Mira looked around, worried. “Shouldn’t we get out of here?” she asked. “What if more of them come?” She tilted her head toward the charred remains of the dark mages and fae.
“They rotate the portal guards at nightfall.” Ethan glanced up at the sun, which was high in the sky. “We have a while until then. Enough time to hear the two of you out.”
I could practically hear the subtext in his tone.
Enough time to figure out if we can trust them.
It seemed crazy to not trust the Queen of Wand’s best friend. But there was something off about Torrence. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.
I barely remembered when she came into the café, but a gut instinct told me she was different than she was then. And if there was anything I’d learned since getting my magic, it was to trust my intuition. It hadn’t steered me wrong yet.
“How do you know the guards’ schedule?” Mira asked.
“I’m the King of Ember,” Ethan said. “There might not be many dragons left, but this is our realm. We know what goes on in it.”
She nodded, apparently satisfied with his answer.
I hadn’t even thought to question him, because if Ethan thought we were in danger, he never would have suggested staying put.
There were only two people he thought could be putting us in danger right now—Torrence and Reed.
So I turned my attention to them, waiting for them to explain.
“What do you all know?” Torrence asked. “Because the last I’d seen the two of you, you were witches with barely any magic and no knowledge of the supernatural world. Now, you have elemental magic. Strong magic, from the looks of it.”
“Dragon magic,” I said.
“Right. Your mom said you were supposed to get dragon magic on your seventeenth birthday. I guess she was right.”
I held up my hand and ignited a flame in my palm. “Dragon magic is elemental magic,” I said, and I closed my fist, snuffing out the flame.
“Impressive,” she said, although she looked anything but impressed.
“We’ve learned a lot since getting our magic a few months ago,” I said. “We were educated on the entire supernatural world. We know you bargained with Circe, lost, and ended up a prisoner on her island.”
“For all eternity,” Torrence sneered.
“Right,” I said. “You made the bargain to help save Selena from the Otherworld when she was held captive there. So, she felt obligated to save you in return. She, Julian, and Reed—” I paused to look at him when I said his name. He stared straight back at me, and I shuffled my feet uneasily, refocused on Torrence, and continued, “They created a search party with the Supreme Mages to find you and save you.”
Torrence curled her hands into fists when I mentioned the Supreme Mages, and inky blackness swirled in her eyes.
The same inky blackness that I’d seen in the dark mages. And then, I realized…
“You used mage magic when you helped us fight the dark mages,” I said. “But you’re not a mage. You’re a witch.”
“Half-witch,” she corrected me. “Half-mage. Apparently, I take after my dad.” She paused, then clarified, “He was the mage. Well, he is the mage. Apparently he’s still alive. And he’s here, in Ember.”
“That’s why you’re here?” I asked. “You want to find him?”
“Wait,” Ethan said before Torrence could answer. “Let’s backtrack a bit.” He faced Reed. “How—and when—did you, Selena, Julian, and the Supreme Mages find Aeaea?”
Aeaea—the name of Circe’s island. In Utopia, I’d learned that Circe had the ability to move the island. It made her nearly impossible to track when she didn’t want to be found.
And she hadn’t wanted to be found by Selena, Julian, Reed, and the Supreme Mages. That was what had been taking them so long to find the island.
“About two weeks ago, the Supreme Mages used their magic to find the island,” Reed said coolly. “We were working on a bargain with Circe. Trying to find something she’d trade in exchange for letting Torrence go.”
“How was that working out?” Ethan asked.
“Not well.”
“Not surprised.”
“We anchored our boat to her island, so that if she moved the island, we’d go with it,” Reed continued. “Then, after about two weeks of unsuccessful discussions, Circe’s palace exploded like a bomb had gone off. It took out the majority of the island. We were only safe because we were on the edge of it.”
“She was trying to blast you out?” I guessed.
“No.” Torrence’s eyes were now completely black. “I did it. It was how I killed Circe.”
“You killed Circe? On your own?” I asked, baffled. Because Circe was far more powerful than Torrence. It shouldn’t have been possible.
“Circe pissed me off,” Torrence said simply. “She pushed me to a breaking point. So I killed her.”
Her eyes returned to normal, and they were so haunted that dread filled my body.
“Circe was toying with me.” Torrence’s voice shook, but she straightened and got ahold of herself. “For weeks, she’d been trying to seduce me. But it wasn’t working. She isn’t my type.” She glanced at Reed, then looked away when she saw he was already looking at her. “Eventually, she got impatient. You wouldn’t think an immortal sorceress would get impatient, given all the time she must have on her hands.” She chuckled darkly, then continued, “But she did. She tried to force herself on me. And when she did… I exploded.” She motioned her hands outward and made a sound like a bomb going off.
“You blew her—and her island—up,” I said, and Torrence nodded. “How?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “But I did. I was the only thing alive on that island after the blast.”
I studied her, confused. Because something didn’t add up. If Torrence had been there, alive and free on the island, and the rescue party had survived the blast, then why weren’t they all safe on Avalon right now?
