Page 76 of The Fate of Black Hearts

Yes!

A familiar presence cozied up next to her. “Why are you here?” she whispered to Lyra. Her daughter had inherited the ability to dream walk. “Go home.”

Of course, the curious child didn’t leave. She removed something from Dom’s pocket. The object was small, but very bright. Dom covered his eyes. Guess his paralysis was wearing off.

It was so bright it hurt Evie’s eyes. Squinting let her make out a smooth stone.

Lyra clapped her hand around it. In an explosion of light and energy, it blasted apart. Shards of stone spewed everywhere.

The blast discharged energy through her, severing the connection.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dom blinked rapidlyto regain vision after the blinding light. Where’d the demon go? Usually, he used the shotgun to slow them down but it didn’t destroy them. It gave him enough time to do the return spell on their bodies and send them back to the underworld. The opal explosion must’ve destroyed it.

The Sol Opal had broken.

Holy hell.

How did Evie…

His hand and arm were a web of bloody lacerations from where opal shards had cut his skin.

Calls from below reminded him that Roman and Ky could probably see him. They weren’t oblivious enough to miss two shotgun blasts and whatever had happened to the opal.

He’d sensed them at risk and gone to check on them. Now, his job to protect them was over. He transported himself to an isolated house he maintained outside of Valencia, a house he hadn’t visited in decades.

Motionless, with a knife in each hand, he sensed everything around him inside the two-bedroom, one-story stone house.

No Dojin.

He laughed. For the first time in over six years, he was alone. Unmonitored.

Once the Fates had removed the monitor bands, Dojin couldn’t find him anymore. Not that Dom resented the other mage. They’d forged an understanding built on respect over the past few years.

Rain battered against the roof and windows. The only light came from a few solar walkway lights around the house. No energies from anything living came from within the house. He reached out with his magic to confirm the incantation bowls he’d buried them along the perimeter of the house remained intact. The Mesopotamian antique bowls captured demons who tried to cross the line. Nothing roamed outside.

The Babylonian talismans affixed to the front and back doors remained intact to prevent entry by anyone who didn’t have permission.

He slumped to the floor, lacking the energy to move to even the closest soft surface. Although exhausted, the weight of his isolation lifted. Evie would remember him. In the wake of the anticipation came responsibility. Evie being on Marik’s radar wasn’t good. The blast would also cause more than a ripple in the Source. More like a tidal wave. That meant he’d be summoned, or perhaps visited. Everything he’d sacrificed evaporated when the opal exploded.

How Evie managed to destroy the stone baffled him, but Cora had probably helped. The how of it didn’t matter. It was done.

He’d sensed a fellow mage’s magic right before the stone exploded.

Dom fully expected Evie to rain down the fires ofhell on him. He couldn’t wait.

Fatigue engulfed him.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Dom blinked his eyes open. For long seconds, he struggled to orient himself to place and time. He pushed himself upright to a sit. His back ached from sleeping for who-knew-how-long on the wood floor. A glance at his watch showed it’d only be a few hours since he passed out.

Shooting pain gathered on the right side of his neck and radiated up to a squeezing headache. A few rolls of his neck didn’t ease the cramp.

Boom. Boom. Boom-boom.

The noise came from the front door. A quick sense for energy to see if it might be her… He released a heavy sigh and collapsed back on the floor.