“I might be able to bring you back if you use it,” Aislin says quietly, lowering her hand to her side. “As long as I don’t wait too long, but I can’t promise anything.”

“Let’s just hope I don’t have to use it,” I say. “That she’ll come back to me before it gets that far.”

She looks as doubtful as I feel but nods anyway and then leaves the room. And all I can do is wait with thoughts of death haunting my mind.

I wait with Gemma while Aislin goes to make her potion. My head is in a really fucked-up, weird place right now, swarming with emotions that I barely understand. She means so much to me—I don’t get it. How can I go from not caring about anything to caring about one person so much?

I’m stroking Gemma’s hair, lost in my thoughts, when her eyelids lift open. The sunlight from outside hits them, and for the briefest moment she looks like my Gemma, but as quickly as the look appears, it fades.

“What the hell?” She jerks back from my hand, swinging her free arm at me. “What are you doing?” She starts bucking her body up and down and I seriously about loose it,

Now is not the time to get a fucking hard on, I think to myself as I lean over and grab her arm, attempting to restrain her. She tries to bite me as I wrap the tie around her wrist and tie it securely.

“Alex, what are you doing?” she says, panic in her voice. I pause because she almost looks and sounds like her old self. “Please untie me. This hurts.”

I search her eyes, trying to look for signs that maybe she’s come back to me. Perhaps when she choked me it brought her back. “I don’t care if it hurts,” I say cautiously, my hand still on her arm.

She pouts out her lip which Gemma has unintentionally done on a couple of occasions, and I about lose it. She’s too innocent for her own good. “But it hurts,” she whines.

“It’s supposed to hurt,” I reply, leaning over her quivering body to touch the mark on her arm. The ink looks as defined as it did before, so she has to still be possessed, doesn’t she?

“You want to hurt me?” She frowns. “But you’ve already hurt me so much in the past.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” I touch the triangular mark with my fingertip. “But I do want to hurt who’s controlling you at the moment.”

Her forehead creases with confusion. “Who’s controlling me?”

I can’t read her at all. She looks genuinely baffled, but at the same time the mark is still there. “My father.” I trace the mark. “The one who put this on you.”

She shakes her head, her eyes glossed over in perplexity. “I don’t understand… Alex, I’m so confused…” She angles her chin up and looks at her tied wrist. “Why do you have me tied up?”

Her gaze lands back on me, her lavender eyes looking so full of life, lacking possession. It makes me want to untie her then claim her as my own, which is messed up on so many different levels.

“Alex, please untie me.” She lifts her head up and leans into me, pressing her chest against mine. Her lips are just inches away from me and the compulsion of the sparks causes me to do something stupid. I lean closer to her—just within reach—wanting her so badly that I can’t take it.

Need. Want. Need.

“Untie me,” she entices, her warm breath touching my lips, smothering me, making any rational thoughts go hazy. “And I’ll let you do whatever you want to me,” she whispers before sealing her lips to mine. Sparks zap at my lips, hot and fiery, as her tongue slips deeply into my mouth, devouring me even as it begs me to take over and have my way with her. It’s like she can read my mind, see my thoughts, and feel how much I want to take control of her.

A thousand thoughts flood my mind; leaving the ropes on her, ripping her clothes off, thrusting inside her over and over again until she screams out my name and bites at my flesh. I want it more than anything, but the sheer fact that she’s saying she’ll give it to me, lets me know this isn’t Gemma. Gemma is always nervous. Cautious. Innocent. She doesn’t trust me enough to own her like that.

So as much as it kills me, I pull back and break the kiss. As soon as my mouth leaves hers, she lets out a growl. “Did you really think I wouldn’t know?” I stand up from the bed and walk around to the foot of the bed, gripping the bars. “That it’s not her in there?”

“What do you mean?” she asks, still trying to play innocent, wiggling her arms and legs. “Alex, please let me go! You’re starting to scare me!” she cries, thrusting her legs with so much force the ties start to unravel.

My eyes stay on her as I get up on the bed and crawl over her, sitting on her legs to immobilize them. “I know you’re still possessed, so quit with the innocent act.”

“Alex, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Hot tears spill down her cheeks. “Please, these ropes are hurting me.”

I shake my head, even though the sight of tears in her eyes makes my heart ache. “That’s not going to work on me, so you can keep crying, but it’s just a waste of time.”

She instantly stops crying, the emotion draining from her face. “Well, aren’t you clever?”

“And there you are.” I lean over her body, sweeping my fingers across her tear stained cheek. “Don’t worry, I’m going to get that mark off of you.”

She starts to laugh. “You can’t win this one, Alex Avery. This mark has more power than you can even comprehend.”

I want to ask her a thousand questions about the mark’s power and what she knows about it. Right now she probably has an insight into my father’s thoughts in a way and probably knows more than I do. The problem is, because of the mark, I’m certain she can’t say anything.

The longer I remain silent, the bigger her smirk grows on her face as she stares up at me. “Not so cocky now,” she says with irresistible arrogance in her demeanor.

I’m about to climb off of her… or kiss her… I’m not sure which, when the door creaks open. Aislin enters with a syringe in her hand, her cheeks flushed, and her hair burnt and two or three inches shorter than when she left about a half an hour ago.

“Jesus, that’s a hard spell to pull off,” she says, fanning her hand in front of her face as I climb off Gemma and get up.

“Why’s she here?” Gemma growls, exposing her teeth like she’s a savage vampire as she glares at Aislin. “And what the hell does she have in her hand.

“Ever heard of an emotional exorcism?” Aislin raises the syringe with a proud smile on her face.

Gemma snickers. “I’m not a demon or a spirit. You’re going to have to do better than that.” She lifts her hips and starts nipping her teeth in my direction.

Aislin’s eyes widen as she looks at me in horror. “Wow. She’s really mean.”

“She’s not Gemma,” I remind her, and then stick out my hand, noting my palms are a little bit damp with sweat. I’m nervous, another emotion I’m not accustom to.

Aislin is reluctant to hand over the syringe, eyeballing it with hesitancy as she holds it in her hand. “Are you absolutely sure about this?” she asks.

“I have to do it,” I say because it’s all I can say. No, I don’t want to do it, but sometimes that’s how life works.

Tears fall from Aislin’s eyes as she hands the syringe over. “I might not be able to bring you back… If you completely go through with it and if I can’t... then you’ll be… you’ll be…”

“Dead,” I finish for her, my fingers wrapping around the syringe. “I understand the consequences, let’s just hope it doesn’t go that far.”

Still crying, Aislin backs into the corner, hugging her arms around herself as tears stream down her cheeks. Aislin has always been a little overly dramatic in my opinion; too weepy and emotionally attached to people. I’ve never really understood it until now; why some people can affect you more than others.

“Are you insane?” Gemma laughs maliciously as she takes in the sight of the syringe in my hand when I turn around and face her. “You think that will kill me?”