Crimson Sins

by Madeline Pryce

  The spell collided and consumed Ronan.

  The older necromancer hit the ground in a writhing mass of twisted limbs. Silk unraveled. Flesh boiled. His skin sizzled and popped as blisters exploded. The shadow around Ronan flickered. Almost as if it was a separate entity, the mist’s moans of agony rang out.

  His father struggled onto his hands and knees, tried to push up. Weakened bones snapped, and he collapsed to the ground in a splatter of melting flesh.

  Morgan pressed her face against Bastian’s back and sobbed.

  Through cracked lips, Ronan hissed, “You’ll pay for this, both of you.”

  Ronan held out a shriveled, gnarled hand, and gathered the shadow around him. Bastian’s father whispered a command in the old language, one Bastian couldn’t quite make out. The darkness obeyed. In the blink of an eye, Ronan vanished. The oppressing weight of evil lifted, and Bastian drew in a trembling breath. It was over, for now.

  “I think I’m going to be sick.” Morgan’s voice shook. She jerked away from him and bent at the waist, holding her belly. One retch after another, she emptied her stomach.

  Bastian picked up a shredded sheet from the ground. He shook it out and gently wiped Morgan’s mouth before laying the fabric over the mess on the floor. He smoothed his hand down her hair and pulled her into his chest. “You okay?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t know.” She clutched the arms she crossed over her chest, fingers digging into skin so cold it had a bluish tint to it. “Is he dead?”

  “No.” He shook his head and took over rubbing her arms, trying to generate heat for her. “But he’s gone. We hurt him, and he fled with whatever energy he had left.”

  Morgan’s teeth chattered. “How can he just disappear?”

  Now that the fight was over, annoyance took root. Bastian glanced through the open door to the hall riddled with bullet holes. “Ronan has the ability to move through shadows. He cloaks it around himself. I don’t know the specifics, only that it’s a fucking pain in the ass.”

  She looked up at him with an incredulous expression on her face. Outrage replaced terror. Her hand settled on her hip, and she tapped her foot on the floor as if her sudden restlessness needed an outlet. “Just like that? Things got tough and he ran away?”

  Bastian snorted. He looked around the devastation of his once-tidy apartment. Beige ceiling-to-floor curtains danced in the wind streaming from the open patio door. Already, drifts of snow piled on the floor. A harsh winter gust howled inside. It tangled the curtains and sent documents scuttling. Paper caught on the glass sticking up from the floor to create confetti. Other sheets drifted over the spikes and stuck to the giant brown leather pincushion that was once his couch.

  They couldn’t stay here, not until he could replace the windows and get someone to remove the glass shards from the walls. He started making plans.

  “Well, that was anticlimactic.”

  He turned away from the window and stared at her. Arms open wide, he gestured around the living room. “Look around you, babe. I’d hardly say there wasn’t some sort of a climax.”

  “Hey.” She stuck her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. “I said I was sorry.”

  “This is just the beginning. I know Ronan. After he licks his wounds, he is going to come at us harder. I can’t keep you locked in this building forever, and he isn’t going stand in front of a one-way mirror letting us kick his ass again.”

  Shit. His brothers. Had Ronan paid them a visit first? Bastian pulled out his phone and called Nolan. On the fourth ring, right as the panic spread through his veins, Nolan answered in a breathless voice, “I’m busy. Go away.”

  Relief swept through Bastian, and he stopped pacing.

  Through the phone, Bastian heard the creak of bedsprings and a feminine protest in the background. “You’re stopping to answer the phone? Who does that?”

  “Thank fuck you’re okay,” Bastian all but growled. Beside him, Morgan squeezed his hand and didn’t let go.

  His brother’s voice hardened, and Bastian swore he could hear the rustle of clothing. “What’s going on?”

  “Is Rory with you?”

  “He’s working. Damn it, Bastian, tell me what’s up.”

  “Ronan at my fucking front door is what’s up. Morgan and I hurt him bad, but you need to get your ass here now. Tag Rory. Have him come home.”

  “The wards?”

