Iniquitous: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Marked Book 3)

by Bianca Scardoni

  Trace craned his head to get a better look at her and then nodded. “She has Jemma’s mouth though.”

  The room grew silent as everyone stared down at my mother’s lifeless body, appraising her features. This whole thing was disturbing and making me wholly uncomfortable.

  “Can everyone stop gawking at her!” I snapped, glaring at each of them. “We didn’t bring her back here for an impromptu viewing so how about we stop staring at her and start getting this over and done with,” I said and then turned to Arianna, my patience teetering along the edge of a cliff. “What is the next step?”

  She played with a ring around her finger. “We reanimate her and siphon her blood.”

  “Great.” I uncrossed my arms and walked towards the sofa where my mother lay in wait. Her once-alabaster skin was lined with fissures and looked to be a sickly shade much closer to gray. “Get me something to store her blood in.”

  “With all due respect, angel,” interrupted Dominic as he crossed the room to where I stood and then took a sip of his drink. “I really don’t think you’re the right person for this job.”

  “This job is my mother,” I answered tartly.

  “And that’s precisely why someone else should do it. You’re emotionally invested.”

  “Do I look emotional to you right now?”

  “He’s right,” agreed Gabriel, placing a friendly hand on my shoulder. “On the off chance that what your uncle said about her was true, she must be incapacitated immediately afterwards. There can be no hesitation.”

  “Then I won’t hesitate.” I looked back at Trace, hoping for some kind of allegiance, but there was none to be found.

  “It’s not worth the risk,” he said and then shook his head softly—with pity. “Besides, you shouldn’t have to see this.”

  Angry rain pelted against the windows like falling pebbles. The lights in the room flickered as the storm gathered traction outside. A part of me felt like it was a sign—a warning from the heavens telling us we shouldn’t play with fire. To abort this mission and find another way.

  But, of course, we wouldn’t. We’d dance in the inferno until our skin was charred right off its bone.

  “Fine. You win,” I conceded, but not because I thought I couldn’t do what needed to be done. I knew that I could. But because I didn’t want the only living memory I’d have of my mother to be the moment when I drove a stake back into her heart. My hands curled at my sides. “I’ll wait in the hall,” I said and then left the room in silence.

  Outside in the open hallway, I pressed my back against the wall and squeezed my eyes shut. I tried to sink away from the moment, to block out their voices as they argued about who would be charged with the stake and who would be drawing out her blood. I didn’t want to listen to them discuss how best to strap the Revenant down, and I certainly didn’t want to think about how that Revenant in there was my mother.

  I squeezed my eyes tighter and searched inside for better days. Days with Trace’s arms fastened tightly around my waist and his lips pushed up against mine. Days when tomorrow didn’t matter and the starry nights went on forever. There weren’t enough of those days to hold onto anymore. They were slipping away faster than I could count them.

  Dominic propped himself against the wall beside me. I didn’t have to open my eyes to know it was him.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” he asked, tipping his shoulder into mine.

  I offered no thoughts and no words. There just weren’t any of those either.

  After a quiet pause, he asked, “Are you still upset with me?”

  I met his dark eyes, wondering if he really cared about the answer to that. I couldn’t tell. “No,” I admitted. “I’m not.”

  If Dominic, Gabriel and Trace had avoided telling me about my mother’s existence to prevent me from feeling even one ounce of the aguish I was feeling now, then I understood why they did it and I didn’t fault them for it anymore.

  I knew they cared about me—all three of them, and each in their own special way.

  “I’m glad to hear that, angel. I was beginning to think I might actually have to apologize to you.” His closed mouth pulled into a smile.

  “As if you even know how,” I retorted.

  “I’m a very fast learner.” His smile widened and I couldn’t help but smile back at him.

  “What are they doing in there?” I asked as I ticked my chin to the den. “What’s the holdup?”

  “Romeo and the bombshell are going over the plan again while my brother fetches the necessary…tools,” he answered choppily as though weary and very aware of my apprehension.

  I nodded and then met his eyes again. “Bombshell, huh?”

  “Well, she is rather easy on the eyes.”

  “Maybe you should marry her then.”

  Dominic clicked his tongue. “Is that jealousy I’m detecting?”

  “Not even in your dreams, Dominic.” I couldn’t even cope with the idea of it, and definitely not today. I faced forward again and distracted myself with a family portrait hanging on the wall.

  “Was that your mother?” I asked him, remarking how much they looked alike. She had the same curly, blond hair he did, only it was much longer, and her eyes were a beautiful shade of amber, but almond-shaped and cat-like.

  “Indeed, it was,” he said without taking his eyes off me.

  “She was beautiful.”

  “Yes, I suppose she was,” he said and then leaned in closer to me. “The cursed usually are.”

  I met his eyes as Gabriel zipped past us on the way to the den.

  “We’re ready,” he announced and then disappeared into the room.

  “This too shall pass, angel.” He bowed his head and then left me in the hallway to ponder the possibility alone.

  I closed my eyes again and tried not to listen to what was going on in the other room, but my sudden super-sonic hearing refused to play along.

