Phantasma (Wicked Games, #1)

by Kaylie Smith

The need to be good, to do well by everyone who had ever expected anything of her, was nestled deep inside her bones. Inextricable from her soul.

“I thought I told you not to follow me?” “I apologize if I gave you the impression that I do what I’m told.”

“Tell me what I said exactly,” he urged. “Hell, you really do just walk around with holes in your memory, don’t you?” she said, and she could have sworn her words made him flinch, but his ability to recover was impeccable. “Something like that,” was all he commented.

I don’t think that was him. Maybe it was Gabriel or a brother/enemy.

big deal is that I have been trapped here for an amount of time I cannot even remember, because of the aforementioned holes in my memory. And I will continue to be stuck, eternally, unless I find whatever tether or anchor is keeping me bound to this place, and figure out how to free myself. And somehow you managed to catch me in a moment of clarity—a moment already erased from my mind—where I supposedly told you exactly what I needed to find in order to untether me. You have no idea how extraordinarily bizarre this is.”

A non linear timeline

She shook her head. There were too many other things to focus on right now than whatever was going on between the two of them. Taking a deep breath and rolling her shoulders back, she braced herself.

He was her new sustenance.

Tessie Grimm.

I figured her mom gave up ten years of her life in a bargin. But was Blackwell the devil/phantom? Is Gabriel their father?

The only reason she was in Phantasma was because her family didn’t trust her with their secrets, and she hated it.

That’s Blackwell

She really hoped Charlotte survived, if only because the world needed more people who minded their own damn business and weren’t afraid to speak up when needed.

“I can’t stand it,” he told her, his voice deepening as he fought for control of his emotions. “I can’t fucking stand the thought of him—of anyone—pleasuring you except me. I’d rather cease to exist than know you’ve looked at anyone else the way you look at me when I’m touching you.”

Good tension and yearning

“In a different life, in a fair one, I would’ve kept you until my eternal soul withered away to dust,” he vowed to her.

Yes, Necromancer, the Shadow Voice encouraged. Embrace your calling, harbinger of death. Unleash your darkness on the world.

“In all the darkness, in all the loneliness, you have been my one source of light,” he lamented as she began to come undone. “My soul will go to its grave with your name echoing in my mind.”

“My father is the reason our mother died. It wasn’t a heart attack. It was this level. He must have… he must have guessed incorrectly.”

Didn’t expect that