Wrath

Her apologies seemed sincere enough, but her story didn’t make any sense and had a lot of holes. But there was only one thing I cared about.

“What happened after you killed the mages?” I managed to say though my throat was dry and constricted with the mental images she’d shared with me. “Did you take Dorian?”

She shook her head violently. “No. No, of course not! It was all Kali. Kali and—”

“What?” I interrupted, my patience running thin. “What does Kali have to do with anything?”

“Kali has to do with everything. She has Dorian.”

“Lucas or Victor took Dorian.”

“No.”

“You’re saying Kali took Dorian?” Tristan asked from right beside me.

“No, but she has him.” She looked to Tristan, then back at me, and her tongue darted over her lips. “Um . . . Owen took Dorian.”

Chapter 5

My stomach squeezed as though I’d been punched. I took several steps back, shaking my head in denial. I knew Owen had betrayed us, of course. He’d turned on me—and Vanessa—right in our faces and joined Kali’s side. But this? He’d go so far as to take my son? The one vulnerability he knew both Tristan and I had? Did he really become so ingrained with the Daemoni that he would willingly hurt us like this?

Tristan and I looked at each other, and his expression reflected my own feelings—surprise mixed with a heavy dose of doubt. What Sonya said . . . I couldn’t fathom Owen doing such a thing. I couldn’t believe Victor had told the truth.

“You can read my thoughts,” Sonya said. “I know you can. Check my—”

Sonya’s face contorted, cutting her off mid-sentence. A scream rose from deep in her chest, and her mouth opened wide to let it out. Then her eyes glazed over as she cocked her head at me.

The next thing I knew, the vampire lunged at me. Her hands reached out and scraped at my throat. At my necklace.

Help me, Sonya’s voice came in my mind. Get . . . the stone.

A strange growl ripped through Sonya’s chest this time as her body jerked side to side.

“She’s all mine, Alexis, and I’ll kill her. Don’t think I won’t.” Kali’s voice. In my head. From Sonya.

“Kali’s controlling her,” I said, though it almost sounded like a question. “Like she has a faerie stone in her.”

Sonya’s head barely twitched in a nod. Her body jerked and twisted as she tried to hold on to even a little control. While one hand still reached for my pendant, her other one clutched at her own chest. Her fingers closed in on my necklace and ripped it off my neck. She stumbled away from me, but didn’t get far. Tristan paralyzed her, one of her hands still digging into her chest as she fell to the ground.

But still her body convulsed. Pinkish foam started bubbling from her mouth, followed by liquid blood.

“Kali’s killing her!” I gasped.

“Help her,” Heather screamed as Blossom held the girl to keep her from running to her sister.

“Blossom, muffle us,” Tristan ordered, then he said to me, “Your dagger. If she really has a faerie stone in her, it’s the only way.”

Seeing this, I had no doubt she did. And if by chance she didn’t . . . well, she deserved this anyway for what she’d done to us all. I pulled my dagger out, fell to my knees, and plunged the blade into Sonya’s chest, not for the first time. The vampire’s scream matched her sister’s. I dug the blade around until the tip hit something hard, and with a twist of the knife and a sickening slurping sound, a small stone flew out of the hole I’d carved into her chest. I caught it in my free hand as I withdrew my dagger. Sonya’s skin healed immediately, and her body fell still. Tristan released his power from her, but she didn’t move.

We waited, all of us silent and our breaths held, for seconds that turned into minutes. Heather whimpered her sister’s name. The vampire stirred, and her eyes finally opened. They were clear again as they found my face. She held her hand up, my necklace dangling between her fingers.

“How long have you had that stone?” I asked as I snatched my necklace out of her hand.

“Convert me,” she whispered. “For real this time. I want to be converted, and when I tell you everything, you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

I pressed my lips together as Tristan’s hand squeezed my shoulder, then I stuffed my necklace and the other stone into my pocket before leaning back on my heels. I hadn’t left her mind, so I knew Kali was gone, and now I focused in on Sonya’s intentions. My hand wrapped around her forearm, and I pushed Amadis power into her. She didn’t even flinch.

“It’s all in my mind and my soul still,” Sonya said to me. “Everything you and Sheree gave me, everything you taught me. Only my heart was blocked before. Now it’s open to you.”

I narrowed my eyes as I pushed the power harder. She seemed to grab a hold of it, drinking it in almost as hungrily as she’d drink blood. When I felt satisfied with her response, I gave Tristan a nod. He took Sonya in his arms, I took Heather, and we all flashed back to the safe house.

Heather sucked in a deep breath when we appeared. “Wow. That was . . .”

“Weird?” I finished for her as I set her on the ground.

“Very.”

As soon as we were in the safe house, the new team Charlotte had brought took over Sonya’s conversion. Although having a Norman here made some of the Amadis uncomfortable—Heather wasn’t supposed to know about them—I wasn’t about to send her home where she’d be vulnerable. Everyone would have to get over it because she would be staying at the safe house, too.

We told Charlotte what had happened—the little bit we knew so far—and we all shared theories about the holes in Sonya’s story. We wouldn’t really be able to fill them, though, until the vampire had fully converted. I agreed with her: she needed to be converted, for real this time, before I’d believe anything that came out of her mouth.

Tristan and I returned to our home for the night, but sleep eluded me. Although Dorian was just one little boy, his presence made the house a home, and I didn’t like being there without him. The sun had barely risen before Tristan, Charlotte, and I had settled into my office to regroup when a conversion team member knocked on the door.

“Sonya wants to talk to you,” the witch said. “All of you.”

“She’s done already?” I asked with disbelief.

“There’s no trace of Daemoni in her. We’ll need to spend more time with her, of course, and it’ll probably be a few months before she can be left to her own decisions, but all of her energy is Amadis.”

Wow. Had Sonya been telling the truth about wanting to convert but not being able to? I pulled the stone out of my pocket and scratched the dry blood off with my thumbnail. While mine was ruby-colored, this one that came from Sonya was a dark emerald green. And while mine tended to warm when I touched it, this one grew cold. Charlotte peered over my shoulder.

“Definitely looks like a faerie stone,” she said. “I can sense magic on it, but not mage magic. That’s Otherworld magic.”

“Huh. If we’d only known . . . ” Without finishing my sentence, I rushed to the vampire’s room and held the stone out at her. “Why didn’t you tell us about this?”

Sonya’s dark eyes glanced at the stone, up at me, then at something on the blanket covering her as she sat in her bed. The same bed where she’d spent months, pretending to convert.

“I was scared,” she finally said, and then she began babbling again. “I was scared you would throw me out for trying to fool you, and I thought I was stronger than the damn thing, and then the conversion seemed to be