middle of the hallway and wait for him.
Sebastian came up the stairs and moved down the hall toward me with laserlike intent. Everything about him seemed calm, dark, and intense. I swallowed, feeling pretty stupid for even attempting my Go It Alone mantra on him . . . and myself.
He only stopped when he was toe to toe with me.
“You’re not doing this without me.” His words were tight and his eyes like glinting steel. “I haven’t been training my ass off with my father for nothing. You need me. You might not want me, but you need me.”
With that, he marched around me and toward a flight of stairs that led to the third floor.
All I knew was that he could turn me into a confused, breathless idiot one second and piss me off the next. Might as well add that ability to his list of powers , I thought darkly, following him up the steps.
Sebastian was the second most powerful member of the Lamarliere family. Not only a rare warlock like his father but a vampire like his mother. And she was a Bloodborn, born of both a vampire mother and father, the strongest kind of vampire there was. Sebastian had the potential, or at least the genes, to be extremely powerful. Having him on my side was a bonus and a gift I shouldn’t ignore.
And whether he believed it or not, I didn’t want to do this alone. I just didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. He was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. I’d spent most of my life facing things alone. Being in New 2 had changed that. Now I had Sebastian and Michel. I had Henri, Crank, Dub, and Violet. But that also meant more hurt and pain if something happened to them because of this thing with Athena. And I wasn’t sure I could deal with that.
In the end, though, I needed help. Sebastian was one of only a handful of people in New 2 who I trusted. And as a Novem heir, he had access to things many others did not.
“The third floor is mainly for administration,” Sebastian told me as we came to a desk. A woman looked up. “Back again, Bastian?” she asked, eyeing his street clothes. “Your father said you were coming. Go on back.”
“Does she know about the library?” I whispered as we walked down a long corridor with offices on both sides.
“No. No one knows except the Novem heads and their next in lines. She thinks I’m using the private study. You’ll see.” We turned a corner and walked toward a huge set of double doors at the end of the hallway.
Sebastian slipped a card into a security scanner attached to the wall by the door. A lock slid back. “This leads to the study. No one comes back here without a card, and there are only nine cards. This one is my father’s.”
Sebastian opened one side of the double door and stepped back to let me enter. I expected a room or at least another hallway, but it was an area the size of a walk-in closet and another tall door in front of me.
“It’s iron, blood-spelled and warded nine times. The wards are changed once a week. You have to know the combination to unravel all nine wards to get it to open and you have to be blood-related. And then there’s security inside the library itself.”
“And you know the combination?”
“My dad taught me this morning.”
Sebastian pulled a safety pin from his pocket and pricked his finger, then placed his hand on the intricately carved door. It contained thousands of small symbols and lines, swirls and patterns. A soft blue light appeared beneath his finger and he began to trace one of the patterns.
He traced nine patterns. Each one stayed blue and glowing until he finished. It was a maze that I never could’ve repeated if I’d tried. Then the outline of the door began to glow until the blue turned to white and the door popped open with an audible sigh. Sebastian turned to me. “The real secret is inside.”
He pushed open the heavy door. It groaned, sending a shiver up my spine as I stepped inside a large study. It was everything you’d think a wealthy library
Sebastian came up the stairs and moved down the hall toward me with laserlike intent. Everything about him seemed calm, dark, and intense. I swallowed, feeling pretty stupid for even attempting my Go It Alone mantra on him . . . and myself.
He only stopped when he was toe to toe with me.
“You’re not doing this without me.” His words were tight and his eyes like glinting steel. “I haven’t been training my ass off with my father for nothing. You need me. You might not want me, but you need me.”
With that, he marched around me and toward a flight of stairs that led to the third floor.
All I knew was that he could turn me into a confused, breathless idiot one second and piss me off the next. Might as well add that ability to his list of powers , I thought darkly, following him up the steps.
Sebastian was the second most powerful member of the Lamarliere family. Not only a rare warlock like his father but a vampire like his mother. And she was a Bloodborn, born of both a vampire mother and father, the strongest kind of vampire there was. Sebastian had the potential, or at least the genes, to be extremely powerful. Having him on my side was a bonus and a gift I shouldn’t ignore.
And whether he believed it or not, I didn’t want to do this alone. I just didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. He was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to accept. I’d spent most of my life facing things alone. Being in New 2 had changed that. Now I had Sebastian and Michel. I had Henri, Crank, Dub, and Violet. But that also meant more hurt and pain if something happened to them because of this thing with Athena. And I wasn’t sure I could deal with that.
In the end, though, I needed help. Sebastian was one of only a handful of people in New 2 who I trusted. And as a Novem heir, he had access to things many others did not.
“The third floor is mainly for administration,” Sebastian told me as we came to a desk. A woman looked up. “Back again, Bastian?” she asked, eyeing his street clothes. “Your father said you were coming. Go on back.”
“Does she know about the library?” I whispered as we walked down a long corridor with offices on both sides.
“No. No one knows except the Novem heads and their next in lines. She thinks I’m using the private study. You’ll see.” We turned a corner and walked toward a huge set of double doors at the end of the hallway.
Sebastian slipped a card into a security scanner attached to the wall by the door. A lock slid back. “This leads to the study. No one comes back here without a card, and there are only nine cards. This one is my father’s.”
Sebastian opened one side of the double door and stepped back to let me enter. I expected a room or at least another hallway, but it was an area the size of a walk-in closet and another tall door in front of me.
“It’s iron, blood-spelled and warded nine times. The wards are changed once a week. You have to know the combination to unravel all nine wards to get it to open and you have to be blood-related. And then there’s security inside the library itself.”
“And you know the combination?”
“My dad taught me this morning.”
Sebastian pulled a safety pin from his pocket and pricked his finger, then placed his hand on the intricately carved door. It contained thousands of small symbols and lines, swirls and patterns. A soft blue light appeared beneath his finger and he began to trace one of the patterns.
He traced nine patterns. Each one stayed blue and glowing until he finished. It was a maze that I never could’ve repeated if I’d tried. Then the outline of the door began to glow until the blue turned to white and the door popped open with an audible sigh. Sebastian turned to me. “The real secret is inside.”
He pushed open the heavy door. It groaned, sending a shiver up my spine as I stepped inside a large study. It was everything you’d think a wealthy library
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