Why had the Supreme Mages turned on Selena and Julian, and why were Torrence and Reed in Ember?
“Hm.” Ethan looked as suspicious as I felt. “What happened after that?”
“Julian, Selena, Reed, and the Supreme Mages found me curled up where the palace had been, covered in ash. And then, the mages sentenced me to Ember.”
“What?” I balked. “Why?”
“Because she went dark,” Reed said. “Once a mage gives in like that, there’s no coming back. All mages who give into darkness are sent to the prison world. Ember.”
I waited for Torrence to deny it.
She didn’t.
Instead, she smirked. “I didn’t only kill Circe,” she said. “Because I wasn’t the only one she’d trapped there. She kept hundreds of men—men she’d turned into pigs. And when I turned that island to ash, the pigs went, too. All of them. Dead.”
“So you murdered hundreds of people,” I said darkly.
“Yes. And I don’t regret it.”
Reed gave us a look as if to say, See? She’s completely dark.
Torrence stood there, unaffected by her admission.
At least there was one thing clear from her answers so far—she wasn’t holding anything back. She felt no guilt for what she’d done. She didn’t even seem to care that her best friend was dead.
“What happened to Selena?” I asked. “Why did the Supreme Mages kill her?”
“Right after rescuing me—while still on Circe’s island—Selena tried to talk the Supreme Mages out of my sentence,” she said. “When they didn’t budge, she used her magic on them. Not dark magic—she wasn’t trying to overpower them. I think she was just trying to scare them. She’d been working with them for weeks, so she didn’t expect them to turn on her. So she was unprepared for all six of them to use dark magic on her at once. The type of dark magic that kills—the type you saw us use here today.” She glanced at the dead mages nearby. “She probably could have defended herself with the Holy Wand—if she’d been r
eady. Then her soulmate—Julian—was so torn up that he also attacked the Supreme Mages. They took care of him real quickly.”
Chills ran up and down my spine at how calmly she was telling us this.
“And the Holy Wand?” Ethan asked.
“It’s gone.” Torrence shrugged. “Selena stored it in the ether in the final second.”
Ethan’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, right—you’d have no way of knowing about that. You know that Selena and Julian were gifted with magic from the gods,” she said, and I nodded. “Selena received lightning and storm magic from Jupiter, the king of the gods. Julian received fighting magic from the god of war, Mars. One of Julian’s abilities was that he could pull any weapon he wanted from the ether—an invisible space between worlds. Selena was able to amplify that ability with the Holy Wand and cast a spell that allows a person to store a weapon they chose in the ether.” She reached into the air and pulled a sword out of nowhere. Her eyes glinted with excitement. “Cool, right?”
“Very cool.” I nodded, not wanting to say anything that might provoke her to use that sword on me. Or on Mira and Ethan.
Luckily, Torrence pushed the sword back into that same invisible place in the air, like the ether was an invisible locker that was always by her side.
“I tried to use it to attack Circe a few times,” she said. “It never worked. She let me keep it—probably because she didn’t think I could hurt her with it.”
“So the Holy Wand is locked in the ether, and the only person who can remove it—Selena—is dead,” Ethan said, as if trying to get it all straight. Torrence nodded, and he continued, “Is there any other way to retrieve the Wand?”
“Not that I know of,” Torrence said. “And good riddance to that. You should have seen Selena with that thing. No one should ever have that much power.”
Was it just me, or did she sound jealous?
“The Supreme Mages followed through on their sentence and threw you into Ember.” Ethan remained calm as he spoke—like he was also trying not to set Torrence off. Then he looked to Reed. “Why are you here?”
“I’m not dark, if that’s what you’re asking,” Reed said. “But I love her.”
Torrence flinched, but her expression remained stone cold.
“I couldn’t let her come here alone,” Reed continued. “So I attacked the Supreme Mages. But I’m the firstborn son of a highborn mage, so they wouldn’t dare kill me. Instead, they sentenced me to Ember. Just like I wanted them to."
“I told him not to do it,” Torrence said. “He didn’t listen.”
“Damn right I didn’t listen.”
From the fierce, determined way he looked at her, it was clear he loved her.
Before she’d gone dark, she’d earned this stoic, guarded mage’s heart.
Torrence had been through a trauma. But before that, she’d been good. I knew it.
No one is ever purely good or purely evil, Makena’s statement from back in the Ward echoed in my mind. When guided by someone who believes in them, even the darkest souls have the potential to see the light.
Reed loved Torrence. He believed in her.
And my intuition told me to believe in her, too.
“You saved us from those mages,” I finally said. “What do you want in return?”
“Easy,” Torrence said. “I want you to help us get back to Earth.”
Us. Not me.
She cared about Reed enough to want him to go back with her.
It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
“What do you want to do once you’re back there?” Ethan asked.
“The witch Lavinia took something from me that I needed.” Her eyes swirled with inky blackness again. “Once I’m back on Earth, I’m going to find her. And then, I want to kill her.”
Ethan studied Torrence, like he was seeing her in a different light. “As do I,” he finally said.
“Good.” She smiled. “We’re on the same side.”
