Incipient A Dark Paranormal Romance - Bianca Scardoni Page 0,114
said and shook his head. “My guess is that he wanted me in your ear.”
“Meaning what?” That didn’t make a lick of sense. I narrowed my eyes at him. “What did he say exactly?”
Gabriel swallowed roughly and I knew it was going to be bad. “He told me that he had Tessa bound and infused with Revenant blood at that Manor and that he was going to snap her neck if I didn’t convince you to…”
My face blanched. “Convince me to do what?”
He looked at me again, his expression wrought with distress. “If I didn’t convince you to give him the Amulet.”
The Amulet?! I sank back in my seat as a rush of air left my lungs. My mind twisted and turned as I tried to put the pieces together and understand his motivation, but none of this was making any sense.
“Why would he do this? He doesn’t care about the Amulet.” He hadn’t cared about acquiring it for a long time, nor did it coincide with what his current plans seemed to be, which was torturing me.
“I’m not sure,” said Gabriel, looking just as perplexed as I felt.
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Trace, his expression tempered even though his eyes were raging a bloody war. “He doesn’t want the Amulet. He just wants it off you because he knows it’s protecting you.”
“Meaning what? He wants to kill me?” I asked, the words scratching their way out of my throat like knees on concrete.
“That, or he wants to fucking Turn you,” he said, his voice low and filled with fury.
An icy shiver cut its way down my back as his words settled in.
“So, what are we going to do?” asked Ben, the uncertainty heavy in his tone. “We can’t let him have that Amulet.”
“Do you suggest we give up Tessa instead?” snapped Gabriel, his eyes hard on Ben in the rearview.
“No, but…”
Silence descended over us as we all realized the horrible position we were in. A position Dominic had undoubtably planned to the tee. Because he knew me. And he knew my weakness had always been my heart—my love for my family and my friends and the lengths I would go to try to save them.
“We’re not going to give up either,” I said as I stared out my window and acquainted myself with my new reality. Unlike the others, I knew exactly what we were going to do. What I had to do. “I’m going to put him down.”
Gabriel’s gaze snapped in my direction. “Are you sure you’re up for that?”
“It’s time,” I said and then looked at each of them pointedly. “No Cinderdust. I just want him incapacitated.”
“And then what?” asked Trace, though I had no idea how to answer that for him. The only thing I knew was that I refused to voluntarily kill Dominic. Not if there was another way to stop him. “I’ll let you know when I figure that out.”
41. YOU BROKE ME FIRST
We arrived at the Huntington Manor with no real plan and no backup in the event that the shit decided to really hit the fan. It wasn’t as though we could plan this out anyway. Not until we got inside and gauged the situation. At this point, it was a simple trade. My sister for the Amulet, though I intended on leaving there tonight with both of them in hand.
The only thing I had to do was make sure he didn’t sink his teeth into me otherwise any hope of incapacitating him would be thrown by the wayside as long as he had my blood in him.
Gabriel and Trace walked up ahead as I hung back with Ben. “It’s not too late to get out of this.”
“I know,” he said and smiled.
“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. It’s not your fight.”
“You’re my friend, Jem. Your fights will always be my fights.”
I reached my arm around his neck and mashed him into a side hug. “If it gets dicey in there, I want you to get out and get help, you hear me?”
“You got it.”
Gabriel didn’t bother ringing the doorbell and just barged into the house with Trace right behind him. I paused at the door, rolling my neck as I tried to shake away the awful feeling flitting all over my skin. Realizing it wasn’t going anywhere, I sucked in a deep breath and then walked inside.
“Come in, come in,” called Dominic from somewhere in the house, his tone filled with jubilee as though this were a get together of old