Dusk Unveiled (Ravenwood Coven Book 2) Page 4

  “We still don’t know who sent those revenants,” Ash whispered.

  Rowen stiffened for a moment at his voice, but then she nodded, forcibly relaxing her shoulders. “No, we don’t. While we can assume it was Oriel, it could have been any member of his team. Or even another necromancer who wants our home and the power within its wards.”

  “Do you believe Oriel has a team?” I asked.

  Rowen pushed her hair away from her face. “He had Faith. He could have others.”

  I leaned forward. “And if he does, then we need to figure out who they are. If they’re necromancers, then we need to determine what other magic they have.”

  Necromancers were witches who turned bad. And since witches were elemental by nature, they all had an element they leaned towards. Faith’s had been water, much like Sage.

  “It’s fire,” Laurel cut into my thoughts. We turned to her. “That fire you felt before? That wasn’t me.”

  I believed her, but I wasn’t sure the others did. I reined in my anger at that.

  “It didn’t come from Laurel,” I added. When the others nodded, Laurel grumbled.

  “Excuse me. I told you before it wasn’t me. Just because I don’t use my magic because of what it does to me, doesn’t mean I lost all control and let fire come from a totally different part of the lake from where I was standing. I wasn’t even in that direction. Therefore, it couldn’t have been me. And if you thought beyond the fact that you’re so worried about what my magic could do, you would realize that.”

  Rowen held up her hand, air magic sliding over us all.

  I scowled at her.

  “You’re right. We’re sorry.” She looked at the others as they nodded and then gave us a tight nod. “However, if this necromancer does have fire as their element, that means you are our best person to fight against them.”

  “You know I can’t do magic,” Laurel said at the same time I spoke.

  “She can’t do magic.”

  Laurel scowled at me, but I just raised my chin, defiant.

  “We know that,” Rowen said and then shook her head. “But we still need to try.”

  I ignored the sense of loss that loomed over me as we continued planning, deciding what might be coming and trying to figure out how to stop it.

  After the meeting, my shoulders tense from the lack of knowledge of anything going on, I went back to my task of cleaning up any messes the supernatural left behind. My job was to make sure the humans didn’t find out what was going on in Ravenwood. Rowen worked her own magic with the wards, and I did what I could with what was left.

  I nodded at Aspen as he passed me on the street and held back a scowl. I didn’t know what was going on between him and my sister, and I wasn’t sure I liked it whatever it was, but it wasn’t my place to get involved. At least for now.

  The man returned my nod regally before walking down the sidewalk as if he weren’t the leader of a secretive race of supernaturals that even shifters didn’t know much about.

  I cleaned up glass from a broken window, helped a teenager out of a sticky spot, and then shifted and raced our jaguar friend down a path, just to see Frank smile.

  When he won, I grinned, shook my head, and made my way back to my home just as darkness settled in.

  I walked inside, stripped off my shirt, and was about ready to take my third shower of the day when I froze, a familiar scent filling my nostrils.

  It wasn’t a dream this time. It couldn’t be, I was awake. I turned to see Laurel standing in my home.

  “How did you get in here?” I asked.

  “I know how to climb.” She shrugged, and I held back a smile. She was right. She used to climb through my window up in the aerie when we were teenagers, both of us not knowing enough about each other yet knowing too much at the same time.

  “What are you doing here, Laurel?” I asked, trying not to make my tone sound accusatory. I liked her here. I wanted her here always. But she couldn’t be. Still, I needed to know why she’d come.

  “You were right, Jaxton.” She swallowed hard. “It’s time.”

  Suddenly, the world felt as if it were falling around me, her voice echoing in my head.

  It was time.

  Time for death.

  Chapter

  Four

  Laurel

  My hands shook, but I felt that was a common occurrence these days. I didn’t know if it was from the pain that constantly radiated through my veins or the tension from the worry of what might come later.

