“I need to do this,” Cian murmured against Ashlynn’s thick hair. “They may know something, even if they don’t realize it.”
Ashlynn tilted her head to look up at him and swallowed hard. “I know,” she whispered, “but it terrifies me to let you out of my sight. What if the curse spreads and you’re all alone?” She choked up, unable to continue, and buried her face in his chest. Her arms wrapped around his waist as she held him tightly.
Cian sighed and rested his cheek atop her head. She wasn’t wrong. He couldn’t even pretend to assure her that he’d be fine. There was no way of knowing if that were true. This could very well be the last time he was ever himself. But it was a risk worth taking.
“I love you,” he whispered, knowing that, at least, was true. Cian reluctantly pulled away, immediately feeling the loss of her, and grabbed his car keys from Faith’s table. “I’ll call you every hour,” he promised. “That way you won’t have long to wonder if I’m a goner.”
Ashlynn smacked him lightly on the chest then rubbed the spot over his heart. “You’re still in there.” She pressed her lips there. “Come back to me soon.”
Cian nodded as his throat filled with emotion and forced himself to walk away. If he gave into the overwhelming sense of dread and panic that filled his body, he’d never be able to fight back and search for something to save him, to save their future together.
Outside, Masilda sat on the porch swing, kicking her tiny feet and staring off into the distance. She glanced up when he closed the door and blinked at him with the longest red eyelashes he’d ever seen.
“Don’t worry,” she said, sounding so much like an adult it made him smile. “I’ll keep her safe.”
Cian breathed in the scent of the little girl and wished he could hug her. She was so young and innocent yet tested by a fickle fate, and she was offering to protect Ashlynn.
He nodded his head as he would to a regent and replied, “Thank you.”
She returned his nod as if she were born to the highest household then slipped from the swing and disappeared into the little house. Cian took a deep breath and stroke away as fast as his feet could carry him.
It didn’t take him long to get to Serena’s parents’ home. It was closer to the countryside than his parents’ manor and stood atop a sloping hill that looked down on acres and acres of land. They raised horses on the back acreage, beautiful stallions that were coveted in the racing world and used to bring Serena joy as a child. It had been a long time since he’d witnessed joy in that woman.
He’d spent a lot of time on that land, with the horses and with the family. Serena had been an only child, or the only one of her parents’ children that had survived. Her mother, Vivian, had been devastated by each lost pregnancy and had poured all her love and attention into Serena who’d been given everything she could possibly want.
Unlike some spoiled children who were given things instead of love, Serena had been given it all. Vivian had played dollies and taught Serena how to summon the wind and the rain. She’d planned and hosted every single birthday party and had made holidays magical, quite literally. So, when Serena had turned cold as a teenager, they’d dismissed her behavior as typical hormonal adjustment.
He knew the difference now. They all did.
Cian turned the engine off and stepped out in the long driveway that lead up to the grand manor house. Despite the darkness that lay over his every thought, he couldn’t stop the reminiscent smile that tugged at his lips. He’d never really noticed the grandeur as a child, simply taking it for granted. His life had been charmed, that’s for sure.
The double doors opened before he could move to touch the handle. The Cineal’s long-time butler, Charles, stood there dressed in his usual black and white, with a pained look on his wrinkled face. He gestured Cian inside.
“Mr. Boswells,” the man’s voice cracked. He’d been with the Cineals since before Cian had been born and had been there, always supportive, always watching for danger, for as long as Cian could remember. His hands fisted now as he stood and tried to speak. “Mr. and Mrs. Cineal are waiting for you in the tower”
Cian wanted to say something, to acknowledge what they all knew was happening, but he could see Charles was barely holding it together as it was. One word and he’d crumble. So, he nodded his thanks instead, and patted the older man on the arm as he walked past.
He climbed the winding staircase that lead to what had been his favorite room in the house as a child.
James and Vivian were sitting on the stone floor opposite one another with a large map of Ireland spread out between them. Their eyes were squeezed shut with determination and focus and in their hands they each gripped something precious to their daughter. James held Serena’s favorite childhood stuffie, Mr. Wags, a worn dog she’d gotten for solstice when she’d been four while Vivian held a gold chain and locket Serena had received on her tenth birthday. She’d worn it every day for six years, then she’d worn it no more.
