Incarnate: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Marked Saga Book 5)

by Bianca Scardoni

  I kicked off my shoes at the entrance and headed straight for my bedroom, ignoring how cold and empty the house felt or the way the floorboards creaked under my feet as I traversed the corridor. It was only when I got to my room and noticed that the patio door was wide open that I finally cracked and let the fear creep back in.

  My gaze burned through the room, half expecting to find Dominic there waiting for me. When I was sure the coast was clear, I marched to the patio door and slammed it shut. The gust of wind from the movement sent a piece of paper fluttering off my desk.

  Thinking nothing of it, I bent down and picked it up and then froze as I realized it was a note from Dominic:

  Thank you for the lovely night.

  Till next time…

  My veins turned to ice as I crumpled the note and then threw it into the trash can beside my desk. I couldn’t get the paper out of my hands fast enough. Gripping the edge of my desk, I pulled in a deep breath and tried to stop my heart from beating its way out of my chest.

  He’d been in my house—in my room. And his little note had made it clear that whatever game he was playing with me last night, it had only just begun.

  Grabbing a change of clothes and my toothbrush, I shoved everything into a bag and then hightailed it out of there. I had zero interest in spending even a minute in that house alone until Dominic was under control. Besides, I already had enough to deal with tonight. I needed to get my mind ready for what I was gearing up to do, and the Veil needed to be a top priority right now.

  Less than twenty minutes later, I pulled up to Temple and made my way through the security scanners. As nervous as I’d been on the drive over here, I found myself strangely calm as I walked across the atrium. There was a certain kind of peace that came with resigning yourself and I knew I was doing this whether I was ready for it or not.

  “Good evening, Jemma,” greeted William as he fell into step beside me. “You’re early.”

  I flashed him a smile. “Guess I couldn’t wait to get started.”

  He gave me a doubtful look and then asked, “I trust you’re well prepared for tonight.”

  “Of course,” I answered confidently. There was no point in telling him I almost peed myself twice on the way over here. Anxiety usually did that to me, though in this case it was more anticipatory anxiety than anything else. I had no real idea what I’d signed up for or how this was going to go and the fear of the unknown just got the better of me.

  “Good.” He nodded curtly. “Your team is waiting for you in the study.”

  “Can’t wait,” I lied as I swallowed the little knot at the back of my throat and followed him down the long corridor.

  Neither one of us saying anything to fill the deafening silence which was just as well. I wasn’t really in the mood to gab anyway. When we finally reached the study, he opened the door and then ushered me inside.

  My jaw went slack as my shocked gaze landed on Trace. What in the fresh hell was Trace doing here? Alright, I told myself, no need to panic. This obviously had to be some kind of a mistake. A mix-up of rooms. I glanced up at the door as if needing to verify that we were in fact in the study and not some alternate hell dimension.

  “Hey,” said Trace, his hands buried in his jeans pocket and a sullen look on his face.

  My wide eyes moved from him to Gabriel and then back again.

  “Excuse me,” I said, holding up a finger as I grabbed the Senior Magister’s arm and hauled him out of the room. “Is this some kind of joke?” I snapped after shutting the door behind us. “You don’t actually think I’m letting Trace do this, do you?”

  He jerked back as though stunned by my outburst. “My dear, he’s your Keeper—”

  “He never Pledged to me,” I quickly cut in to correct him, even though I had no idea what the difference was. All I knew was that he wasn’t doing this.

  He bowed his head. “Nevertheless, he was handpicked for you. He is more than capable—”

  “No!” I shook my head violently, ignored the whole handpicked bit. “He can’t handle this. His mind is too fragile right now!” Dammit! How this was happening? Why him? Why now?

  They couldn’t be that stupid.

  “I assure you; Trace is more than qualified to assist in this assignment. We wouldn’t have put him on the case if we had any doubt of his ability to complete the task,” he said with finality as though there wasn’t a thing I could say or do that would change his mind. “Besides, he will be there in an assistive capacity. He will not be in any real danger entering the Veil.”

  “Can you guarantee that?” I asked.

  “Well, I can guarantee that he will not be facing the same dangers that you are,” he said, his eyes tinged with regret—with pity for me. “In any event, at this stage in the game, it’s far too late to find a replacement. It’s now or never, Jemma. Make your choice.”

  I glared back at him. I mean, seriously? What choice did I really have here? They’d just thrown my back right up against the wall. Either I refused to do this with him and jeopardize precious time that we no longer had, or I did this and risked his life again. Sure, he said he wouldn’t be facing the same dangers I was, but he certainly didn’t guarantee that Trace would be safe, and I needed a guarantee.

  “There has to be someone else,” I pleaded, my voice taking on a note of desperation. “Anyone else.”

  “I’m afraid there isn’t, Jemma.”

  My eyes narrowed at him. Why was this suddenly feeling like a suicide mission handcrafted for the three of us? If they were up to something—if they were playing me in any way shape or form, so help me god they would rue the day they ever set their eyes on me.