  I tried to ignore it. Tried to tell myself that I would find a way to survive. But I knew that wouldn’t be the case.

  This afternoon, once Rowen finished collecting the materials for the spell, we would try to break the curse.

  Not the whole Christopher curse. That was something Ash would have to do to unravel himself. However, my part of the curse might have a solution.

  Sage had found it. A small line in a book about a spell that could douse the flames of the unworthy. She had scowled at it, but I had come closer. Wondered if I was the one who didn’t possess the worthiness to continue as part of the coven. Rowen had merely given me a look and then went to search for the spell the note had spoken of.

  Did my best friend think I was unworthy? Or was Rowen just following along with what I had said? I wasn’t sure, but maybe there wasn’t a choice in what needed to happen next. Because here we were, about to perform a ritual—and I could die.

  That was the outcome of this spell. I would die, and then I would be reborn without the Christopher curse. I would burn from the inside out, but it would be my choice this time. My flames coming into existence to purge.

  And I wanted nothing to do with it. Only, if I didn’t do this, I would still die. I might as well try to find a way out of it. To make it out alive to protect the town and those I loved. I needed to determine who I needed to be and find the strength and the power to become that person.

  Jaxton wanted me to do this. He wanted me to survive and find a way. But to what? To be with him? Or maybe just to be.

  He was the one who’d told me it was time. I couldn’t spend another moment waiting for something to come to us without trying. It had been years of me nearly dying, of burning from the inside.

  “Are you ready?” Ash asked. I turned to him, trying to relax at my brother’s tone.

  The man in front of me wasn’t the boy I had grown up with or even the man I’d come to know before everything changed.

  I missed the Ash he used to be, the one from before the curse.

  I wasn’t sure when that Ash might come back or if he could, though I knew he had to. For us to defeat the darkness, we needed to be a full coven, and Ash was a witch. He wielded earth. Had rocks and dirt that created a magnificent mosaic on his skin and acted as his anchor. A tattoo that told us who he was.

  He was still that, even if a part of him might be forever gone.

  I hated that I had lost a piece of my brother. And I wasn’t sure how we were supposed to fix it.

  I only knew that we needed to.

  “I don’t know if I’m ready,” I said after a moment, finally answering him.

  “You don’t have much of a choice. You were right when you said it was time. Time to stop waiting to see if this might work.” He frowned at the notes he’d taken and rubbed his hand over his chest. I froze at the gesture, wondering what it meant. But then he looked down at himself as if he hadn’t realized he had done it and dropped his hand.

  It had been his heart. A place that had to be empty because of what resided within him—or rather, what didn’t.

  And yet it ached? For who? For what?

  Or was I once again reading too much into things?

  “We will make the connection together and bond as brother and sister. That should enable you to reach out and find that person, me, once you return to us.”

  What he didn’t say was that, once I was done burning to let the curse take hold, I would be able to reach out for the bond I had
with Ash, our sibling bond, and find a way to live once again.

  I would die today so I could rise again. So I could break the curse and become one with the coven.

  It was the only solution we had been able to find. The only way that might work. But I didn’t know if it would.

  “You’re sure this is going to work?” I asked, swallowing hard. “Will you be able to do your part on the other side of the bond?”

  I didn’t tell him that I was terrified. Because of his curse and what had happened to him, I wasn’t sure we would be able to bond the way we should. I might end up killing him in the process.

  “It should be fine. After all, we’ve been bonded since birth. We’re siblings. Family.”

  He was saying the words, and yet, somehow, they didn’t ring true. It wasn’t that he was lying to himself or me. It was just that he was who he was now. Changed.

  Everything was wood and stone; not the Ash I used to know.

  Today, I would be the one burning to ash even while he had the name. I’d always found it ironic that I had been born after him, my fire power fully intact, while he had been named for the result of fire itself.

  “It would have been better if you’d had a mate for this. A true mating bond is stronger than a sibling bond. But with Trace gone...” Ash began and then stopped speaking after I let out a pained gasp.

