Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 150546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 753(@200wpm)___ 602(@250wpm)___ 502(@300wpm)
“Recite after me. As I give you my blood, I submit my soul to tie with another, until the sixth is completed until forever.”
Priest quotes the words back to her, taking the Hayes dagger as his fingers wrap around the bone of Humphrey Hayes. It’s seen more death than the Reaper.
He squeezes blood into the bowl, finishing the final line.
Saint moves down, repeating the process until she’s finally standing in front of me.
Plucking the dagger laid over the rim, I hold her stare, careful with my expressions. It doesn’t matter what I try to hide, because if there’s anyone who can see through me, it’s her. Created from witchcraft and sunshine, Saint Vitiosis is from a line of light empyrean witches. It’s a little terrifying. They started learning more about her linage after she had Vaden because they wanted to know if the gene could be passed down.
Spoiler alert. It can. Twice. With different crafts.
Needing to get this done as fast as possible, I press the sharp side of the blade against my palm and recite the old line. My skin splits as the wound opens, and I lift my hand to hover above the bowl as blood trickles into the broth.
After Stella, she circles back to where she started. I can’t lie. This part doesn’t necessarily excite me. Freaky fucking ancestors and their traditions.
“Drink.” She hands the brass vessel to Priest, his head tilting back when he swallows.
A beat later, War repeats the process. Blood stains his lips when he turns to pass it to Vaden. My chest tightens when War’s ocean eyes suck me into the undercurrents of their maelstrom. The room spins around me, but before I can completely lose myself in the abyss of his particular destruction, he breaks eye contact.
Vaden takes a long—and questionable drink—before it’s my turn.
I hold it in my hands and stare down at the contents. I take a moment.
Please forgive me.
Moving the bowl to my lips, iron lubricates the base of my tongue, flowing down my throat like a glass of claret, only, unlike Vaden, there’s flinching on my part.
My nose wrinkles as I pass the bowl down. Stella swallows without hesitation, the corner of her mouth turning up in a merciless smirk. Menace.
Dad steps forward once we’re finished. “The first stage is complete. The second…” He pauses, resting on each of us before moving to the next. “You are to bring us the body of your first kill. Place their remains inside the grail of birth and death, where a bed of Carva will be scattered.” Carva is a sacred herb which is only grown in Perdita, but for the most part it’s a mystery. “Go.”
Shifting around to follow orders, it’s the first time we’re able to take in the magnitude of our audience. It’s no wonder the EKC have the name they do if this is how many people are connected to the ten Founding Families. It’s surprising that we’ve not already taken over the world.
Following the line ahead toward the exit, I ignore the descriptive graphic sacrifices illustrated over the ground. When we near the end of a steep incline to the exit, I hit a wall. Vaden’s wide frame blocks my view, so I bend to the side to find Priest motionless, looking directly ahead.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise when Priest deliberately angles his head to our left.
Painted with the Rebellis skull, each eye is drawn with four pointed ends to epitomize the other side to their family—the Kiznitch side from Midnight Mayhem.
Kyrin and Lilith, the two who make up the throuple with Uncle Eli. With Lilith’s silver hair and Kyrin’s brooding energy, they’re hard to miss. But that’s not why Priest stopped.
It’s the girl standing closest to the aisle beside them. His head cocks to the side, as if studying a foreign animal.
“Priest!” The soles of my feet are aching already. The sooner we get this done the better. “Kind of want to get this shit done ASAP.” He draws his attention from her, continuing to lead the way as if it didn’t happen.
Before passing their row completely, my curiosity is insatiable. “It’s been a while, Nala.” The nickname we all called her growing up before Priest decided he found a better one to torment her with that includes her name and ends with ‘tic’. It had been years since she disappeared, but once you’d met her, it was easy enough to spot her in any room.
Luna doesn’t move but the corner of her skull-covered lip widens in a smile. “A lot to catch up on.”
“See you soon?” The question comes out hastily as my feet patter to catch up to Vaden’s long strides, leaving her answer behind.
“What was that about?” Stella asks from behind after finally catching up with Vaden. “Wait, was that Luna?”