Sacrificed (The Ignited Series)

by Dantone, Desni

  A vision of him fills me. Tall and lean, with wavy dark hair, softly curved shoulders. Beautiful in every way. My love. My curse. In my mind’s eye, he turns and I see him.

  His eyes—the color that emeralds were named after—meet mine. With a smile, his hand lifts to welcome me. I reach for it—of course I reach for him—but my hand slips through his, his arm wafting away like a cloud. To my horror, he fades. Disappears.

  It’s then that I remember he was only a vision. He wasn’t real.

  But he is out there.

  And I will find him.

  And then everything will change.

  Micah.

  I woke with a start. The seconds ticked by as I stared at the ceiling of my room, orienting myself. I listened to Callie’s slow and steady breathing as she slept soundly beside me. Other than that, the house was quiet and dark.

  As I lay there, I wondered how much time had passed, and how I had ended up in my bed when the last thing I remembered was being on the floor of the warehouse. Then, the details of the dream—or whatever it had been—rushed me.

  It hadn’t been anything like my usual dreams with Micah.

  I wasn’t convinced it had been Micah in my dream anyway. I hadn’t been me. And the man had looked slightly different. Older, with shaggier hair than Micah, a little more height than Micah, but a close resemblance none the less.

  A brother, perhaps? Father?

  Why in the hell was I dreaming about Micah’s father?

  And whose shoes had I literally been walking in, whose eyes had I been seeing through?

  I grunted as I threw back the covers and got to my feet.

  Another dream, another mystery. My life was full of them.

  I wondered if Micah had any knowledge of the dream, and resigned to ask him the next chance I got.

  For now, Mother Nature had me scurrying to the bathroom.

  After I finished, I stopped at the sink to inspect my finger. The powdery substance had been wiped clean. As I ran my hands under the water, I wondered what it had been.

  Whatever it was had led to one crazy trip out. One that I never wanted to repeat.

  On my way back to the bedroom, I saw a bluish glow coming from the end of the hallway. I continued past my room, and the others, to find the source of the light.

  I found Nathan sitting at the kitchen table, a laptop in front of him. He hadn’t heard me approach and I stopped in the entryway to watch him for a moment. Whatever he was doing, he was hard at it, with a slight scowl on his face. He didn’t remove his eyes from the screen as he lifted a cup of coffee to his mouth.

  I glanced at the soft green numbers on the microwave. 2:27, drinking coffee. Must be serious.

  “What are you doing?” I asked softly to announce my presence.

  He looked up as I rested my forearms on the back of the chair across from him. “Research,” he said, stretching his arms above his head as he reclined in his seat.

  “Went out and bought a computer to do research?”

  He nodded and, as if predicting my next question, added, “Richie hacked into the neighbor’s WiFi.”

  I didn’t know the guy very well, and hadn’t particularly liked him since the moment he’d pulled a gun on me, and looked ready to do it again if I so much as looked crooked at Micah, but I had to admit he was handy to have around.

  “Looks like you’ve been at it for a while.”

  “Since we got back. Since…whatever it was that happened to you.” He hesitated, looked across the screen at me. “What did happen, Kris?”

  I shrugged and rounded the table, edging closer to him. “Exhaustion? Mental fatigue? Stress?”

  He wasn’t amused. “You passed out when you touched those markings.” He said it like he knew damn well that I already knew that, and wasn’t going to let me get away with blowing it off as nothing. No matter how much I wanted to.

  I sighed. “I don’t know, Nathan. All I remember…I felt paralyzed and then, there was this surge of energy. I saw stars and blacked out.”

  From the angle I now had, I could see what he had pulled up on his screen. He made no effort to conceal it from me, so I took the opportunity to study it.

  “Really?” I raised my eyebrows curiously. “The Historical Society of the Salem Witch Trials? Couldn’t find a good porn site?”

  Not even Nathan could hold back a short laugh. His eyes were twinkling when they lifted to mine, and suddenly I was thinking of Nathan…and bad, bad things. I thanked God that the faint light the computer put off wasn’t enough to illuminate my flushed cheeks.

