Marked For Death: A Dark Urban Fantasy Novel Becca Blake (fiction novels to read .txt) 📖

it flung Alexis away. The window shattered as she crashed into it.

I tensed as my hand drifted to the hilt of my sword. We’d been told not to get involved in anything unless we had to, but with someone channeling dark magic beneath us, it was possible we wouldn’t have a choice.

Jacob stirred beside me, and I held out my arm to stop him.

“Hang on,” I murmured. “We’ll wait to see what happens.”

He froze, but I could feel the tension in his muscles, his eagerness to get down there and start a fight. Truthfully, after a month away, I was just as eager as he was. But this was my first mission back in the field, and I would do as I was told. This wasn’t the right time to push boundaries.

Alexis struggled to push herself upright, though her left arm now hung useless at her side. “You don’t know what that thing is or how it works. For all you know, it could kill you.”

“So what if it does? We’re going to die anyway. We can’t stop Maki without it, and Raxael will come after the entire coven as soon as he finds out he’s been betrayed. He won’t care who was faithful to him and who wasn’t.”

“Raxael doesn’t even know who we are. If we just run before it happens—”

“Don’t be stupid,” Casey said, almost too softly for me to hear as the anger in her voice faded. “Even if we can get away from here, you know he’ll hunt us wherever we go.”

Alexis stumbled forward, extending her good arm out toward Casey. “Please, don’t do whatever you’re thinking about doing. There has to be a better option.”

“Back up!” Casey took a few steps back to maintain the distance between them.

Alexis ignored her warnings and continued walking. “I won’t let you do this.”

As she backed up, Casey tripped over a piece of scrapped metal. Another blast exploded from her fingers, this one even more powerful than the last. She looked down at her hand, eyes wide.

This time, Alexis was silent.

“Alexis?” Casey knelt down next to her, touching her face gently with one hand. With the other, she continued to hold the strange bundle close to her chest. “I didn’t mean it, I swear.”

From our distance, it was impossible to tell if the girl was still alive.

There was a soft clink of steel next to me as Jacob drew his blade.

“Hang on,” I said again, more sharply this time. We had no idea what she had in that bundle or what it could do, and rushing in blind wouldn’t help anyone. After seeing Casey attack her friend twice now, I wanted to avoid a fight we weren’t prepared for.

Orion’s instructions had been clear: this was strictly a recon mission. Not a hunt.

“I’m sorry,” Casey said to Alexis’s motionless form. She choked back a sob. “But I have to do this.”

She unwrapped the fabric around the object and held it up to examine it. A multifaceted stone the size of her palm caught the light from the car outside and glimmered a beautiful, deep green.

“What is that thing?” Jacob asked, keeping his voice a low whisper.

Aside from the obvious answer that it was some sort of magical artifact, I couldn’t say. “Not sure. It doesn’t look good, though.”

Without giving me any warning, Jacob jumped up and ran for the stairs.

“Wait, no—”

Frustration slipped through my mental barrier as he ignored me. My hold on the spell cracked, and our invisibility faded away.

If Jacob realized he was visible, it didn’t stop him from rushing down to confront Casey. She spun around to face him, holding the gem back to protect it from him.

“Who are you? Are you with the coven?”

“Give that to me, and no one has to get hurt here,” Jacob said as he approached her.

An ugly, derisive laugh escaped from Casey’s lips. “Yeah, right. You don’t believe that any more than I do.”

I did my best to rein in my emotions as I sprinted after him. If we were going to run headfirst into a fight we weren’t prepared for, after giving up our tactical advantage, I would need my magic back. I leapt down the last few steps and took my position at my partner’s side.

I could chew him out for blowing me off later. Right now, we needed to be a team.

“You heard him,” I said. “Hand it over.”

“I don’t think so.”

Casey raised her hand, and I instinctively lifted my blade to summon a ward. Instead of aiming at us, though, she pointed her palm upward and set free a blast of energy. The old building shook and groaned as Casey’s magic tore a hole in the roof.

“Watch out!” Jacob yelled.

He dove for me as pieces of the ceiling fell around us. A metal beam crashed down where I’d just been standing. As we tumbled to the floor together, Jacob hovered over me, shielding me with his body.

“We’re even now,” he said as the building’s rumbling settled.

Moonlight poured into the warehouse through the new opening, highlighting Casey’s pale, wide-eyed face and the emerald she held. Reacting to the light, the gem glowed a bright green for a few seconds, then set all of its energy free.

The explosion flung us against the stairs. I sucked in air as my elbow cracked hard against a corner and my head slammed into the railing. A trickle of blood rolled down my cheek, and the coppery taste wandered into my mouth. As I reached blindly above my head, my hand found the railing. I pulled myself up, legs shaking beneath my own weight. A ringing noise echoed in my throbbing head.

Jacob was on the ground in front of me, sprawled out at the bottom of the stairs.

He groaned as I shook his shoulder. As I rolled him over, I got a better look at the blood that covered the side of his face, soaking his dark hair. He looked around with unfocused eyes, his eyelids fluttering.

I was on my own.

As the smoke