Blood Pledged (Arcane Arts Academy #3) - Elena Lawson Page 0,95

to help me. Ugh, this was not the time to protect me from a little bit of pain! I was about to say as much when Draven stepped forward, loosing his fangs.

“Where, and how much?” he asked. I sighed, ushering him over to the edge of the sigil with me.

The other three men in the room crossed their arms, almost all the same time. They didn’t have to watch if they didn’t want to.

“My hands,” I told him and he wasted no time.

He lifted my left one and pierced it with one of his fangs. I saw the tension in his movements. How he moved so deliberately. Slowly. Using up all the control he had. His venom raced into my bloodstream, mingling with the magic fighting for dominance. I let out a low moan and squeezed my thighs together beneath my dress.

“Hurry up.” If he didn’t get this done fast, I would unravel completely. Between the venom, the magic, and the wine still circulating in my bloodstream, I was primed for explosion.

He moved to the other side and did the same, eliciting a shiver from my spine. This time he kissed the soft skin on my wrist before he moved away, back to the wall with the others, wiping his bloodstained mouth on his sleeve.

Bianca was staring at me incredulously, as though she didn’t even recognize me. I didn’t blame her. I hardly recognized myself.

“Ready?” I asked her.

She closed her mouth and nodded. “Ready.”

“Rose?”

She moved into place beside me and raised her arms, as though she were the one performing the spell. I did as she did, the blood welling on the palms of my hands dripping down to stain the carpet some more.

“A sanguine, memoria reditus,” she spoke, opening her closed hands.

I filled my lungs with air and readied my body to release the power it contained. Widened my stance for the kickback. Prepared my mind for the high that only darkness could bring. I opened my hands. “A sanguine, memoria reditus!”

My hair lifted from my shoulders as the blood magic energy rose from my flesh like a wave of black smoke, the tendrils curling into the air, swirling in a phantom wind.

The smoke was a living thing, moving and dancing in the air, falling to cover Bianca like clawing hands. My blood, too, rose from me with the spell. The dark magic drew it out from the open wounds to swirl with the inky tendrils in the air. The crimson droplets gyrated around my friend at the center of a sigil that was now glowing so brightly, it looked like it was on fire.

What remained of the spell power left me in a great wave and Bianca’s eyes went white. Her head tipped back, and her chest pushed forward. Her body lifted from the floor, contorting in midair while her face was frozen in a silent scream.

No.

“Rose!” I shouted, looking for her at my side, but she wasn’t there. I spun and found her backing away, beginning to fade. “You said it wouldn’t harm her. You said—”

“All blood magic has a cost,” she said, and I saw that glint of something less than human in her ghostly green eyes. “It had to be done.”

She vanished in the span of a blink and I was left hyperventilating, the aftereffects of the blood magic making me woozy and unsteady. The black stain that was on my heart was spreading. I clutched my chest, watching as Bianca stared with white eyes, unblinking at the ceiling, her back bent at an odd angle.

“Help her!” I managed through the chaos raging within me and fell to my knees, feeling heavier than I’d ever felt in my life, my vision crowding with strange vibrating blackness around the edges.

Release it. It’s what Bianca told me to do the last time. I had to release it back to the earth. Shove it down and out before it could consume me.

Cal and Adrian broke the circle of magic around Bianca, and the sigil fell away, evaporating in a hiss and they both winced, touched by the darkness.

Bianca fell like a rag doll from the air and Cal had to sprint to catch her before she hit the floor.

Someone touched my back and I realized how ragged my breathing was—how, even though I was heaving in air, it didn’t seem to have any effect. There wasn’t enough air in this room—in this world—to sustain me.

“Let it go,” Elias whispered.

I whimpered, wanting more than anything to succumb to it,