  “I think Morgan’s magic disabled them.”

  “Damn it, Bastian. I fucking told you…”

  He clenched his teeth. “You better stop right there. If I were you, I might try to get ahold of Jodi. I’m pretty sure she passed off a spell to Morgan. If she isn’t willingly involved with Ronan, then he’s using her.”

  “The bar?” Nolan asked.

  “I’m on my way now, but when Ronan showed up, he was covered in blood, so your guess is as good as mine. You have anyone coming in today?”

  “Nope. I closed to get ready for the inspection. I’ll be there in ten.”

  With nothing else to discuss, Bastian ended the call and shoved his cell into his pocket. He pulled their joined hands to his mouth and kissed her knuckles.

  “We need to head downstairs and see how much damage Ronan managed before he came up here.”

  He took a step. Paused. Now that the fight was over, his father’s taunting words penetrated. Rage clenched his fists. He fought not to pick up his pincushion couch and chuck it out the window.

  “He’s been using a scrying bowl to watch you, us. Probably for the last week, maybe before that depending on when he got ahold of your blood. When you were in that institution, did Ronan ever get a blood sample or anything?”

  “Yes.” A visible shudder ran through her. “Do I want to know what scrying is?”

  He pulled her into his arms, held her close, and buried his face into her hair. “Black magic. Some wizards can use a reflective surface like a mirror or water to see images. Ronan uses the blood of his intended, ices the water with his necromancy.”

  “Wizard? I thought he was a necromancer, like us.”

  “He’s both. It’s what makes him so damn dangerous. He combines the black arts with death magic.”

  “How did the wards come undone?”

  Hands on either side of her hips, he pulled their bodies apart so he could look into her eyes. “While you were dreaming earlier—which was a spell, by the way—there was a blast of magic. Do you remember the ice on the walls in the bedroom? I heard your scream, felt your necromancy, and I ran to see what happened. Even though you were dreaming, you were trying to fight back. Picture the waves of your energy as a tsunami after an earthquake. They passed through the first set of wards, got stronger as it pulsed out. When your magic hit the perimeter, it must have wiped it out. I should have checked before I went to bed. I always check before I turn in for the night. I underestimated your strength.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t you dare take the blame.”

  “It was a careless mistake, one that could have cost me your life.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Get some shoes; we’re going downstairs.”

  Pulling away, he searched the wreckage for his boots. He found them under the broken coffee table. He flipped his boots upside down and shook out the glass before shoving his feet inside. Shirtless he strode out the demolished front door, yet another thing that needed replacing.

  Morgan followed a few moments later. He kept her behind him as they moved down the stairs to the bar. Death hung heavy in the air. With the wards down, the bar was wide-open for anything dead. Chills ran over his skin, and he kept his shields up.

  Beside him, Morgan faltered. She stumbled and leaned into the wall. “I got so used to the ghosts not being here,” she gasped.

  They stepped through the employee doors into Haven. If he thought the upstairs was devastated, he was wrong. Blood coated the walls like paint, pooled on tables and dripped to the floor. Glass littered the floor, and the stench of liquor stung his eyes. Half of the tables
were on their backs, the other half broken. Bits of wood from the demolished chairs added a new layer of debris. The only things not broken were the splattered windows keeping in the smells.

  Scrawled in black charcoal along the front door was a message in his father’s handwriting. The words read, “All who have touched her will die, including you, Sebastian. Morgan is mine.”

  Morgan pressed a hand to her mouth as she looked around. “What did he do in here?”

  “What he does best. Destroys.”

  Bastian walked to the severed head that lay a few feet from the facedown body in the middle of the room. Using the toe of his boot, he nudged the head into a position where he could see the face. He crouched as the head rolled and turned to them. Vacant eyes snapped open. The mouth open and closed as if on puppeteer strings.

  A garbled voice came out of the chapped lips. “I’m sorry, Morgan, for touching you and for my lies. I gladly paid the price of my life for my sins.”

