Incarnate (The Marked, #5)

by Bianca Scardoni

It had been months since I’d stepped foot in Hollow Hills.

How can she be apart from Dominic for so long , i thought because of the bloodbond that they'd literally die without eachothrs blood? And another thing from the last book. How can revenants just break into places? I though t tgey had to be invited?

us. My heart, always the betrayer, pranced tirelessly in my chest the closer he got, and then exploded in excitement as he stopped in front of me and slipped a hand around my waist.

He tugged me forward, and I stumbled into him, bracing myself against his chest and then looking up at him under my lashes. His face was smooth, clean shaven and lined only with the hard edges that always seemed to jump out at the moon to catch its light. “Celebrating without me again, love?” His voice was like pure honey, sweet and sticky as it poured over every cell in my body.

I was like a mosaic: beautiful and put-together from a distance but upon closer inspection, nothing more than shards of raw materials and broken fragments of a girl that used to be.

I figured out where I know you from. And believe me when I say this isn’t a line, but… I’ve dreamt about you before.

Why am I dreaming about you, Jemma Blackburn?

Over the last few months, I’d grown accustomed to not seeing him for days on end, sometimes even weeks, and as hard as it was to not have that daily dose of him or all the deliciously sinful things he did to my body, I managed to find a way to make it without that, too.

I thought they'd die literally without each other because of the. Bloodbond

“It means I cannot marry you. I cannot give you children. I cannot give you the life you want nor the life you deserve,” he said sharply. “That is a fact, angel, no matter how much it pains me to admit it. Romeo could give you all of that, and if not him, someone else. But not me. It could never be me.” His voice broke off as though the admission were too painful to utter. “I will lose you in the end. It is as inevitable as the changing seasons.”

He slammed his eyes shut. “I’m trying to be a better man for you.” In that instant, everything became impossibly clear to me, and suddenly, I knew exactly what he had been doing. He’d been turning me down to protect me, and he’d been doing it since before I left for the summer.

Trace may have been back from the dead, but he and I could never be. I knew that now. As heartbreaking as the realization was, it didn’t change what I felt for Dominic. If anything, it just pushed me farther into his arms.

“I swear, Jemma, if I didn’t already know you, I’d think you were into me.” “You would,” I deadpanned. “Your delusion knows no bounds.”

My cheeks heated under his intense stare and it took every ounce of restraint I had not to lurch forward and lick his face off. Those dimples had been my undoing on more than one occasion, and that certainly hadn’t changed since the last time I’d seen him, regardless of Odin’s warnings. Get it the fuck together, Jemma. Seriously. Trace’s life depended on it, and I couldn’t allow myself to forget

“It means you’re my soulmate,” he answered me, a smirk hanging lazily from the corner of his lips.

“The Sang Noir is an ancient relic transcribed by the Angels long before they left us, kept hidden and protected within the Veil. If anyone knows anything about the Horsemen, or how to defeat them—should it come to that—it will be the Angels.”

“The Angels have severed ties with the Anakim race a long time ago,” explained William. “As part of the treaty, they no longer frequent this Realm or involve themselves in matters of our world.” “Well, that’s awesome,” I deadpanned. “And I’m guessing they didn’t leave their forwarding address either?”

“The book is protected by Angel magic, deadly to all mortal beings, including Descendants,” explained William, his eyes darkening into ominous pools of death. “This particular spell is believed to be able to char the body of any soul who dares put their hands to the black flame, boiling them from the outside in.”

The truth was, I couldn’t stand to hear another word of it. I didn’t want to be reminded of who I was before or how much had changed in my life, and I sure as hell didn’t want to be reminded of the fact that something very real and sacred had died inside of me. Fuck. That. I didn’t want to hear any of it.

“I can’t ask you to do this, Dominic. I love Trace, I do, but god help me, I love you, too, and if something were to happen to you, if this thing were to go horribly wrong, I—” My words were cut off as he stepped forward and crashed his lips against mine, kissing me passionately and roughly as though he had been waiting his entire life for the chance to touch my lips. My back knocked into the door behind me as he weaved his fingers into my hair and deepened the kiss into something that was almost primal.

He chuckled darkly. “Nothing about you is obvious, angel.” He grazed his thumb against my jaw as he held my face in his hands. “You are a paradox, through and through, and I think I’d thoroughly enjoy spending the rest of my life trying to figure you out.” “Dominic Huntington, are you getting soft on me?” I smiled and then brushed my lips against his, enjoying the closeness between us—the momentary reprieve from all the madness.

“But your eyes,” he said as his lips came up over my chin and then stopped. “Your eyes are my undoing. Every time.”

His smile widened, setting off both dimples in tandem as he gestured to the bartender to bring us two more drinks. I clutched my empty tumbler, trying not to get swept away in their dimply depths. Yeah, I just said that.

“Does he know you’re mine?” he asked against my neck and then sank his teeth into my skin before quickly withdrawing them. I knew right away that his bite had nothing to do with feeding. He was marking me.

He shrugged and then smirked at me. “Cooking’s not really my thing, but I make a mean PBJ sandwich.”

And with that, the conversation ended and neither one of us said anything else as we quietly drifted off to sleep with nothing but the company of the falling rain and the humming song of soulmates buzzing through the air.

Trepidation lashed over my skin as I wondered what this all meant. If I was somehow different from the other Descendants—able to read the coded texts of an Angel race from eons ago, then maybe I was meant to do more than just follow my people into war. Maybe I could somehow figure out how to channel the Angel’s power and use that power against the horseback bringers of death. Maybe I was meant to be the one that led them into war, and maybe, just maybe, be the one to win it for us.

the paragraph that introduced the Horsemen as Avenging Angels who were called to earth during the end of days,

I stopped on the part about how they needed the power of four in order to awaken their abilities.

I flipped him the bird and then gave in, deciding to go with the lesser of two evils. “Fine. I have some feelings for you. Like, a tiny amount of feelings. Barely even noticeable really.”