“Apparently so.”
I nearly touched my pocket where I’d put the two portal tokens, but stopped myself. No need for Torrence or Reed to ask what I was hiding in there.
“We can help you,” Ethan said. “But you were sent here for a reason. And as much as I’d love to fully trust you, we need to be careful.”
Torrence raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking for a blood oath?”
“I am.”
“Great.” She removed her sword from the ether and examined its sharp edge. “Then let’s get started.”
14
Harper
Three knocks sounded on the door.
I sat on the edge of the twin bed, glared at the door, and said nothing.
The person on the other side opened it anyway.
No, not a person.
A demon.
“Food delivery.” The demon shoved a quivering human man into the room with me. The man fell down onto his knees. “Drink up.”
Then the demon pulled the door shut and locked it, leaving me alone with the human.
My throat burned as I stared at the man, and an ache built in my gums. I barely saw what he looked like. All I could focus on was the pulsing vein on his neck as I inhaled the sweet, tantalizing scent of human blood.
I was so hungry that my bones felt hollow. I had no idea how much time had passed, but I was pretty sure Lavinia had kept me in transition for as long as possible, to torture me with starvation until right before I died from it.
Which explained why I wanted to sink my teeth deep into this human’s neck and drink every drop of blood in his body.
But I clenched my fists and held my breath, blocking out the smell of the blood. Then, I moved my gaze away from the human’s neck and met his dark brown eyes.
This scrawny, bearded man with deep circles under his tired eyes was a far contrast from the beautiful human men who’d lived in Utopia.
He watched me with resolve, like he was prepared to die.
I can’t, I told myself. I’m going to be a strong vampire. Strong enough to resist the temptation of human blood. My first act as a vampire won’t be murder.
Of course, I needed to drink his blood to complete my transition. But I didn’t have to kill him. A full meal would suffice. The vampires in Utopia drank anywhere from one to three pints a day. A human could lose about three to four pints of blood before passing out.
If he passed out, I’d know I drank too much.
So I’d have to take it slowly.
Somehow.
“Hold out your wrist.” I breathed in the least amount of air as possible as I spoke.
He blinked, confused. “You’re not going to kill me?”
“Not if I can help it.”
And I could help it.
He raised his arm to expose the inner part of his wrist, shaking. The thick vein there pulsed—not as much as the one on his neck—but enough. And I knew from the vampires in Utopia that while drinking blood from the wrist wasn’t quite as satisfying as blood from the neck, it was easier to maintain self-control.
“This will probably hurt at first,” I said. “Sorry.” Not wanting to make this take any longer than necessary, I held my breath again and took slow, measured steps toward him.
He stayed still, apparently smart enough to know that sudden movements wouldn’t fare well for him.
I lowered myself down onto my knees, grabbed his wrist, and sank my teeth into the vein.
Sweet, warm blood poured down my throat.
Euphoria.
My breathing quickened as I drank, and I tightened my grip around his arm. His blood flooded through me, and the hunger stopped gnawing my stomach and bones.
How much blood had I had so far? I had no idea. But the more I drank, the stronger I felt.
His arm grew limp.
I cursed and pushed him off me.
He lay on the floor, dazed, but alive.
I licked the remainder of his blood from my lips, watching as the punctur
e marks on his wrist started to heal. I expected to be hypnotized by the scent of his blood, but while it still smelled delicious, my stomach didn’t hollow with pain like it had before.
I’d had enough, and my body knew it.
I backed into the corner of the room and stayed focused on the man, who was lying on his back, relieved tears streaming down his face.
I didn’t know what to say to him. Ideally, I’d be able to tell him it would be okay—that I could help him. But he was trapped in Lilith’s demon den just like I was.
Even though I hadn’t finished him off, I suspected Lilith would send him off to another vampire who would. Of course, that was assuming she kept other vampires in this place. I hadn’t seen anything but the room where she’d kept Jamie Stevens, and the room where she was keeping me. Both were small with no windows, so there was no way to know where in the world I was.
I was standing there staring at him when a familiar tingle rose in my core and expanded through my body.
Magic.
Impossible. When witches became vampires, they lost their magic. Whatever I was feeling couldn’t be real. It had to be a phantom feeling, like when people lost a limb and felt like it was still there.
But I’d know my magic anywhere…
There was only one way to find out.
I closed my eyes, then teleported from one side of the room to the other.
I was still looking at the man on the ground—but from the opposite direction.
A thrill shot up my body, and it took everything in me not to spin around and cheer with victory.
I still had my magic. And I didn’t intend on staying in this cramped, creepy room for a moment longer.
I hurried over to the man, took his hands, closed my eyes, and focused on teleporting to my destination.
Nothing happened.
Of course not. Like most places where supernaturals lived, Lilith had a boundary spell cast around her lair. I could teleport within this room, but I couldn’t teleport out.
I reached for Hecate’s key around my neck. Then, I looked sadly at the human man nearly passed out on the floor.
Because the keys only worked for their owners.
The Dragon Realm (Dark World: The Dragon Twins Book 2) Page 6