  Feigning indifference, I sat in the chair next to his and leaned forward, eyeing the website curiously. “Is this your way of accepting that Micah might be on to something?”

  He shrugged. “After seeing what happened to you in there…I guess it is.

  I swallowed hard, the dirty thoughts in my head a moment ago completely forgotten. “What? Now you think I’m a witch?”

  “No,” he said automatically. “But I believe that witchcraft, Incantation, or whatever you want to call it had a part in what happened back there. When you touched those markings…”

  “I don’t think it was the markings,” I admitted quietly. “I think it was whatever substance they used to make the markings. When it touched my skin, it was like an electric current shot up my arm. And…” Nathan waited patiently as I swallowed, gathering the nerve to come clean about what I’d experienced.

  “I had a dream. Or a vision. I don’t know what it was,” I finally said. “I was someone else, I think, but I don’t know who. She was holding a torch, walking through a thick fog, looking for someone.”

  “Do you know who?”

  “A man. She thought of him as her love, but also her curse. What could that mean?”

  Nathan genuinely looked as puzzled as I felt. “I don’t know.” He dragged a hand down his face with a groan, and I could feel the frustration seeping off of him.

  “Nathan, get some sleep,” I suggested softly. “We’re not going to solve everything tonight.”

  He nodded solemnly, like he had really hoped to come to some sort of revelation when he’d sat down in front of the computer tonight, and was reluctantly accepting defeat.

  “We’ve got more angles to work with now,” I added with forced cheer. “We know how they’re doing the conversions, we’ve got the rest of the warehouse to search yet. We’ll find something.”

  I had to admit, I was impressed with the sense of confidence I had gained from trying to lift someone else’s morality. Hadn’t our roles been reversed just a few hours ago? Right before witchcraft and magic and the world of Incantation entered our lives.

  With a sigh, Nathan shut the lid on the computer, casting us into darkness. Only the soft glow of the numbers on the microwave permitted us to see each other. His eyes, when they turned to me, sparkled a subtle silver. I felt a pull toward them, and might have even moved forward just a little. Before I got too close, he bolted to his feet, putting an end to the spell he had unknowingly put on me.

  The almost-moment reminded me of our kiss in the warehouse earlier. I wanted to bring it up, to talk to him about it, but I couldn’t find the nerve. And it was clear from his abrupt actions that he was still running away, trying to keep his distance. Unspoken words hung between us as we walked side by side down the hallway, toward the bedrooms.

  Nathan surprised me when he passed his room to walk with me to mine. I stopped there, with my hand on the doorknob, and turned to wish him a good night. The words dried up in my throat when his hand lifted to brush a stray hair behind my ear, and then he leaned down to plant a gentle kiss to my forehead.

  He hovered there, his lips barely grazing my skin, as he took deep and steady breaths, as if he were fighting a war with himself. Making a noise that sounded like a growl, he leaned into me, momentarily pressing his hip to mine, and all my senses were triggered, my body on high alert. My chin lifted in anticipation of more. For a moment, when his hooded eyes lowered
to mine, I thought something phenomenal was about to happen, with me sandwiched between him and the door at my back. Then his eyes widened in sudden clarity, and with one more fleeting kiss to my forehead, he backed away.

  “No more dreams, okay?” he said gruffly as I swayed unsteadily on my feet.

  I had to gulp for air a few times before I managed to whisper, “Only ones I want to have.”

  Not that he heard me. He was gone.

  CHAPTER 11

  I was rewarded with a dreamless sleep. When I woke up, Callie was gone. A quick glance out the window confirmed that it was late morning, and I had slept in. The house was quiet as I padded out to the living room. Spying outside, I saw a steady downpour of rain. No one was training or working on target practice. Both vehicles were gone from the driveway.

  What the hell? They left me?

  A clatter from the kitchen spun me around as my heart lurched into my throat. I froze and listened for muffled voices, soft advancing footsteps—or for a Skotadi to charge, or a witch-girl to fly at me.