  Against my better judgement and the natural law of self-preservation, I listened to Arianna give out directives to Trace on how to hold her down, and then to Gabriel as he narrated the steps he would be taking to draw out my mother’s portal-closing blood. The needle had been inserted into her arm and they were ready to draw out her blood the moment Arianna gave the okay for Dominic to pull out the wooden dagger.

  It was all perfectly planned; the stick would come out, the blood stolen, and then the stick would go right back in and we could all go back to living our miserable lives as though this never happened.

  Or so I thought.

  With a gasp and a man’s shout and the screech of chairs shuffling back and forth, it was clear that all hell had broken loose in the den.

  And by hell, of course, I meant my mother.

  37. MOTHER’S DAY

  A blur of dark clothes and ebony locks rushed passed me in the hallway, and I knew it was her. My mother. Kicking off the wall, I took off running after her, intent on blocking her at the door before she could get away, but I wasn’t fast enough. She’d reached the door like a burst of wind and swung it open before I even reached the foyer. The thundering storm greeted her with closed arms and she stopped dead in her tracks. But I knew it wasn’t the rain she was afraid of.

  It was the daylight.

  I heard footsteps rush up behind me, but I held my hand out and stopped them from going any further.

  “Mom.” I called her out on purpose, needing for her to retreat from her attempted prison break. All she’d have to do was take one step outside and she’d realize that the sun was no more of a barrier to her than the moon was.

  Her back straightened into a line. Slowly, as though she had all the time in the world, she turned around and faced me. Her brows were pulled down low over a pair of striking silver eyes. She couldn’t have been a day olderthan twenty-five, but her eyes were carrying a much heavier number than that.

  “What did you call me?” she croaked. Her voice had the same raspy texture that Tessa’s had although that could have just been t
he result of not speaking for years.

  The floor undulating beneath me as though it were conspiring to knock me on my ass. I found my center and kept myself focused on luring her back inside and not on the fact that I was speaking to my dead mother.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” I said and took a step towards her.

  She clicked out her fangs and I quickly retreated.

  “Who are you?” she hissed.

  “My name is Jemma Blackburn. I’m your…” I swallowed the boulder-sized knot in my throat. “Daughter.”

  She flinched, though it was barely perceptible had I not been staring at her like I wanted to sear her face into my brain.

  She didn’t respond to my statement. Instead she asked, “How long have I been incapacitated?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

  “You’re the one that brought me back?’

  “Me and my friends did, yes.”

  Her eyes narrowed into vertical slits. “Why?”

  “Because,” I said and then tried again to take a step towards her, this time with my hands up. “We need your help.”

  “My help?” she repeated doubtfully as she cast a glance at the tube dangling from her vein. “Or my blood?”

  “Your blood.” I didn’t see the point in lying to her. She already didn’t trust us. Maybe telling her the truth might yield a different response from her. Like cooperation.

  She relaxed her shoulders a little and raised her chin. “What do you need my blood for?” Her tone wasn’t so much suspicious as it was curious.

  “I’ll explain everything, but you need to come inside first. It’s not safe for you out there.”

  “It’s not safe for me in here either,” she countered. Her eyes roamed over my shoulder at whoever was standing behind me. “That blond one tried to stab me with his wooden stick. I don’t think I like him very much.”

  “Well since you impaled the blond one with that same wooden stake,” hissed Dominic from behind me. “He doesn’t like you very much either.”

  I glanced over my shoulder and noticed him clutching his abdomen. Splashes of his crimson blood seeped between his fingers and my stomach dipped at the sight of it.

  “It’s just a flesh wound,” gritted Dominic upon seeing my worried expression.

  “Unfortunately,” muttered Trace under his breath.

  Realizing he was okay, I decided it was best if they all cleared out. Having so many people around was probably making her jumpy and suspicious.

  “Can you guys give us a minute please,” I said to the four of them, though I kept my body angled towards my mother. “I need to talk to her alone.”

  “Jemma, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” interjected Gabriel, but I wasn’t backing down this time.

  “I wasn’t asking permission, Gabriel.”

  Realizing this wasn’t up for debate, Gabriel conceded with a curt nod and then left the hallway in silence. Dominic and Arianna followed closely behind him, though Trace didn’t budge an inch. He was almost as stubborn as I was, if not more, and I knew he wasn’t going to leave my side no matter how hard I demanded it.

  “Why are you among Revenants?” she asked harshly, bringing my attention back to her.

  “We’re not all Revs,” interjected Trace as he crossed his arms over his chest. He was obviously offended that he got lumped in with the rest of them.

  “They’re my friends,” I answered plainly. I didn’t like where this was going.

  “Your friends? Really?” She laughed under her breath as though it were the most absurd thing she’d ever heard. “Where is Thomas in all this? I’d love to hear what he has to say on the matter.”

  I bristled at her question. “My father’s dead, and if he weren’t, I’m pretty sure he’d have a lot to say on the matter.” Mainly that I was grounded for the rest of eternity.

  Her hard expression cracked at the news of my father’s untimely departure. It was the first sign of emotion I’d see from her all day. “What happened?” she asked, her quiet tone thick with sorrow.

