A Discovery of Secrets and Fate (Chronicles of the Stone Veil #2) - Sawyer Bennett Page 0,40

back, instead tightening my grip on Adira’s hand and gazing at her face, so beautiful even in death.

“Come on, Finley,” Carrick says gruffly, extending a hand down to me. “Time to let her go.”

I don’t act immediately, rather spending a bit more time grieving for the loss of my friend. I know I’ll spend more time doing so in the future, but other things need to be done right now.

Slipping my hand from Adira’s, I press two of my fingers to my lips and then transfer the goodbye kiss to Adira’s. I then put my palm in Carrick’s and let him pull me up from the floor, groaning at the aches emanating from all over my body from my fight with Wade.

Carrick leads me outside of Adira’s garage room, and I look back to see Zaid squatting beside her a moment, murmuring something. When we’re a few feet from the door, Carrick turns to face me, dropping my hand. “What happened?”

Before I can answer, Zaid walks out to join us, and I get distracted. “What were you saying in there?”

“A journey prayer,” Zaid replies, and I’m a bit shocked Zaid even cares enough about anything to utter a prayer. That opens a whole slew of new questions such as who does Zaid even pray to and are there churches that daemons go to?

But I shake my head. Not important, so I turn to answer Carrick’s question. I give both men a short rundown of what happened at the bar, how there were two of them, and how we both were put under the incubuses sexual compulsion.

“It made me want to do things I most certainly didn’t want to do,” I say with a grimace, repressing a full-body shudder. Carrick’s eyes glint with fury, but he remains quiet as I lay out the story in as much detail as possible, including how I somehow managed to repel the sexual compulsion from the feather on my leg. Carrick stopped my story, making me recount the tiniest of details. I tell him about coiling the energy, the feather burning, then releasing it outward.

“And what happened when you released it?” Carrick asks in wonderment.

“I became completely clear-headed. It broke his compulsion, but I also think it broke some of the hold on Adira, too.”

“Fascinating,” Zaid murmurs.

“Clearly that feather is some type of mark of the powers you’re just discovering,” Carrick ponders out loud. “Sort of like the way Titus’ tattoo is imbued with Semper Terra’s magic.”

I had considered this obviously, but I have no clue how I did what I did. It was fear and desperation that brought the abilities out.

“Then what happened?” Carrick asks.

I explain how we left the bar, and I had thought we got away safely, how I found Wade in Adira’s room, how she fell to the floor from just a kiss. I recounted the fight up my stairs, the battle in my small room, and how I managed to get my whip and run to more open ground to use it.

“He tried to use the compulsion on me again, and I was able to repel it,” I say.

Zaid shakes his head in awe, but I ignore it, giving a short play-by-play of how I used the whip and killed Wade.

Carrick’s expression alters many times during the entire story, but when I tell him how I ended the incubus’ life, it’s unmistakably awash with pride. When I’m finished, Zaid turns and heads for my house, disappearing inside. I have no clue what he’s doing or intends to do, but I truly don’t care. Things are different now.

“How did he kill Adira with just a kiss?” I ask, turning my attention back to Carrick and wrapping my arms over my stomach. “I thought you said they needed sex.”

“Any intimate act that invokes desire on the victim’s part will open up their life force to be consumed,” Carrick explains, his tone turning sharp with disgust. “Most complete the sexual act, often violently, which the incubus or succubus enjoys more. My guess was he was just starting with Adira, and he was going to come after you next.”

I shudder, this time not able to suppress it. “But how did he find where we lived? I don’t see how he followed us?”

Carrick doesn’t answer immediately, walking across the lawn to my whip. He picks it up, examines the black blood on the dagger before looking back to me. “All fae powers have evolved over the millennia. Some are particular to species, some to royal