  Morgan swallowed convulsively like she was moments away from throwing up again. Her skin paled and took on a greenish tint. She backed up. One step and then another. She turned and ran through glass and blood to the ladies’ restroom. He chased after her and barely caught the swinging door before it hit him the face. Morgan was already in front of a toilet, vomiting in violent shudders.

  He held her hair and rubbed her back until she was done. “You okay?”

  She shook her head. “None of this is okay.”

  “The dead guy in the bar. How’d you know him?” he asked and had a feeling he already knew.

  Her voice was barely above a rasp. “You know how Ronan is killing your former lovers? Well, it seems he’s moved on to mine.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Morgan’s empty stomach churned. The tightness in her chest spread, and spots danced behind her closed lids. Ronan’s spell converged with the memories from nine years ago. At first, she hadn’t made the connection between the two events. The details from that long-ago night had faded into a blur with all the other fucked-up crap in her short life.

  Thanks to Ronan, she remembered everything. The gnarled trees in the graveyard. The damp ground beneath her knees. The cold wind whipping up the too-short skirt her adopted parents never would have let her out of the house in.

  “It’s all connected. Ronan. Luke, my dead ex. The dream,” she heard herself say over the kaleidoscope of ghosts beginning to swirl around her. How bad would it be when the spirits realized the wards were down?

  Bastian pulled her hands from her face and laced their fingers together. His steady presence made her feel safer, more loved than ever before. She gazed up at him. Even though his hair was disheveled, peppered with glass and a few pieces of torn paper, he was the most handsome man she’d ever seen.

  Not even the dried blood caked on his skin deterred her skittering heart. When he touched her, everything else faded. The ghosts spinning above drifted away, and their never-ending screams quieted so she could think. He was the calm in the middle of her storm.

  Luke Monroe’s vacant eyes snapping open replayed in her head. His garbled voice echoed on an endless loop, but it wasn’t his apology she heard.

  “It’s your fault, you little slut!” Luke screamed and scrambled back with his pants around his ankles. Terror made the deep tenor of his voice she’d once found so sexy a piercing shriek. “You’re a fucking freak!”

  The muscles in her stomach clenched, and the back of her throat stung with the rising bile. Shit, not again. Her eyes watered, but whether from the humiliation of that night all those years ago or the thought of being sick one more time, Morgan wasn’t quite sure.

  “You look like you’re about to throw up again. Talk to me, babe.”

  When she didn’t move or speak, Bastian tugged her close and into his strong arms.

  She protested and tried to wiggle away. From the inside out, she was dirty, unworthy. “Don’t. I smell.”

  Bastian pressed his mouth against her throat and held her tight. “I don’t care.”

  “If I throw up on you, it’s your fault.”

  “Babe, you don’t have anything left to throw up.”

  True. Morgan rested her cheek on his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart.

  “His name was Luke Monroe. I was fourteen, eager to prove I was as normal as everyone else. I snuck out of the house and met up with my friends. We hooked up with some high school boys at a party, and they took us to a cemetery for a private get-together. It was the same cemetery Ronan used in his dream—spell, whatever—right down to the creepy trees.

  “Luke got me alone and started pawing at me. He was so drunk he could barely stand. I remember the taste of his mouth when he shoved his tongue between my lips: stale beer and puke. It was so gross. He pushed me to my knees and took out his dick.” She rubbed her jaw and remembered the feel of Ronan’s sweaty fingers prying her mouth open in her nightmare. “He tried to force it in my mouth.”

  Bastian’s rhythmic up-down stroking along her back stopped. He clutched her close, and she felt the tension in the hard lines of his muscles. “I saw, in your dream. Ronan did that. He took your past experience and based his nightmare on it.”

  She lifted her head up and down in agreement. “He was my doctor at the hospital. I told him everything, all the details.”

  “What happened next, with Luke?”

