The Curse of Blood (Love Lines Book 4)

by Diana Nixon

  I took a deep breath, hoping my talk with Lucas wouldn’t be as bad as I imagined it. He was a good guy: caring and loving. The only problem was that I never realized how much I needed someone else. Until now…

  “I think it’s time to go back to Dever,” I said, sitting up. “We don’t want anyone to start looking for us, do we?”

  “Well, if they try to follow us here and see us like this… I think they will get it all wrong.”

  I giggled, getting to my feet. “Get dressed, Smarty. We still have things to do.”

  Evan sighed. “Damn true.” He got up from my bed, put on his shirt and took the book, lying on the floor. “So what did you need it for?”

  “You will see as soon as we are back to your room.”

  This time, I didn’t even try to hide the bright-pink colors that my aura consisted of. What was the point in denying something that was so obvious?

  The moment we were back to reality and Evan’s room, I took the book we found in his house in Paris and the one we found in mine, and put the two of them together.

  I was right about the charade that the words inscribed inside them meant. The two books that we used to think were just the sets of children’s stories, formed the gift that Will’s mother once gave to Evan.

  “Unbelievable,” he said, taking the book with the golden symbol written on the cover. “Now I remember it.”

  Chapter 14

  Eileen

  The more I thought about Evan being one of the Lords of Mind, the more real the idea seemed. Now, that I thought back to the memories I saw, everything seemed to make more and more sense.

  The words Dominic said on Evan’s name day, “The heir of life and death, the lord of dreams.”

  Was it possible that Dominic somehow knew that one day his son would have to die and then become a Lord of Mind?

  “Oh, my God,” I whispered, stunned, as a new memory came to my head.

  “What is it, Eileen?” Christian asked, running up to me. He, Darcy and I were in the library trying to find more information about the Lords.

  “I think there was a time when Evan could read minds.”

  “What?” He and Darcy shared a puzzled glance.

  “There was a memory about the day Evan read Kevin’s thoughts. Back then, I didn’t realize that it was about reading his mind. Evan knew that Kevin was skipping school, and Kevin didn’t tell anyone about that. That day Maribel was there too. She was watching Evan play in the park. She was hiding behind one of the trees, but I’m sure, she knew what was really going on there.”

  “Okay, but Evan can’t read minds now,” Christian said. “Is it possible that he simply didn’t have time to develop that gift?”

  “I don’t think so,” Darcy said. “All our gifts reveal themselves by the day we turn eighteen.”

  I had an idea. “What if Dominic knew about Evan’s ability to read minds and somehow made him forget about it?”

  “Why would he do that?” Christian asked. “Especially if later he wanted Evan to become a Lord of Mind?”

  “I think we need to talk to Will,” I said, sending him a text message to come to the library.

  There was one more memory that I remembered. A memory was not showed to me by Evan. It was about one of those days that I could hear Christian talking to Marion. She said that the old Evan was no longer alive, and we needed to wait for a new Evan to be born. Could that mean that she knew about the new powers he would be able to possess after his awakening? I needed to talk to her too.

  “What happened?” Will asked, joining us a few minutes later.

  “Can you read minds?” I asked.

  He burst out laughing. “Thank God, no. Why?”

  “Just asking,” I mumbled, a little disappointed. Not that I hoped he would be able to read minds, but I still hoped his reaction would be less surprised.

  “Do you think Evan can do that?” Will asked.

  “Is that possible?”

  “Anything is possible. No one knows what exactly masterminding is. Sending visions, piercing into dreams, yes… But no one says that it can’t include reading minds as well.”

  “Have you ever heard of any other Lord able to read minds?” Darcy asked Will.

  “No. But as I have already said, even I don’t know everything about what we are capable of.”

  “What kind of a Lord you are?” I said, laughing under my breath.

  “Well, I always thought I was the best.” He laughed back.

  “You give yourself too much credit, Will.”

  “Your father was one of the most powerful magicians ever. Why didn’t he tell you more about your gift?” Christian asked.

  Immediately, Will’s smile vanished. “He hated the thought of having a Lord as his son. I bet he always dreamed about a heir who would be able to excel him in his talents, and not otherwise.”

  “He just didn’t realize what a treasure he had,” I said, smiling at Will. He was a good guy, maybe a little reckless and obsessed with rum, but still a good-natured man.

  “Thanks, Eileen. You are one of a few people who never thought that I was a freak of nature.”

  “Don’t you ever say that again. I’m sure one day, people will start treating you differently. It’s just that they don’t know much about you.”

  “I’m sure they don’t want to know more about the amount of alcohol and cigarettes I need to make myself feel at least a little better.”

  “Would you get rid of masterminding to possessing magic instead?”

  “I would rather become a human, and forget about all the crap we are forced to wake up with, day by day.”

  We all laughed. “Okay,” I said, “I didn’t just ask you about reading minds. I think there was a time when Evan could actually do that.”

