House of Ash & Brimstone by Megan Starks

Author:Megan Starks [Starks, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781949090505
Amazon: B07XZMQ2KQ
Publisher: City Owl Press
Published: 2019-10-21T22:00:00+00:00

16

Stepping into the night air felt like easing into a warm bath. The humidity was heavy, clammy on her skin, so Gisele peeled out of her t-shirt to the thin cotton camisole underneath. Shade followed suit, dumping his jacket and white shirt in the front seat. Her eyes lingered a little too long on his bare chest and taut abs, but she looked away without saying anything. Burying the body would be a dirty, sweaty job. She didn’t blame him for stripping out of his clean top. But at the sight of his taped-up ribs, her throat had slowly squeezed shut.

He carried the body, slung over one shoulder like some lumpy, rolled-up rug, and she carted the trash bags. It would be stupid to bury them together, but if they managed a decent conjuring, burning the evidence would be enough.

They hiked for a solid twenty minutes, boots shushing in the underbrush and the pine trees thick around them. The woods smelled of peat and ripe persimmons. There was no breeze, no rustling of leaves, and they relied on Shade’s heightened vision to guide their path in the dark. He stepped and she followed. Neither of them spoke, breathing hard in the wet summer air.

At last, they settled on a spot deep enough into the woods that she felt confident no one would stumble upon. He dropped the body unceremoniously, squatting to catch his breath. Bowed wide, his back looked pale and sheened against the backdrop of night. A symbol as red and dark as drying blood marred his left shoulder. She stepped closer, looking down at him to get a better view. It looked like a tattoo, a series of connected, slashed lines, and yet it swam and flared at the edges of her vision when she stared at it too long. A powerful rune had been seared into his skin—a branding.

“A word of binding?” she asked.

“A name,” he confirmed. “Rhogan.”

She reached down to touch the mark, fingers brushing over his skin. He stood, saying nothing while she traced the lines that formed his master’s brand. It smoldered beneath her fingertips, warming at her touch, and she jerked her fingers back, appalled. Something about the mark made the pit of her chest hurt—felt so wrong she ached in her very soul. She wanted it gone.

He turned to face her and she could see the faint etchings of another symbol, a different brand, scarred and splotchy, barely visible over his heart. She’d glimpsed it before, in the Office of the Paranormal, but with everything that’d happened, she’d forgotten about it, hadn’t realized what it was.

She found her fingers moving to touch it, unbidden. In response, the mark flared to life beneath her hand, bright and strong, and he gasped as if she’d burned him. But the look on his face wasn’t one of pain. He closed his eyes and his breathing sped, but she didn’t pull her hand away.

“They tried to get rid of it. Tried to burn it away, cut it out.

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