  “If anything happens to him—and I mean if a single hair on his head is moved, I’m going to hold you personally responsible for it,” I said, barring my teeth to him. “And I promise you, you will pay for it in blood.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed noisily. I certainly had his attention now.

  Crossing me arms, I asked again, “Are you absolutely sure he’s the right person for the job?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Yes, of course. My goodness, Jemma. You really must learn to trust us. At some point, we are going to have to put the past behind us.”

  Easy for him to say.

  “Alright. Fine,” I finally answered, even though I wasn’t even almost okay with this. Nor did I trust them. At least not fully and completely the way they wanted me to. “But I meant what I said. One. Hair.” With that, I walked away from him and headed back into the study as a thousand tons of dread dropped into my heart.

  I was going on this suicide mission with Trace whether I liked it or not, and something was telling me I was going to regret this moment for the rest of my life.

  28. NO MAN’S LAND

  The atmosphere in the room was heavy with tension. I hadn’t said a word to either Gabriel or Trace when I stomped back into the study and took my seat at the table. William soon followed, completely composed as though I hadn’t just threatened his life, and then took the next hour to go over our assignment. How we were getting inside, where we needed to go once there, and what we were there to retrieve.

  It seemed simple enough when he laid it all out on the open table, though I already knew that simple things like this rarely ever were.

  “Before I wrap this up, I must mention for those of you that have not been inside the Veil…” He paused as loud clap of thunder sounded outside the window. “There are things there that may appear disturbing, distracting even. But you must not focus on anything other than the mission. The things inside the Veil are not real—not in the earthly sense.”

  Umm…what the hell did that even mean?

  “Can these not real things hurt us?” I asked, wanting to be prepared since his warning was confusing as hell.

  “Inside the Veil, yes.”

  My eyes darted to Gabriel, hoping this was making more sense to him than it was to me.

  “The Veil is kind of an empty spa
ce between our world and the Spirit Realm,” said Trace, forcing me to look at him for the first time since I’d sat down. “You’re going to see and hear things that don’t really make sense, creatures we’ve never seen here…but all of it can only exist within the Veil. The minute you leave it, the effects of it will leave you, too.”

  “You’ve been in the Veil before?” I asked him, wondering why this was the first I was hearing of it.

  He nodded. “I have.”

  I thought about his explanation and then asked, “So, what happens if we die in the Veil?”

  “Well, death is another story altogether,” replied William as though that summed it up.

  My eyebrows shot up. “Meaning?”

  Trace’s eyes were trained on me when he answered, “Meaning, if we die in the Veil, we die here too.”

  “So, basically, no free passes.”

  “Basically,” he agreed.

  William went on with the rest of his speech as I sunk back in my chair and wondered what the heck I’d gotten myself into. Once he was finished prepping us, he took a quick moment to go over the map with Gabriel (for the third time) and then wished us all good luck.

  With my palms sweaty, I rose from my chair and joined Trace and Gabriel in the middle of the room. Ignoring the clap of thunder rocking the building outside, we huddled into a tight circle and then took each other’s hands. Trace closed his eyes then, and I knew he was sifting through his own memory bank for a clear picture from within the Veil. He needed to see the place in order to port there, and all we had to do was touch him to be able to go along for the ride.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as the familiar artic cold enveloped my skin—a tell-tale sign that we were well on our way. Within the blink of an eye, our feet touched solid ground and the cold slowly left us like a thaw in the spring.

  “We’re here,” said Trace, his peculiar voice sending an icy shiver down my back.

  It sounded as though there was an echo around his voice, only it was coming out so close to his actual words that it almost seemed like there were two of him speaking at the same time.

  I peeked through one eye just to be sure. “Why do you sound like that?” I asked and then gasped as my own voice sounded back to me in the same manner.

  “Welcome to the Veil,” answered Trace and then waggled his eyebrows as if to say, this is only the beginning.

  I turned to look at Gabriel who had already pulled out his map and compass and was pointing the latter into the vast nothingness in an attempt to figure out the direction we needed to go.

  I wrapped my arms around myself and then looked around at the landscape, trying to make sense of the bizarre non-world we were now in. The ground shimmered beneath my feet as though we were standing in the shallow edge of a lake on a warm, sunny day, but when I stomped my foot down to make a splash, nothing happened.

  It was definitely not water. At least not a kind I’d ever seen.

  Stepping away from the boys, I looked further into the horizon, trying to make some sense of it in my mind. There were strange rock-like pillars coming out of the ground, jagged and uneven with thick dusty-purple clouds of fog enveloping their bases. It almost seemed like the kind of structures you’d find at the bottom of the ocean…a forgotten world long-since buried under the ocean. Except there was no water to be seen.

  I looked up at the sky next, expecting to see some tell-tale sign that we were still on earth—or near it—but there was no moon or sun or stars to be found in the indigo sky…and yet there was some light. At least enough for us to see each other and a little further beyond, though I couldn’t figure out the light source to save my life.

  “We need to head east,” said Gabriel, pointing in the direction we needed to go. “Straight through Skull Valley until we reach the place where One Becomes Two.”

  I looked at him like he’d sprouted a second head. “You’re joking right? What is this, Alice in Wonderland?”