  “Did I say something wrong?” he asked. I could sense that he was apprehensive. Worried. Ash may be different now, the curse twisting him up inside, but he didn’t want to hurt those around him. He wasn’t casually cruel. He was simply honest to a fault, even with his secrets.

  “Trace wasn’t my mate, Ash. At one point, I thought it would have been nice if he were, but he wasn’t. The bond would never have formed between us.”

  Ash tilted his head, studying me. “Is there someone else, then? Someone you can create a mating bond with to make this work?”

  I swallowed hard. “I don’t know.”

  “Jaxton, maybe? Perhaps Jaxton should stand with me, and you should try to create a bond with both of us. Use the sibling bond and a potential mating bond to come back. To find a way back to both of us.”

  I winced and pulled away. “It doesn’t work like that, Ash.”

  “I’m aware that mating bonds don’t always work the way you want. When you take that step, things can be irrevocably altered to the point where you can’t come home. I understand that. You know I do.”

  I turned on him, pain radiating through me. Of course, he knew. He was who he was because of the decisions that had broken him. Those that had broken Rowen.

  “I think we can just work with you.”

  “No, we won’t,” Jaxton said from behind me. I turned, my hands shaking.

  “How long have you been standing there?” I asked.

  How long had he been listening? I hadn’t even noticed he was there. Ash and I stood in Rowen’s store, waiting for the others, and Jaxton had walked right up without me noticing.

  “He’s only been there for a short while,” Ash answered.

  I rolled on my brother, glaring. “And you didn’t let me know that he was listening in?”

  “I was invited here, Laurel,” Jaxton said. “I can’t be listening in or eavesdropping if I’m supposed to be here. And, apparently, I’m truly supposed to be here.”

  “It’s not you. I could kill you, Jaxton...”

  “But you don’t care that you could kill yourself? Your brother?”

  I threw my hands up into the air. “That’s not what I’m saying. This can’t hurt Ash. Not the way it could hurt you.”

  My brother couldn’t lose what he didn’t have. And that was why he was the perfect person for this. Ash was strong enough to come back from whatever we threw at him today. What the bond we’d use for the spell would attach to—if it could at all—couldn’t break him.

  Jaxton’s eyes narrowed, his anchor tattoo sliding over his body like a whirlwind. “You weren’t going to tell me that you were going to risk everything, even though I was the one pushing you towards this ritual? You weren’t going to tell me that I could help?”

  I swallowed hard, fear clenching my heart in a punishing grip. “You can’t help, Jaxton. We both know that.”

  “You and I need to talk. Before this happens.”

  “I think we’re out of time,” Rowen announced as she walked in, looking between the three of us as Sage and Rome followed her.

  “What’s happening? What’s going on?” Sage asked as she moved forward.

  “I think a conversation that should have happened long ago is finally taking place,” Rowen grumbled.

  I glared at my best friend.

  Rome grumbled low, letting out a deep chuff that was all shifter. “Stop it.”

  “What?” I glared at the bear.

  “Stop it.”

  “Stop what?” Rowen asked. “Stop talking about what all of us are ignoring?”

  “You and Jaxton could be mates. I once thought it could be you and Trace—and maybe it could have been, or maybe it was the three of you. I don’t know. But my brother is gone. Both of my brothers are.” I heard the growl in Rome’s voice, and I ached for him. I wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do. Instead, Sage rubbed his chest, and he pulled his mate close. “I almost lost my mate once—more than once, if I’m honest. I lost my brothers. I’m not going to lose my friends. We know that the town is cursed, and that the Christophers were cursed more than once.”

  “And it’s my family’s fault,” Sage said.

  I shook my head. “It’s not your family’s fault.”

  “I know the story,” Sage said, raising her chin. “The youngest Prince daughter, the family who founded this town, was in love with a Christopher. But he didn’t love her back. So, when she broke in grief, her power lashed out at the Christopher line—albeit unknowingly.”

