Page 81 of Ashborne Phoenix

“It isn’t important!” I growled through my teeth.

But Grace’s countenance changed. Her face went cold as she looked back and forth between me, my mother, and Cali. Her fingers closed on mine, her nails digging into my skin. “Tell the truth, Vane,” she muttered under the level of the chants, though my mother would be able to hear.

‘Don’t—Grace, you can’t fix this. I need to think. You don’t understand what you’re—’

‘I have a plan. Say her name to me!’ she hushed through the link, and something deep in my chest twanged, like I’d been shoved from behind and stumbled forward.

“It’s Cali!” I gasped, blinking.

Then, my mate, my beautiful, bold mate squeezed my hand so hard it hurt. I frowned, but before I could speak, Grace’s eyes went wide. Her head snapped toward Cali and her lips peeled back from her teeth as she snarled, “You!”

Trust and Obey

~ GRACE ~

All I knew was that Voski had been caught off guard. And there was danger from magik. His mother had set a trap for him. And that meant, without time to apply his significant intellect, he’d look for a way out of this that made him the sacrifice, before me or Cali.

So, I did as he’d told me, and acted instinctively. I let every ounce of anger and fury I felt for both of these women, and the ways they’d hurt him, suck to the surface. I wrenched out of Voski’s grip, then leaped toward that poor, drugged woman on the altar, screeching like a barn owl.

I spat every awful accusation I’d ever heard the ladies at court hiss at each other when one had betrayed another.

And, using my rage as a cover, I attempted first to shake Cali awake—then free her so I could pull her into a fight.

But the poor woman, though vaguely registering my presence and fighting weakly, was clearly drugged, and so hazy, her movements were uncoordinated and feeble.

I tore at her bonds, screaming at her that I knew what she’d done to my husband. But my hands kept slipping from the bonds, which were slick and wet. Lady Ashford cursed and dove for me. Voski intervened, but between my screams, the chants rising around us, and the babble of the witnesses at the edges of the chamber, I don’t know what he said. He whipped around to snarl at his mother, blocking her way until I had Cali unbound, and dragged her from the altar.

But she was far heavier than I’d anticipated, and she slipped from my grasp when half her body was clear of the stone. We tumbled to the floor together, me still shrieking, her confused and the uproar rising around us.

When Cali was slumped, half-sitting at the base of the altar, I pushed to my feet and clawed back my hair, sucking in a breath to continue my tirade, when Voski shouted, “Enough!”

Every body in the room froze.

Tension hummed in the air. His mother began hissing again a moment later, but he spat something low, between his teeth, then glared at her until she stopped. Then he tugged at his jacket lapels like he’d been ruffled and was returning himself to order. Yet, as he prepared to speak, a lone voice rose from the watchers—a man.

“The ritual has been broken! There can be no—”

“I said enough!” Voski roared, turning on the voice, then glaring with dark eyes—frightening eyes—as he addressed the entire chamber. “Your weakness of faith and resolve astounds me. Clearly this is the reason I was led to return to my roots, and to bring the new magik among you. You are weak children!” he spat.

I looked around, letting my true fear show, measuring the responses of the men and women that surrounded us.

“This ritual is archaic and the old sacrifice weakened by your pathetic blood. If you want to see the true burgeoning of power, shut your fucking mouths, and watch. You’ll learn something.”

Then he turned to me and reached across the altar, smiling with those wicked, predatory eyes that always stopped my breath.

“Come, darling,” he purred as he patted the red-smeared marble top of the altar. “It’s your time to shine.”

~ VOSKI ~

It was the most horrific moment of my life to beckon Grace onto that altar—to watch memories play in my mind’s eye, mingling with what I saw in front of me as she crawled up without hesitation. Terror coursed in my veins. My heart threatened to punch through my ribs. My soul shrieked that no harm could come to her.

But just as I’d anticipated, the idea of a new magik had entranced my mother. She’d stopped fighting me, stopped hissing threats.

Praying God would keep my grip steady, and the shaking I felt in my bones wouldn’t be evident in my hands, I reached for the red ropes Grace held, taking them, fighting the nausea that wanted to empty my stomach. Quelling the urge to toss them away.

She didn’t know, of course. I grieved the day I’d be forced to tell her what she was touching, how the victims died, or why. I felt sick just remembering it. But there was no time. As Grace crawled up onto the eschara in her gown, she smiled at me as if she’d forgotten the rage she’d been spewing at Cali, who I prayed was still conscious below, and ultimately unharmed. She was a problem for another day.

When Grace finally sat safely on the altar, I pulled her into a kiss, and linked with her.