managed to stand and take the few shaky steps to the bathroom.
He turned on the faucet and thrust his wrist beneath the cold running water, holding it there, staring blankly at the blood dripping into the sink until the wound looked clean. Wrapping a soft white towel around his wrist, he held a washcloth under the running water, squeezed it out one-handed, and wiped the blood off his belly and groin.
Damn, for a small cut, it bled like crazy. He rinsed the cloth and watched the red-tinted water swirl down the drain.
He shut off the tap and turned away from the sink. His cock bobbed against his belly. He often grew aroused when casting spells, but generally returned to his flaccid state once the spell ended. Obviously that wasn’t the case today.
He still felt light-headed. The room slowly spun. He grabbed at the door frame with his uninjured right hand and stared at the mess he’d left in his bedroom. Smears of blood from the self-inflicted slash on his wrist left garish streaks on the pale oak flooring. The bloodstained lancet he’d used to cut himself still lay safely locked within the pentagram he’d etched in charcoal in the middle of his bedroom floor.
The stink from the burning candle sitting beside the bloody blade almost made him gag.
Carefully, he pushed himself away from the door and stumbled to the edge of the pentagram. Kneeling just outside the carefully drawn design, he leaned across without touching it and blew out the sputtering candle. His nose wrinkled against the stench of burned blood, and he swallowed convulsively, once again fighting the urge to puke.
He’d followed the instructions perfectly, but where had he actually gone? He’d not stayed long enough to determine whether or not he’d really been on the astral. And what the hell was Lily doing wherever he’d ended up? She’d seen him, recognized him. He’d heard her whisper his name, but were they on the astral? It felt right, but she was here in San Francisco, wasn’t she?
Well, hell. So was he. Did Lily travel the astral? But how? Was she that much stronger than he?
Head still reeling, his gut churning with nausea, he sat back on his bare butt on the cold floor and stared at the red seeping slowly through the towel.
The blood fascinated him, even as it repelled him. Was this what was meant by a step too far? As the thought entered his mind, his erection quickly deflated.
Fear did that to a man.
He wanted power like his father’s, but all of the man’s spells, his dark brand of magic, demanded sacrifice. Sebastian had sworn never to cross that line. Nothing justified taking any kind of life for the sole purpose of making his magic stronger.
This time, he’d skirted the edge. He’d tried something new, but had he gone too far? Blood magic merely required blood. Nothing he’d read in any of his research defined the source of the blood needed for the spell to walk the astral, beyond the fact it must come from a living, warm-blooded creature.
Nothing said he couldn’t use his own. Even so, the moment he felt the sharp bite of the lancet slicing across his wrist, Sebastian knew he’d gone beyond anything he’d ever attempted. Everything had changed when those few drops of blood dripped into the flame.
The small candle hadn’t sputtered at all—no, it had flared brighter and higher until its brilliant flame lit the entire room. He’d lay there, bare back flat to the cold floor and watched as a gateway somewhere had opened like the aperture in an old camera, slowly at first, then bursting wide in brilliant color as if inviting him to come inside.
An entire dimension had opened up to him.
Along with Lily Cheval. Rubbing his hand over his eyes, he tried to remember exactly what he’d felt when he saw her. What he’d thought. And he realized his first thought was, What the fuck is Lily doing there?
He hadn’t noticed the one beside her until she’d shouted at him, blasted him with her power.
Lily was strong, but the one who remained hidden in the shadows was at least as powerful as his father, if not stronger. Her shout still vibrated through his body like a physical blow. Her words had rattled him so badly, he hadn’t been strong enough to hold on to his magic.
Had she been strong enough to throw his physical body out of the pentagram? He doubted even his father had that much