  I looked at her, then at my brother. “And from there, no line shall be whole, and all those who fall shall burn or fade,” I repeated the long-ago curse. “I know it. I am the burn.”

  “And I am the fade,” Ash whispered.

  Rowen’s jaw tensed as he spoke. I hated this for them. I loathed that our family line was severing because of a long-ago curse that had been an accident.

  Even accidental magic had strength. And after centuries of twisted magic and power and curses, our family was finally running out of time.

  “If we are mates…” Jaxton began, his voice hollow, “if we are mates, then let me help.” I froze.

  “We don’t have a bond.” I couldn’t let him die. I didn’t want to hurt my brother, but he could survive. If I burned, our bond wouldn’t break him like it would Jaxton.

  “But we have the potential. You can’t deny that. Ash and I could do this together. We can both be your focal point so you can come back.”

  I shook my head. “It could kill you.”

  “That’s a risk we’re both willing to take,” Ash whispered, and Jaxton nodded. “You know this, Laurel. I know you’re afraid of hurting us. I know you worry what could happen. But I am more afraid of what might happen if we don’t try.”

  I looked at all my friends, my family, and fisted my hands at my sides.

  “If we do this, you could die.” I needed Jaxton to understand that. I didn’t want him to risk himself. Not for anything, but especially not for me. Didn’t they see that? Couldn’t they see what I’d needed to push away for so long?

  “If we don’t do this,” Rowen snapped, “you will surely die. They’re willing, and we are as well. Rome, guard us. You’ll be the only one with strength after this.”

  The big bear nodded. “Of course. Should we get my beta? Your second? The others? Aspen?”

  Rowen shook her head. “No, I feel it has to be the six of us.” She looked at me then. “It’s always been the six of us.”

  I gritted my teeth and nodded. “Fine. Fine.”

  Rowen barked out orders as my emotions whirled. I looked at Jaxton. “I don’t want you
to get hurt.”

  He moved forward and cupped my jaw. I hated that my magic reached out to him, wanted him. The anchor tattoo of flames on my side rolled around, moving over my chest and up to my neck, then over my cheek to touch Jaxton. His hawk tattoo, his anchor, flew down his arm and over his hand, so our anchors touched. The magic pulsated.

  “Laurel. You know it’s time.” He echoed his words from weeks before, and I swallowed hard.

  “You know I can’t mate with you. Not truly. Not with the curse. It doesn’t work that way. It only solidifies the curse further.”

  It had with Ash. That was one more reason I had never tried to find a bond with Jaxton.

  The hawk nodded tightly, pain in his eyes. “It’s the potential. I’ll be here.”

  “As will I,” Ash said. “It’s not a mating bond, but a sibling bond can aid.”

  I wasn’t going to win this argument, and a selfish part of me was glad for the support. “Okay. Okay. I guess I don’t have a choice.”

  “We don’t,” Sage whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

  Rowen, Sage, and I stood in the center of the room, holding hands as magic pulsed around us. Jaxton and Ash stood behind me like pillars of stone as they waited for the magic to come.

  “Rome will watch over us, keep us safe from any dangers from inside or outside forces. The three of us will say the words, cast the spell, and will push our magic into Laurel so she can let the curse unfold, let the flames engulf her. And when she comes back, both Ash and Jaxton will reach for her through the bond, and we will rise again as new.”

  It sounded insane. But this was the only thing that might work. It was the only thing that could.

  I just had to hope it was enough.

  I let out a breath and met their gazes, nodding. Ash gripped my right shoulder, Jaxton my left, and we began.

  “As flames and fire and energies rise, wing the magic across the skies. Take this witch we offer thee, purge her darkness so she can see. Open eyes and cleanse her soul, purify her magic and make her whole. When she rises and breathes again, the curse will be gone, the strife will end. From our coven, these three and three, this is our will, so mote it be.”