  “I told him I didn’t want to give him head, but that I’d have sex with him. I don’t know why. I guess I just wanted to get the first time over with, ya know?” She wouldn’t admit it, but she knew why she’d done it. Morgan had wanted the attention—the love of another person without strings, price tags, or disappointment. “So he put on a condom and shoved inside. The second my blood hit the ground, the dead around me came to life, and well…”

  Bastian nodded, absolution written in the soft lines on his face. He finished her story for her. “You raised the dead in the graveyard. When the cops came and found the disturbed graves, they assumed you’d dug them up.” He squeezed her hand in understanding. “No one would have believed, even if they’d seen.”

  He believed her. His easy acceptance freed something inside her. He cared about her as she was, flaws and all. With him, she didn’t need to be that perfect little girl her adoptive parents wished they’d gotten.

  “Luke saw and he lied. He told them I was into some freaky shit, and that I begged him to help dig up the graves. His dad was a senator, and the cops believed him. I told them what happened with the zombies, and I got sent to a mental hospital at the recommendation of my parents.”

  The outer bathroom door squeaked open. The echoing approach of footsteps put an end to whatever Bastian would have said. Nolan came into view looking very much as he did every other time she’d seen him. Dressed in flannel and wearing a scowl.

  “Huddled on the bathroom floor, now that’s just fucking romantic.” He hooked a thumb in the direction of the other room. “Either one of you know the dead guy?”

  Morgan uncurled herself from Bastian’s arms and used a hand on the smooth metal divider to stand. She blew the wayward sweep of her bangs off her face. Hands in her back pockets, she said, “Yup.”

  Nolan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ronan totally fucked my bar. What the hell happened?”

  Bastian explained about the nightmarish spell, the wards, Ronan, the fight, and then how they’d gained the upper hand by combining magic. Nolan looked back and forth between them with a gleam in his eyes.

  “Show me.”

  She shook her head and rested her aching forehead against Bastian’s chest. “I don’t think I can. I’m tapped out.”

  “Is Rory on his way?” Bastian asked.

  “He was coming from the hospital, so it’ll take him a few more minutes. I’ll ask him to bring some coffee. Let me see where Jodi cut you.” Nolan held out his palm for her hand.

  The moment she placed her hand in his, he pulled it up to his face. A shiver slithered down her spine as he c
losed his eyes and inhaled the length of the ugly gash. When his nose moved from her wrist to her elbow, it took everything she had to stay still. The urge to yank herself from the grip he had on her wrist increased when he continued to sniff his way up to her shoulder.

  Beyond creeped out, she glanced over at Bastian. “Why is he sniffing me?”

  “He’s almost done. His sense of smell is highly developed. He’ll be able to pinpoint how Ronan infected you with the spell.”

  Nolan’s eyes opened, and he stepped back to give Bastian a raised eyebrow. “Left out a few things from your recap, eh? How long were you”—he pointed between them and then made a circle with one hand. With his other, he stuck his finger in and out of the hole a few times—“distracted?”

  Heat raced to her cheeks, and she wondered what other scents lingered on her skin. “Just how developed a sense of smell?”

  Bastian ran a hand through his hair, and glass tinkled to the ground. “Did the spell enter through the cut or not?”

  “I can’t tell.” Nolan pulled out his cell and flipped it around in his hand. “Between whatever you two did, the magic exchange, her terror, and the vomit, I’m not getting much.”

  “You call Jodi?” Bastian asked. “None of the windows are broken, and the doors seem intact. How’d he get in?”

  “She’s not picking up her phone.” Nolan turned to Morgan with a smile. “I hope you aren’t squeamish.”

  “She doesn’t have to help,” Bastian said. “We got about an hour of sleep.”

  She looked between them and bit her lip. “What are you guys going to do?”

  Nolan’s eyes hardened, and his mouth pinched tight. “Crime-scene cleanup is a messy bitch, and I’ve got an inspection tomorrow. If I don’t pass, then my bar shuts down.” He looked right at her, and if she wasn’t mistaken, the sum of his discontent was directed at her. “My bar isn’t going to shut down.”

  Morgan swallowed and crossed her arms over her chest the way Nolan’s were. She glanced in Bastian’s direction. “He’s right. This is partially my fault. Don’t expect me to sit this one out. I can take it.”