The Promise

Adessa had a dripping faucet somewhere in the house. It was driving me crazy as I lay on the floor, wondering what on earth Aislin was going to return with. Even though she was working with the dark side, part of me hoped it wouldn’t be that bad. She was Aislin. But deep down, I knew it didn’t matter. She had been brainwashed by the most evil man I knew Stephan.

Finally, I heard a thump from inside the house. It was time to find out what Aislin was going to do to me.

But it wasn’t Aislin who entered the room.

Adessa’s golden cat-shaped eyes landed on me. “Gemma.”

I tried to nod, but my head was a numb useless lump.

“Why are you…” She glanced around as if she sensed something was wrong. Then she swept her long black hair out of her face and knelt down beside me. She inspected me over and then she yelled, “liberum.”

I was instantly free and jumped to my feet, wanting to get as far away from this place as possible. “We have to get out of here.”

“Why?” she asked. “Gemma, why are you here?”

I gave her a quick recap of all the stuff that had been happening.

“So Aislin has the mark, but she can remove the mark?” She ambled the room, her long navy 81

dress flowing the floor. “And you don t know where she went?” I shook my head, urging her toward the doorway. “That’s why we need to get out of here.” Adessa held up her hand. “We don’t need to go anywhere. We can fix this.” Suddenly, I feared she might be marked. My eyes took in her arms and neck, the places where it was most likely to be hidden. But her honey skin was mark free.

“Do you remember how she did it?” Adessa asked. “How Aislin removed the mark?”

“Kind of,” I said. “I mean, yeah, I think so.”

“Tell me and try to remember every little detail,” she said, taking a seat on the purple velvet sofa.

“She could come back any minute,” I warned. “We should go.” Adessa deliberated this and then stretched her hand, pointing to the ceiling. “Me tenebris et tueri nos.” A dark cloud rotated from her hand, casing the ceiling with a smoky sheet of black.

“There.” She dusted her hands off. “We have a few minutes. Now go ahead and try to explain it to me.”

My eyes were wide as I took a seat. “The first thing she did was go to the graveyard to summon some kind of witch spirit to give her more power. Then she created the spell. First, she cuts into the middle of the mark so that blood drips out.”

“To bleed out the evil.” Adessa nodded, understanding. “Yes, that makes sense.”

“Then she inserts some potion I think she called it Vitis vinifera, which is supposed to free them from the evil co

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Adessa looked like it was making sense. She hopped to her feet, threw open the apothecary table, and it was filled with baggies of herbs. She took one out. “Does this look like the Vitis vinifera she used?”

The green crushed leaves did look familiar. “I think so. But it doesn’t matter if you have all the stuff. You need the power of that ghost flame woman.”

Adessa’s eyes were kind. “Has Laylen ever told you anything about me?” I wasn’t sure how she wanted me to answer. “Um… a little.”

“Well, did he ever mention how old I was?”

I shook my head, not daring to utter an age, afraid if I said something older, she d freak out like Sophia use to do. Thinking about my cold-hearted grandmother, sent a chill down my back. I hated thinking about the soulless years I spent with her. I remembered when Aislin finally broke down and told me Sophia and Marco were dead. She’d discovered this information when she’d been trying to locate Keepers with a Tracker Spell, only the spell had informed her they no longer existed, which meant they had to be dead. The Tracker Spell didn’t explain how they died though, but I knew that Stephan was probably behind it somehow. Just like he was behind most deaths.

Honestly, I’d had mixed feelings about their deaths. I was sad, but at the same time empty. I understood they’d been brainwashed during all those years of torture, yet the cold and harsh way they’d treated me was still a fresh wound. I’d spent much of my life being ignored by them as they let me sink into a lonely hole.

“I’m one-hundred and fifty-eight,” Adessa replied and I blinked out of my trance. “And do you know how I lived this long without aging?” I shook my head and she rose to her feet. “Because I’m powerful.”

I hated to break it to her, but if she was that powerful, she would have figured out her own spell. As if to prove me wrong, she flung her hands out to her side. Her head fell back, chin 83

tipped to the smoky ceiling. “Isabella, come to me!” A fire burst through the air and the flaming woman materialized, letting out a deafening wail. I covered my ears as Adessa chanted magic under her breath, finally settling the fire woman down.

“You’ve been hiding something from me Isabella,” Adessa warned. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

The fire woman hissed flames at Adessa s face.

“Don’t take that attitude with me,” Adessa said. “You’ve been lying to me for a very long time.” The flame woman tipped her head back and wailed.

“Stop sulking and hand it over.” Adessa stuck out her hand and the fire woman let out a huff, blowing a breath of smoke and fire into Adessa’s palm.

“Go now.” Adessa flexed her hand. “And don’t come back until you’re sorry for what you did.” The flame woman dissipated and Adessa turned, smiling. I was pretty sure my jaw was hanging to the floor.

“Now that that’s taken care of.” She shut the lid of the apothecary table. “I think I can make this work. But I’m going to need your help with something first something that’s very dangerous, but very important to me.”

“Okay,” I said, not surprised, because danger seemed to be my middle name. “Tell me what it is.”

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Chapter 19

(Alex)

Iwas going to kill him, strangle him until he died. At least I wanted to. But I wouldn’t or couldn’t. Killing Laylen would nearly kill Gemma and she’d hate me for it. Besides, that’d be stooping to my father’s level. No matter how hard he tried to turn me into one of his murderous soldiers, I refused to give in. I had to be stronger than he was. If anything, to save Gemma from dying.

So I held back on the strangling, instead knocking him in the side of the head with a snow shovel I stole off someone’s back porch. Once he fell unconscious, I tucked his body under a tarp, beside a pile of firewood. Then I stood there in the darkness, trying to come up with some kind of plan that would salvage this mess. I had an unconscious, killer vampire in front of me and the two people who could take me away were missing.