  “Then why doesn’t he remember it?”

  “That’s an excellent question.”

  “What if Dominic made him forget about that?” Will asked.

  Christian said, “That’s what we think was very close to the truth.”

  “But for that, Dominic really needed to be a Lord of Mind,” Will said.

  “I think I will leave you guys for a while,” I said, rising.

  “Where are you going?” Christian asked.

  “I need to talk to someone. Call me if you figure out anything new.” I kissed him on the cheek and left, hoping Marion would be able to make at least a few things clear to me. Something was telling me that the woman knew more than she would ever tell us.

  I found her in one of Embry’s classrooms. She was standing near a round table with lots of different flowers and herbs on it. We all knew that Marion loved flowers. She managed to live without using magic for years, until one day she had to start using it again to protect her daughter Elena from being killed.

  “What are you working on today?” I looked at a plate containing roses of various colors. “Smells good.”

  She smiled, adding a few yellow petals into a small silver pot that was used for making potions and elixirs, full of boiling water.

  “This elixir is called Deselussionum.”

  “Which mean it breaks illusions, right?”

  “Yes. Illusions, dreams, spells. Anything that can affect your ability to think straight.”

  After a short pause, I said, “You know something, don’t you?”

  One of Marion’s greatest virtues was her ability to maintain her composure. It was impossible to read her face. But not today. The moment she heard my words, she tensed and I could swear, she was even a little scared.

  “What exactly do you want to know?” She asked, mixing the ingredients of her elixir.

  “Everything you can tell me about Evan and the Lords’ involvement in whatever is going on with him.”

  “I can’t tell you much.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not allowed to.” She put the last rose into the silver pot and covered it. Then she wiped her hands and finally looked at me. “I know what you want to know, Eileen. B
ut this time, I’m as helpless as you are.”

  “Did you give your word to Dominic that you would never tell anyone about what he did to make his son stop reading minds?”

  Marion’s eyebrows rose in shock. “I didn’t know you knew that much.”

  “It’s just a small part of what we’ve managed to figure out on our own. So it’s true then, isn’t it? Evan could read minds, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would his father make him forget about that gift?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Then tell me everything you can.”

  She nodded wordlessly, waved her hand and the door locked, and the curtains closed off the windows. Now, the room was only illuminated by the small fire, burning under the pot with the elixir.

  “The things I’m allowed to say and show you can’t be heard or seen by anyone else. Not even Christian, or your friends. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, I understand. I will not tell them,” I said, anticipating whatever was about to happen next.

  “Take one of the chairs,” Marion said. I took one that was standing close to the table and took a seat. “Now, close your eyes and imagine yourself crossing the threshold of Evan’s house.”

  I did what she said and I immediately was taken aback by how fast the reality that I saw a moment ago turned into the memory that Marion was showing me now through her eyes.

  She entered the living room of Rose Hellebore that I remembered so well. It was almost empty, with the only chair sitting near the burning fireplace.

  “You came,” Dominic said, rising to great me.

  I wasn’t afraid of him. I was actually a little curious about the reason for his unexpected invitation.

  “So what do you think about this place?” He asked, looking around.

  Even without the furniture and decorations, the house still looked like a palace taken from some old movie.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, forcing a smile. Not that I didn’t like Dominic, but there was something about him that I could never figure out, something that made me a little uneasy around him. We’d known each other for years, but he never invited me to see his house.

  “I want to buy it,” he said, pouring himself a glass of whiskey. The only thing that the man always took with him was a bottle of old-aged whiskey.

  “It will be a great Christmas present for your wife,” I said, still wondering how much more pointless talking I needed to hear before the man would go down to business.

  “Yes, that’s what I thought too,” he said. “Would you like to take a seat?”

  “No, thanks. I don’t have much time actually,” I said, hoping he would read between the lines. It didn’t matter how much Dominic and I had to go through together, we could hardly be called friends. It always felt like he was too cautious around me. He never let me into the brotherhood affairs, and he never asked or said anything that would give away more than he wanted me to know.

  “I have an offer for you,” he said finally, but I didn’t like the sound of it. If Dominic had something on his mind, he didn’t need to make any offers or deals, he simply needed to make an order. But I wasn’t like the rest of the Dragons, and we both knew it.

  “What do you want?” I asked, knowing that he would never make an offer without asking for something in return.

  “I will help you see your daughter and you will help me find one of the Lords of Mind.”

  I was a little surprised by his words. Knowing Dominic, I would have never thought he would let a Lord come to him. We all knew that the Lords were harmless when it came to magic and spells, but we also knew how very powerful their one and only gift was.

  “What do you need him for?”

  “I need him to help me rule over the brotherhood.”

  “What makes you think he will listen to you?”

  “Because I have something that might weaken his resistance.”

  “And what is that?”

  Dominick smiled cunningly, and I knew it was a sign of bad news. The man was a first-class asshole when it came to showing off.