  Trace laughed, the sound of it ominous and foreboding. “Something like that,” he said as he buried both hands in his pockets and watched me.

  Gabriel looked down at his map again as if to double-check his previous conclusion. “Yes, east,” he repeated once he was sure of himself and then pointed, “That way.”

  No one moved an inch.

  Since when were Trace and Gabriel a couple of chicken shits? “Alright then, ladies first,” I said and then led the charge into the vast unknown.

  Gabriel and Trace quickly shuffled forward to catch up with me and then settled in line on either side of me as we traversed the foreign land. I tried not to think about how off-putting it was that we could only see several feet in front of us. It was almost as though…we were the light source. Curiouser and curiouser…

  “So, how many times have you been here?” I asked Trace, trying to make conversation as I ignored the fact that our footsteps had absolutely no sound.

  He kept his eyes trained ahead. “A few times,” he answered vaguely—the old Trace making a reappearance.

  I turned to Gabriel. “You?”

  “This would be my first and only,” he answered, eyeing me from the side as we continued to walk.

  “Same.” I glanced back at Trace and asked, “When did they assign you?” knew they’d called Gabriel back for this assignment, but I had no idea Trace would be involved.

  He didn’t meet my eyes when he answered, “Two days ago.”

  “Did you know it was with me?” I asked for reasons unknown to me. I chalked it up to just wanting to fill the eerie silence on our trek across the vast unknown, but a part of me knew it was more than that.

  With Trace, it was always more, no matter how much I fought it or denied it.

  He looked over at me for the first time since we’d begun walking. “Yeah, I knew.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?”

  His eyes looked tortured when they locked onto mine. “You had enough going on last night.”

  I nodded slowly and then looked forward again.

  “Last night?” asked Gabriel, bouncing a confused glance between the two of us. “What happened last night?”

  “Dominic…went after me,” I admitted without meeting his eyes. There was no point in hiding it from Gabriel. Dominic was his brother and if anyone needed to know what was going on, it was Gabriel.

  “What do you mean he went after you?” he asked, his voice taking on a protective edge. “He attacked you?”

  The words sounded as foreign and unlikely coming out of his mouth as it did to hear them. Gabriel knew how much Dominic cared for me. In fact, he was one of the first people to tell me so. But that was then.

  I tried to keep the emotion rocking my body out of my voice when I answered, “Pricilla made him shut his emotions off.”

  Gabriel slowed his stride as my words sunk in. “His Sire is in town?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  Something flickered across his face. For a moment, it almost looked like panic. “Why didn’t you tell me last night?”

  “I wasn’t exactly thinking straight,” I defended. “Besides, we both know what you would’ve done, and we both know I wouldn’t have let that happen. This isn’t him, Gabriel. It’s some emotionless version of him.”

  “Wait,” interrupted Trace. “So, you know this Dominic guy?” The question was directed at Gabriel.

  Gabriel didn’t look at him when he sourly answered, “Well, considering he’s my brother, yes.”

  “You’re brother, eh?” Trace’s eyes darkened as though something sinister were brewing. I had no idea what it was, but I didn’t like the look of it one bit.

  “Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”

  “I didn’t say anything,” he defended, but he didn’t have to.

  “Is that his doing?” asked Gabriel, his tone contrite as he gestured to my bandaged neck.

  My fingers instinctively grazed against the covered wound as the sordid memory slid back into the forefront of my mind. His biting words,
his angry mouth. The vacant look in his eyes. “He caught me off guard.”

  Obviously. The last thing I’d ever expected was to have to defend myself against Dominic, and that was saying a lot being that he was a dangerous Revenant. Because he’d never been dangerous towards me. And I’d never feared him the way I did in that moment.

  I straightened my back. “Anyway, next topic. Gabriel, how much longer?”

  He looked back down at his map and then said, “We should be coming up to it now.”

  The three of us glanced around, looking for this One Becomes Two place but came up empty. Everything looked exactly the same, almost as though we’d been walking in one long circle.

  Shit. Maybe we had? Maybe we were still exactly where we’d started. That was, after all, kind of the story of my life.

  “There it is,” said Gabriel, pointing forward before I could vocalize my concern.

  My eyes followed his gesture to a lone wooden sign poking out from the violent landscape. There were two arrows on the sign, one pointing left and one pointing right. North and South respectively.

  “We need to head north towards the Upside-Down Waterfall,” instructed Gabriel and then took a sharp left.

  Trace and I quickly followed behind. We all walked in silence for a while, each of us trying to ignore the starless sky and soundless footsteps, or the fact that the strange cloud-like fog seemed to be following us, circling our group as though it were alive and curious about the newcomers.

  The further we walked, the colder it got, though neither one of us said anything about it. As off-putting as that was, it didn’t hold a flame to the strange feeling I had that we were somehow being watched. That we weren’t alone. But I never saw anyone no matter how many times I looked around or glanced over my shoulder.

  After a few more minutes of trekking in absolute silence, we finally came upon another wooden sign in the road, though it looked exactly like the one we’d just passed ten minutes ago.