  The sloshing of water in the sink followed by the groans of complaint by a familiar voice calmed my jitters, and I headed into the kitchen to witness what I needed to see to believe. Even then, I was sure I must be hallucinating as I stopped to watch Alec washing the dishes.

  “Well, well,” I announced from the doorway. “Alec doing housework.”

  He glanced over his shoulder with a grin. “Shut up and help me.”

  I folded my arms and leaned against the doorframe. “Looks like you’re doing a good enough job by yourself.”

  He barely moved a muscle, but somehow managed to fling a soap and water missile over his head in my direction. It missed.

  “Alright,” I sighed. “If you’re going to get violent about it.”

  I joined Alec at the sink and began drying the dishes he had already washed. A few moments of comfortable silence settled between us as we worked side by side. As I replaced a few glasses in the appropriate cabinet, I broke the silence.

  “Where is everyone?”

  “Micah threw a tantrum, made Gabby take him into town to get something that he wanted. Probably a new dolly,” Alec answered. “Since there was a chance for a mall trip, Callie went with them. Richie and Nathan went to the warehouse to sort through the rest of the stuff there. They should be back soon.”

  “And you volunteered for kitchen duty?”

  “Hardly. I drew the short straw. I wanted to go to the mall, too, but they wouldn’t let me.” His eyes slanted toward me. “But now, being stuck here isn’t so bad.”

  I managed to avoid the undertone in his statement by moving to another part of the kitchen to put away the stack of plates I had dried. Alec’s back was to me as I slowly made my way back to the sink and I took a moment to take him in.

  We hadn’t had the opportunity to spend much time together lately, and I was grateful for the chance to reconnect with him a little bit, even if it was over a sink full of dishes. It would still allow me the opportunity to figure out what it was about him that I had been drawn to in the first place.

  What wasn’t there to be drawn to? Alec was great, he really was. Just about everything that came out of his mouth made me laugh. He was cute, ornery, and any girl would be lucky to have his attention. I did care about him. A lot.

  I wondered about Nathan’s insistence that I had unsorted lingering feelings for Alec. Sure, I could acknowledge that I had some feelings for Alec, but they weren’t as strong as they had once been. Since my time with Nathan, my feelings for Alec had changed, had lessened. But…

  Was something still there? More than I realized?

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Alec’s voice broke through my concentration, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Huh?”

  “Trying to undress me with your eyes?” He grinned. “I wouldn’t mind if you were.”

  “Shut up, Alec,” I said, though it didn’t pack much of a punch with the smile on my face.

  His grin grew and his eyes remained on me as I reclaimed my spot at the sink beside him, but he didn’t say anything. It was a little unnerving, Alec being quiet. I wasn’t used to it.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Just trying to figure you out.”

  I dropped my head to avoid his gaze. “Am I that difficult?”

  He finally shifted, releasing me from the hold he had on me. “Girls are complex by nature, but you, Kris, are probably the most confusing one I’ve ever encountered.”

  I gaped at him. “Me? How so?”

  He resumed washing the dishes, his eyes mercifully turned away from me as he spoke. “You’ve made it pretty clear how you feel about Nathan. I know you want him, but…” He turned to me—no grin, no smile, no joking—in all seriousness. “There’s this way that you look at me sometimes.”

  Shit. That was the same thing Nathan had said.

  Did everyone see something I was blind to?

  Alec turned back to the sink, pulled the plug to let the water out. “Makes me wonder, that’s all.”

  Holy hell, what was I supposed to say to that? “I don’t…I didn’t…” I stammered meekly.

  Alec turned to me and leaned against the counter, his patented grin back where it belonged, on his face. “You don’t even realize how bad you want me,” he teased. I narrowed my eyes at him, and he continued, “You must really have it bad.”

  “Maybe somebody’s over confident,” I returned quickly.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. He moved as if to walk by me, but stopped and lowered his mouth to my ear. “But just so you know, I’ve got it pretty bad, too.”

