Alongside Fiona and Ceara, Brady strode through the darkened forest on the way to the sisters' house, his mind constantly banging the chaos button. According to Riley, Kaida had finished the journals and hadn't acted like herself when he'd taken her home. Which was freaking Brady out to the point of no return.An hour ago, Ceara had done her spell juju and put the passages Kaida had read directly into their brains. The sisters now knew more than the gist of what he and his brothers had gone through. Reliving some of those memories through his uncle's eyes had clicked a lot of pieces in place. The man had never loved them. He'd viewed them as nothing more than another part of the grand puzzle, and he'd done everything in his power to manipulate the picture.Again, Brady couldn't slap the label of abuse on the situation. Yes, he'd been whipped a time or two, had been sent to his quarters without a meal as punishment, and had been belittled to prove a fanatical point. But in Uncle Greg'

Slumped against the cottage near the meadow, legs sprawled in the grass in front of her, Kaida pried her eyes open for the second time. The stone exterior dug into her spine and a smarting jab in her ribs made breathing a chore, but she was alive. Somehow.One moment she was heading toward a vendor to fetch a bottle of water, the next she was being dragged between storefronts into an alley. A pinching prick in her neck had followed, and her world had gone black. She'd awoken in her current predicament.Whatever Greg Meath had injected into her was dulling her power. A sedative, no doubt. After taking stock, and confused out of her gourd, she'd slipped back into unconsciousness in order to project to Brady. Which had zapped what little strength remained. It had also required her to remove her pentagram necklace, leaving her unprotected from attack.And that was the other thing. Not that she was complaining, but why wasn't she dead? Greg had ample opportunity to kill her, including wh

As the blade sank into Kaida's stomach, her face froze in a terrifying expression of shock and pain that yanked the heart right out of Brady's chest. But when his uncle withdrew the dagger, the oxygen punched from Brady's lungs with such force, he couldn't so much as cry out. A crimson ribbon flung through the air and splattered onto the grass. And Brady's whole world, his existence, shattered into a thousand fragmented pieces."Nooooo!" He frantically crawled over to her, roaring her name until his throat was as ravaged as his soul.He had the briefest concept of his uncle lunging to his feet and sprinting toward the hedge wall before Kaida collapsed in Brady's arms. Carefully as he could manage, he laid her on the grass and quickly untied the rope from her wrists. Angry red burns marred her perfect skin. A swift assessment showed a deep, open gash on her jaw and another above her eyebrow, both actively bleeding. But it was the hole in her stomach gushing uncontrollably that had

One month later...Sandwiched between Brady and Riley on the couch in her sisters' living room, Kaida stared at the family grimoire on the coffee table, Celeste's box next to it. Sitting across from them on the other sofa was Tristan, Ceara, and Fiona, also quietly contemplating. Mara had claimed a chair, her mood uncharacteristically solemn.They'd had a lovely dinner and had decided to finish their wine by the fire to pow-wow. Yet no one had said much, if anything.This had been a big day for Kaida. She'd installed her first entry into the grimoire. Well, technically, it was Celeste's passage, but it was Kaida who'd added the parchment. Turned out, after all the trials, the box had contained only two things. A sapphire ring and a scroll containing part of a spell."Do you think I should say it aloud?" She looked to her sisters for guidance. Ceara shook her head. "I believe Fiona and I need to do our part first. Something tells me this is a power of three spell. It'll only work