That’s when everything had changed, it seemed. Serena had turned sixteen and had lost all traces of what had once made her bearable. She hadn’t been a fun child for the most part, she’d been selfish and demanding for the majority of her life, but he hadn’t really despised her until she’d turned that corner.
They glanced up when he walked in and Cian noticed the fine lines that edged both of their eyes and mouths. Those hadn’t been there before. They’d aged, in just a few short months, they’d aged and it was all Serena’s fault.
Anger dug its way out of the depths he kept pushing it down into and flushed his cheeks. Serena needed to be found and made to pay for everything she was doing. He gritted his teeth and focused his attention on what he saw.
The sand covered the map, spread out over it’s topography. It wasn’t localized to one area, which meant that the tracking spell they were using wasn’t working. His anger flared as his hope plummeted. If they couldn’t track Serena using the items that had meant the most of her as a child, there was no chance he’d stumble upon something that was important to her now.
“Nothing?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
Vivian shook her head and dropped her hands to her lap. The gold necklace clattered to the floor. “We can’t find her.” She took a deep breath and raised her tired eyes to Cian. “It’s like the part of her that used to love these things never existed.”
“It existed,” James said, insistently, reaching for his wife’s hand. “The daughter we raised existed.” He shook his head sadly. “I just don’t know what happened to her.”
Vivian’s quiet tears broke Cian’s heart.
The Cineals had always seemed so strong to him. He’d never even been able to use their first names, not until recently. Now, he only felt sorrow for them.
Cian looked around the tower room at the discarded items from Serena’s life, none of which had been enough to help them locate her, and let his shoulders drop. There was nothing here, he’d be better off searching for clues in Hell.
His head popped up. That was it. They’d never be able to track her with this stuff because she’d walked away from her old life. Her focus now was power and anarchy, which meant any path that could lead to her would be shrouded in the darkness she’d inflicted on him.
He was the key to finding Serena.
Cian shifted, anxious to leave so he could find the spell necessary to track Serena down. Ideas spilled through his mind chaotically, memories of spells he’d read about. Surely, Faith would have ideas. But, in the meantime, he wanted to keep it a secret. Just in case it didn’t work. There was no need to rouse anyone’s hopes.
“I’ll leave you, then,” he said, nodding his head in acknowledgement of their positions, though neither looked like the sorcerers they were at the moment. Cian paused, waiting for a response, then slipped out the door when he realized they were beyond niceties.
His feet couldn’t carry him fast enough. Cian raced down the stairs and out to his car, determined to find the spell he’d need to force Serena to him. He’d have to find a way to bind her, to use the dark magic she’d fused with his body against her. This would be their one chance; they wouldn’t get another. He rubbed the spider web on his chest and prayed time wouldn’t run out.
He was zipping toward the country road that lead to Faith’s and Ashlynn, going much too fast considering the accident he’d just recently had, when his car began to sputter and slowed to a crawl. He had just enough time to steer it off the road before it died. Cian gaped at the dashboard, utterly confused. He touched the remote start button several times, cursing at his bad luck, and reached for his cell to call for help.
That’s when he saw her, standing about ten feet ahead of where he was stranded on the side of the road.
Serena.
Cian’s skin crawled with disgust as his heart burst into action. His lips curled back, and he gripped the steering wheel as anger pushed through him, edging out sanity and logic. He recognized this and pushed back, refusing to give up his mind to the curse, to Serena’s darkness. He climbed out of the car and stood with the door open, as if it could protect him against her in some way.
Serena’s gaze flicked over him, taking in every detail, and stopped at the base of his throat where his shirt scooped low. A slow smile lifted the corners of her painted mouth.
“I see my little gift is coming along nicely,” she purred the words, as if she were flirting with him.