  He bumped his shoulder against mine as he continued by, leaving me weak-kneed by the sink and forced to set the dish in my hand down. Good thing, because I surely would have dropped it when I heard Alec address someone on his way out of the kitchen.

  “’Sup, Nathan,” he called cheerily.

  Oh, my God.

  I stiffened, my back to the door, as I waited to hear a response from Nathan. Nothing followed, and I knew that he wasn’t going to give one.

  How much had he seen? How bad had it looked?

  It had to have looked bad. Really bad, judging by his silence.

  I didn’t want to do it, but as the silence dragged on, the suspense got to be too much. I glanced over my shoulder to see Nathan standing in the doorway, soaking wet from being out in the rain, and looking after Alec as he walked away.

  Anger was the usual emotion that Alec induced in Nathan, and was what I expected to see now. But when his eyes turned to me, for the first time ever, I saw a disappointment on his face that I knew I never wanted to see again.

  Before I could say anything—or think of something worthy to say—Nathan turned and walked away without a word. He went in the opposite direction of Alec, and that was probably a good thing. I had bigger things to worry about than breaking up another fight between them two.

  One thing was for sure. I had to figure out what I was doing, before I lost Nathan for good. That would be so much easier to do if I weren’t so obviously attracted to Alec.

  As if the day wasn’t already off to a bad start, Micah returned with Gabby and Callie soon after. He had books—lots of books—and called us all into a sort of meeting in the living room. Nobody was less thrilled than me.

  I quickly learned that my trepidation was rightfully earned.

  “Look at these,” he said to no one in particular, tossing the books down on the coffee table. No one moved, so he added pointedly, “You’ll find the proof that Incantation exists. It’s been here all along, and they’re using it.”

  If there had been a cricket in the room, we would have heard it. Only Richie obliged Micah by taking a book off the table and flipping through it.

  “Let’s just pretend that you’ve actually found proof,” Alec said conversationally. “What point are you trying to make, other than showing us you’re right?”

  Micah spun around t
o Alec, excitement lighting up his eyes. “Alec, you saw what Kris did with that fireball.”

  What? What did that have to do with anything?

  The horror on my face was caught by Nathan, before he turned his attention to Micah. “What fireball?”

  Uh-oh.

  Micah seemed to sense the dangerous territory he was about to navigate, and some of his excitement dimmed. His voice, when he addressed Nathan, was subdued, cautious. “I’ve never seen anyone manipulate an element like her before. She conjured fire better and faster than those that have been doing it for years—on her first attempt.”

  Nathan glanced in my direction before narrowing his eyes at Micah. “So?”

  Micah swallowed hard, looked from me to Nathan. “I think Kris might be descendent of Hecate.”

  My first thought: what an odd name; second thought: who in the hell was Hecate? Better yet, why would Micah think I might be descendent of this person, and why did his suggestion provoke everyone else in the room—with the exception of Callie, who was just as confused as I was—to start arguing amongst each other as to why there was absolutely no way in hell for me to be descendent of this mystery person with the weird name?

  “Why would you think that?” Nathan asked Micah once everyone had settled down enough that he could talk over them.

  “Legend has it that Hecate was imprisoned by Hades shortly after the start of the war,” Micah started.

  “We all know that,” Alec sneered at Micah. “What does that have to do with Kris?”

  “What if Hades used Hecate to create another demigod? Maybe he used five demigods to create Kris, and that’s what makes her different from you?” Micah asked Alec. “It would explain a lot of things.”

  “First of all,” I finally spoke up, turning to look into the eyes of everyone in the room one at a time, ending with Micah. “Who is Hecate, and what could it explain?”

  “Hecate is the goddess of magic,” Micah said softly. “If you carry her bloodline, you would be capable of Incantation. It would explain why you’re developing faster than you should, why you can do things you otherwise wouldn’t be able to do yet. It could be that fifth specialty that I’m reading in you, but can’t pinpoint.”