  “What do you think happened?” I asked rhetorically. I didn’t want to discuss my father right now—not with her. Not after she abandoned him and left him to raise me and my sister on his own. “Look, we didn’t bring you back to reminisce about all the good times we never had. Your sire ripped a giant hole in our world and we need his blood to close it back up and since he’s no longer a member of the ‘Currently Living Club’, your blood is the next best thing.”

  “Engel’s dead?” Her silver eyes darkened into an icy tempest.

  This probably wasn’t the best time to tell her that I’d smoked her boyfriend into his next life.

  “The Order vanquished him after he broke down the barriers,” answered Trace, quickly covering my butt for me.

  I was going to have to thank him for that later—repeatedly.

  I crossed my arms and looked her dead in the eye. “So? Are you going to help us or not?”

  She stared at me for a moment and then narrowed her eyes again. “How old are you now?”

  “Seventeen. Is that a yes?”

  She appeared to be appraising me. “You’re too young to be on your own.”

  My eyes peeked at the ceiling. Was she really trying to give me the third-degree right now?

  “Who’s your guardian?”

  “My guardian?” I was about to say Julian, the lanky giant with the big mouth, but that turd wasn’t my anything so I didn’t bother mentioning him.

  “Yes, your legal guardian. Who is charged with taking care of you?”

  Oh. That. “My uncle Karl, but I’m working on fixing that as we speak.”

  “Karl Blackburn is your guardian?” The way she said his name made my skin crawl. It was almost as though she hated him as much as I did. As much as he hated her. “And he let you do this—he allowed you to bring me back?” The way she said it let me know she didn’t believe that for a minute.

  “I didn’t ask for his permission. Our relationship’s been a little strained ever since he tried to kill me—twice.”

  “Then…” Her eyes slammed shut. “They know about your blood,” she surmised.

  The fact that she knew about my blood should have surprised me, but somehow, it didn’t.

  As a child, I’d always wondered if I was to blame for her leaving us. Wondered if me and Tessa had done something to drive her away from our family. After finding out the truth about my blood, about what I really was, my childhood fears had come crashing back down on me and suddenly it all made sense.

  She knew what I was all along, and she left me behind because of it.

  The sobering confirmation made my eyes sting with tears but I refused to let even a single one fall in front of her. Instead, I cursed each one away just like she cursed me away with her necrotic bloodline.

  “Yes,” I answered icily. “Everyone knows I’m the Daughter of Hades. It’s been in the town newsletter for weeks.”

  “We’re in Hollow?” She shut the door behind herself.

  “The one and only.”

  “And the Dark Legion?” Her eyebrows rutted together as though she gave a damn.

  “Hot on my tail.” I shifted on my feet, my irritation prickling under my skin. “What’s it to you anyway? We both know you don’t give a flying—”

  “I’m so sorry, Jemma.” She breathed the words out so softly that her lips barely moved.

  Words that had smacked me in the face and stole my breath right out of my lungs.

  “I never meant for any of this to happen to you. It was supposed to be me—I thought it was but…” Her words drifted off into nothingness as her haunted eyes stared not at me, but through me, to some other time and place.

  I wanted to ask her what she meant, to demand she explain herself. But her ghostly eyes stunned me silent. I knew the truth was coming. I could feel its static charge crackling in the air, and I knew the truth was going to be far worse to take than any lie could have ever hoped
to be.

  38. BLACKBURN FAMILY VALUES

  She took a step towards me, but this time it was me backing up. The rain continued to beat its hands against the house as we stood silently in the entrance of Huntington Manor, the place where dreams came to die.

  “Thomas and I were over the moon when I first found out I was pregnant with you,” she began, placing her hand against her stomach as though she could still feel something inside her womb. “I was going to have my two girls, just like I’d always dreamed of, and everything was perfect.”

  I stumbled back another step. Her soft tone was lulling me towards her, but I refused to go willingly.

  “Like with all Descendant pregnancies, the Council was thrilled to be welcoming a new heir into the mix, and as per protocol, they ran their usual tests on me. Only this time, they had developed new ones—blood tests that I hadn’t done when I was pregnant with Tessa.” Her eyebrows creased at the memory. “I later found out that the tests were meant to map my bloodlines, to see if the Morningstar line was dominant in me. And of course, it was, and your father and I knew what that meant for me, for our family,” she said gingerly and then shook her head. “We tried to fight them, to find some kind of way around it, but there’s no place to run to when you’re running from yourself.”

  I knew exactly what she meant. I’d been chasing my tail in circles, trying to run away from it since the moment I found out what I was.

  “The Council gave me until your birth to get my affairs in order. And of course, your father refused to accept that. In his maddening search for a way out, he even went as far as to suggest the unthinkable.”

  “The unthinkable?”

  She motioned to herself as the living example. “You see, there was only one way to eliminate my threat to the Council and that was to make my blood of no use to the Dark Legion.”

  “By Turning,” I finished for her, my voice barely above a whisper.

  “Yes, by Turning. But, that was something I could never do and so I refused him…at first anyway.”

  “Wait, so the Morningstar bloodline was dominant in you?” I asked, confused because Tessa had said that it wasn’t. That I was the only one—the special little snowflake from the prophecy.