Marked For Death: A Dark Urban Fantasy Novel by Becca Blake (english novels to improve english .txt) 📕

That was the damn truth. And this mission only made that problem worse.

“Wait, where is Jacob?” Orion asked.

“Oh, crap,” I muttered.

After the hit he took, I had no idea if he was even still alive. In all the chaos, I hadn’t thought to check on him. I ran over to the stairs where I left him and knelt down. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, but his eyes stayed closed.

“What happened to him?” Orion asked.

“The girl blew a hole in the ceiling. It all came down around us and knocked us both over. I got up, but he didn’t.”

Orion crouched down next to Jacob and touched his face. Taking care not to jostle him too much, he pulled his head away from the stairs to get a look.

At the contact, Jacob’s eyes fluttered open. He groaned as he tried to push himself upright. “I’m fine, sir.”

“Like the infernal hells you’re fine. You’re bleeding all over the floor. That gash on your head is pretty deep. Even with the help of healing herbs to do most of the work, it looks like you’ll need stitches.” Just as he’d done for me, Orion applied the healing solution and wrapped the wound.

“Thanks,” Jacob mumbled to Orion as he helped him up.

“Did you see any of the fight?” Orion asked. “Or were you out for all of it?”

He sent a worried glance my way. He must have seen what happened with my magic, though he hadn’t said anything about it yet. I had to hope Jacob had remained unconscious for the whole fight.

I was confident that Orion would cover for me. But Jacob… he hated me, and he’d made no secret of not wanting to be my partner. There was no way he’d keep this from his father.

Using dark magic was punishable by death. It wouldn’t matter if it was an accident.

“No, sir. I didn’t see anything,” Jacob said.

That was reassuring, but it did little to relieve the pressure in my chest.

While Orion helped Jacob out to the car, I hunted down the cloth that Casey had used to hold the emerald. I used the piece of fabric to pick it up, careful not to let the magical artifact touch my skin. I didn’t know if it still held any energy, and I didn’t want to make the mistake of finding out.

I walked away from the moonlight and looked it over, still being careful not to touch it. The emerald was uncut, its surface rough and unrefined. Without the glowing magical aura, it appeared to be completely mundane.

Orion returned, and I wrapped the emerald back up in the cloth.

“What is that thing?” he asked.

“I think this is how she transformed.” I passed him the bundled gem. “I think you should keep it away from the moonlight. That’s what seemed to set it off.”

Orion nodded. “We’ll get the folks at headquarters to check it out.”

“Great.” I leaned back against the hood of an old car with a heavy sigh. My entire body and mind ached with exhaustion. I was looking forward to finding the closest trashy motel and crashing for the night—or what little night we had left, anyway.

“You still haven’t told me what happened here. And don’t even think about trying to distract me with another question,” Orion said.

“Jacob and I were alone when we got here. It didn’t seem like we were going to find much, but we decided to stay the night to be sure.”

“And she showed up?”

I nodded.

“She was acting alone?”

“Now that you mention it, there was another girl with her.” After everything that had happened, I had completely forgotten about Alexis. “She went down after Casey—the woman with the emerald and the demonic power—attacked her. I don’t know if she’s alive or not.”

I led Orion over to where I’d last seen her. The ground where she collapsed was empty. There were no obvious signs of escape, no footprints or conspicuous trails of blood. Orion and I did a quick sweep of the area, but Alexis didn’t appear to be hiding in any of the surrounding cars.

“I guess she got away while we were distracted,” I said.

“I’ll note that in my report. We’ll track her down.” He lowered his voice and stepped in closer to me. “Listen to me carefully, Riley. You cannot tell anyone how you defeated this woman.”

“You saw that?”

“What you did, that was elemental magic. Dark magic. If word gets back to the Council…” He shook his head. “You can’t let that happen. They don’t make exceptions.”

“I know,” I said, swallowing back the heavy lump that had formed in my throat. “What are we going to do?”

“I’ll work with you so you can learn how to stifle it better. In the meantime, we’re going to tell them I got here in time to save you. We’ll say she knocked out both of you, and I was the one who stopped her,” Orion said.

“I don’t understand how this happened. I’ve never used dark magic before. I don’t even know how it works,” I said, burying my face in my hands.

“Dark magic comes from raw emotions, which is why we’re so careful about shutting them off while we fight. When people accidentally use dark magic for the first time, it’s usually either an emotional response to loss or the fear of an intense life-or-death situation. It’s something they can’t control.”

I certainly hadn’t been able to control it earlier. I got angry, and the magic exploded out of me.

“Why doesn’t this happen more often? Not everyone has perfect control over their emotions when they’re about to die.” My voice quieted as the realization fully struck me. “I was about to die.”

“This is my fault.” Orion pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Your fault? How?”

“I should have never cleared you for duty so soon. You weren’t ready.”

“That’s not true. I made it through my month of mandatory leave.”

“No. This is exactly why we still have to clear you for duty after the death of a partner, even