back into the darkness.
Fuse
QUINN
Ididn’t know how many minutes or hours it had been since Byrd was taken, but I felt every fucking moment of it.
I hadn’t checked what time it was when she was kidnapped. Hell, my phone still sat in the snow next to where I stood, making some part of me grateful I had sprung for the expensive case and screen protector for it. Even if I wanted to, I was too caught up in my own rage. It wouldn’t have made much of a difference anyway. I was shit at math. Besides, I didn’t need to know the exact numbers. Not when I felt each passing second without her like someone was carving it into my heart as prison tallies.
“I need to get home,” Maisie declared, cutting through everyone else’s questions about my missing bond. “I’m sure I have a book there that might help us find Byrd.”
Cody raised an eyebrow toward her. “You have a book on blood magic?”
“No, you dingbat,” Maisie rolled her eyes. “But, I have a ton of books on witch-fae and their magic.”
“Wait, so we are going to go and spend who knows how long reading books?”
“Oh, no, it’s Cody’s worst nightmare:learning.” Nat teased.
“Fuck off, runt?—”
“Hey, shut the fuck up, the both of you,” I snapped. Everyone turned to look at me, both like they had forgotten I was there, and with shock at the command coming from my lips. I couldn’t blame them for either. My anger had surfaced so quickly out of nowhere against my will. Their bickering and back-and-forth never usually bothered me. We all grew up close, just like siblings, so this was normal. But I was so annoyed, faster than I had ever been before. I knew I was being short with them, but I couldn’t control it.
What was going on with me?
“Wh-what I meant was—” Cody stuttered onward, his eyes questioning me. I had no answers for him or anyone else. I didn’t even have answers for myself. I just focused on petting Clarkson and keeping her calm. “Why aren’t we asking those aunties at that library? Wouldn’t that be faster?”
“First of all, one of them is nonbinary, so you cannot call them ‘aunties,’” Maisie started to correct.
“Badass Libbies then. They seemed like they knew a ton about all of this blood magic stuff when we all fought the blood bitch together.”
“Sometimes, I truly hate that I ever let you be inside me.” Maisie shook her head while rolling her eyes again. “To your point, though, yes, they do know about all of this, for sure. However, if we go to talk to them, we will have to tell the other adults because Rhois will not let us get away with not telling Everett since he’s Byrd’s uncle and has a right to know.”