Cian’s fury exploded; he couldn’t stop it. It was like a disease, an alien inside him waiting to burst out, an inky pit of nothingness that wanted to suck him down. “You call this a gift!” he bellowed at her and grabbed the neck of his shirt, pulling it down to reveal the horrible veins spread across his bare skin.
Her eyes burned now, and she took a step closer, staring him down with a glint that barely covered the insanity lurking just beneath the surface. “You just don’t understand yet,” she bit the words out then seemed to force herself to find calm. “You will, soon. Then we’ll rule the clans together, the way we were supposed to.” Her lips twisted. “Before she came along.”
“She,” Cian spit with disgust, “is a hundred times the woman and witch you’ll ever be!” He shoved forward, slamming the car door behind him, and stalked toward Serena who just wanted him with narrowed eyes. She’d already done her worst, he figured, what more could she do to hurt him now? “And I will never rule with you. You’re insane.”
“Am I?” Serena tittered, raising a clawed hand to his chest.
Cian jerked away before she could touch him.
“Because it seems to me,” she added, tapping a finger against her lip, “that I’m the only one seeing the big picture here. The people are hungry for power and tired of hiding in the shadows.” Serena threw her arms wide. “This is our world! We’re at the top of the fucking food chain, so why are we pretending to be inferior when we should rule the world?”
Cian gawked at her, then slowly shook his head. “You’re not the first,” he said quietly, as if speaking to her hurt him on a cellular level. “There have been others like you and they’ve all spouted promises of power. They also died, Serena, without ever fulfilling their insane plans. When did you become this?” He gestured to her and felt a moment of grief for her parents again. “When did you lose your soul?”
Serena’s eyebrows furrowed for a moment as if she were trying to remember a time when she’d had a soul, then she shook her head and tittered. “That doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but the strength we’ll have once united. We’ll change the face of magic everywhere.”
He saw it then, not just a glint on insanity, but the true force of the darkness within her. She was beyond helping, beyond reaching. Serena was lost and in her place was a succubus, an evil thing that would suck the life and love from their people, leaving them hollow shells of who they once were. She would destroy everything he loved and rebuild in her own dark image.
He couldn’t allow that to happen.
Cian lunged for Serena, not knowing exactly what he would or could do against her dark magic but needing to do something, anything. Her eyes went wide for a split second, then her lips began to move, and Cian felt a wall of pressure slam into his chest, sending him crashing back against the hood of his car. He buckled and bit back a howl of pain as one of his ribs snapped.
Serena stalked closer and hovered above him, looking down with a keen mixture of pity and superiority. “Don’t worry,” she purred, still sounding like she was flirting with him. “You’ll be mine soon enough. I can wait.” She arched an eyebrow. “Won’t be long now.”
Then she was gone.
Cian braced his chest with an arm wrapped tightly around his torso and stumbled to the car, gritting his teeth as he sank awkwardly into the seat. He needed help.
The drive to Faith’s took forever and the walk from where he parked was excruciating, but Cian managed, using every healing spell he’d ever learned to start the process of knitting bone back together.
Masilda was the first to see him enter the clearing. She took one look at him her big soulful eyes filled with more empathy than should be possible in one so young. Cian stopped to lean against a large rock, just for a moment before continuing on.
Tiny hands reached for him, touching without hesitation over the broken bone. Cian winced, expecting pain from the touch, and shuddered when magic flowed from her fingertips into his body.
He stared down at her, so young, so troubled, so powerful, and gasped as the purest magic he’d ever felt surged through him, wrapping his broken bone in warmth. He felt his shattered bone shift, grow, and reattach while he held his breath, waiting for unimaginable pain. It never came. Masilda’s power wrapped him like a cocoon, bringing a tear to his eye. Cian stared down at her in awe. He’d never felt anything quite so pure and powerful before.
Ashlynn came out of Faith’s home just as Masilda was finishing and raced across the yard, stopping dead in her tracks. “What happened?” she asked, reaching a hand out to touch his abdomen carefully.
Masilda lifted her hands and looked up with a slight frown. “I healed the rib, but I couldn’t heal the darkness. It…” she shifted and chewed her lip, “it’s beyond the light.” She glanced up at Cian and offered him the barest glimpse of a smile, then turned on her heels and walked away.