  “Kay, came here,” he said to someone I couldn’t see. Then I turned around and saw a guy entering the room. He was about sixteen, his hair was a mess, his clothes were torn and dirty, but what surprised me most, was the color of his eyes. They were bright-blue.

  “Are you a hereditary Wizardy?” I asked the guy. He looked cautiously at Dominic and nodded slowly.

  “Who are your parents?” I felt so bad for the poor kid. I wanted to help him.

  “I don’t know,” he said quietly.

  “His parents died years ago,” Dominic said. “Kay grew up in an orphanage where I found him a few days ago.”

  “And you couldn’t at least give him new clothes?” I stared at Dominic in disbelief.

  “He wouldn’t take them,” he said calmly.

  “Why?” I turned to the guy.

  “Because I can create them any time I want,” the kid said in a firm voice. And then, he closed his eyes and his torn clothes were gone in the blink of an eye, and replaced with a pair of dark-blue jeans and a matching T-shirt.

  I shook my head, trying to understand what was going on.

  “Do you use your magic to fool people into believing you’re worse off than you are, and make them give you money?” I asked; my compassion completely cured and gone.

  Kay smirked. “Why not?”

  “Why would you do that if you can find a job and get paid?”

  He laughed. “Why would I work if I possess magic?”

  “Magic is a very dangerous gift,” I said. “If you use it for bad, it will ruin you quicker than you might think.”

  “Don’t worry, lady. I know what I’m doing.”

  I made a helpless gesture. “If you say so.” Then I turned back to Dominic and asked, pointing to the guy, “Is this your secret weapon against the Lords of Mind?”

  “Kay is not just a magician. He can see through you. Every dark secret you have can be revealed with his touch.”

  “Can he read minds?”

  “Not exactly. It’s a kind of personification. He becomes you for as long as he needs to in order to know everything about you.”

  I didn’t ask any more questions. I knew that Dominic was going to use Kay to figure out something that no Lord would ever tell him voluntarily. I had been trying to realize what it was for months, until one day, I did manage to find out where one of the Lords was hiding. I used different methods to find him, but only one worked. It turned out that the Lords were ‘moonish.’ Their powers become stronger during a full moon and then it is very easy to find them, because they become uncontrollable, like werewolves. They start masterminding everyone they see and people do stupid things, following their orders, they have no control over themselves when the Lords are masterminding them. The Lord that I found was a hereditary Feta. He couldn’t read palms, but he could make people do whatever he wanted. So one day, I heard about a bunch of teenagers burning houses in the night. It was happening in France, not far away from Paris. I would never pay attention to that, if it wasn’t for the fact that they didn’t run away when the police came to arrest them. People said they behaved as if they were drunk or high, but I immediately realized that something was wrong with them. The traces of masterminding could be seen all over their auras. So I went to the police station and through the bond that now connected the criminals and the Lord of Mind, I found him. Of course, he was more than surprised to be found. I told him about the brotherhood and about Dominic wanting him to join it. He didn’t hesitate even for a moment. He was so eager to rule over the minds of the entire brotherhood; I couldn’t believe that the guy was actually that greedy for power.

  I brought him to Dominic and he was so happy to see him, he didn’t even pay any attention to me when he touched the guy’s hands and I saw it — an unbelievably bright-blue light, shimmering in the place where their hands touched. But what surprised me most, was the word that the guy
said to Dominic.

  “Master.” He bowed his head and kissed Dominic’s hand.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, starring at the two of them, stunned.

  “It means now everything will be just the way it was always supposed to be.”

  The vision in my head disappeared, I opened my eyes and saw Marion and me in the dark classroom again. There were many questions running through my head, I didn’t know what to start with.

  “What did Dominic mean by that?” I asked.

  “Don’t you know already?”

  I frowned, replaying the scene in my head again. “Was he some kind of a Lord of the Lords?”

  “Yes, he was the Master of Lords. Or at least he thought he was.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Remember that guy, Kay, that Dominic wanted to use against the Lords?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, later I realized that Dominic’s masterminding powers refused to work properly and that’s why he wanted to find another Lord to find out how they should work.”

  “And what happened next?”

  “Dominic hoped that with Kay’s help he would be able to see the powers of Salazar, the Lord that I found, and become the real Master. I still don’t know what's that supposed to mean. All I know is that Dominic never managed to figure out why he couldn’t mastermind anyone outside of his family members. Even though he was sure he was capable of so much more than that.”

  “So I was right after all. Dominic was one of the Lords.”

  “Not just one of them, Eileen. He was the eighth.”

  “Which means there were seven other Lords that were supposed to exist, right?”

  “Yes, those that we already know about.”

  “Wait a second, how did you know that Evan could read minds? And is that even possible, considering that reading minds has always been a Fairey’s gift?”

  “I don’t know. All I know is that when Kay met Evan, he immediately knew about Evan’s power. Even though Dominic made Evan forget about his ability to read minds, Kay could still see it through him.”