“She is the strangest child I’ve ever met,” Cian murmured, lifting his shirt to see the red bruising that had blossomed on the way almost completely gone. Ashlynn stopped him as he moved to let his shirt drop. She lifted it further and inspected the dark veins.
“They’ve worsened,” she said in a pained voice, indicating the lines they’d made on his chest with permanent marker. Sure enough, the spider web of veins had moved slightly past the line that had been their boundary just yesterday.
He rubbed at them and dropped his shirt. “It was probably Serena. She showed up on my way here and threw me around like a rag doll.”
Ashlynn’s frown was instantaneous. “Are you alright? Did she say anything? Do you know where she went?”
Cian shook his head. “No, she was just there, then she disappeared. Her magic is insanely strong and nothing from her childhood can penetrate it. It’s like she’s completely gone. I think…” he sighed, “I think her soul is dead.” His eyes lit up as he remembered what he’d realized. “But I think there’s a way to track her using the curse.”
Ashlynn’s eyebrows shot up. “What are you thinking?”
He touched his chest. “This curse is pure darkness, even Masilda felt that. I feel it. It’s eating away at my soul and pulling me down into whatever abyss there is below life. It’s not natural and neither is she, anymore. I felt it when I jumped her. It was like a wall of darkness, but she was part of it. If we can just figure out a way to track her using these,” he pulled the neck of his shirt down, “then we can catch her off guard.”
“You jumped her?” Ashlynn’s voice was cold, and her features froze in place as she picked on that one detail.
Cian eyed her warily, not understanding the sudden shift in reaction. “Yeah,” he said dismissively, wanting to make her see that his plan had merit. “But we can track her now, we just have to find the right spell. I’m sure Faith has something that will work.”
Ashlynn’s teeth clicked together as her jaw clenched. “Cian,” she said slowly as if talking to a child, “your power is being sucked from your body, your connection to the magicks of this world is being cut off, and you decided it would be a good idea to jump her?” Her voice raised as if she were asking a question, but Cian understood, finally, that it was an accusation.
His ire rose immediately. He’d done something right. Why was she trying to turn this around on him? He had enough to worry about. He couldn’t breathe without worrying about something. Her, their people, his parents, Serena’s parents, the world! It was too much and she was supposed to be his person, his support. Cian’s blood ran hot.
“I didn’t ask for it, Ashlynn,” he spat the words out as his heart began to race. His body filled with anger, futile and hot, not for her but for everything the world had thrown at him lately. Cian looked at the woman he loved and let it all burst free. “I didn’t ask for any of this!” He pounded his chest, needing to feel as if he were being heard. The look of frustration in her eyes told him he wasn’t.
Cian reached for his magic, pulling it forcefully from the earth, dragging it into his body in a way he’d never done before. It resisted him, shying away from the dark curse that infected his soul, but that just made him pull harder.
It flooded him, but it wasn’t normal. Mania pushed at his mind through the magic, sweeping him up in its power, and he let himself just be within the storm. He barely noticed Ashlynn stumble back, face ghost white, eyes wide as he raised his hands into the air and summoned every drop of power he could.
Gone was the fear and worry, everything that pressed so heavily on his soul, or what was left of it at least. Cian closed his eyes and let his head loll back. This was freedom, this was peace…
This was exactly what Serena wanted.
Cian’s eyes flew open and he dropped his arms, letting the magic go in one fell swoop. It disappeared into the earth, sucking the last drops of power from him and he sagged. Ashlynn was by his side in an instant, holding him up, running her hand over his chest, his heart, his face.
He’d almost given in. For a split second, he’d wanted the darkness and the peace that it offered. He’d been so close. Cian swallowed back the lump in his throat and pushed away from the woman he loved.
“No,” he whispered hoarsely, stumbling back. She was too good for him, too pure and good. He didn’t deserve her, not like this, not now. Cian’s breath caught in his chest. “I can’t.” He turned, terrified he was right and praying he was wrong, and ran out of the clearing.