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Back Rituals Save as PDF
Chapters (65)
  1. Cover
  2. Other Titles
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CAPRICIOUS
  13. CHAPTER SEVEN
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. IN THE CARDS
  20. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  22. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  24. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  25. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  26. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY
  28. LOVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  37. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  38. PHONE ISSUES
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY
  40. BONDING
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  42. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  48. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  49. SACRILEGE
  50. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  51. CHAPTER FORTY
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  54. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  55. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  56. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  57. DEATH BY HELL-BIRD
  58. THE DARKNESS
  59. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  60. FINALLY
  61. THE PACT
  62. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  63. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
  64. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
  65. About the Author

I wanted to say, “Nothing,” but it was like when I was a kid and my father would say, “Livy, I need to speak to you,” and every bad thing I’d ever done flashed to mind. That was exactly what happened now.

“No,” Ioan said. “No, and no, and no and…” He sputtered a laugh. “Definitely not.”

I stopped mentally chronicling my past transgressions—fast—and Ioan chuckled.

“That’s my point, Liv. You have done nothing to remotely deserve your fear. It’s ingrained. That’s all. Now climb up behind me. If you enjoyed the ride before…” His eyes glittered and I swore I saw his teeth glitter, deep in that darkness. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

As unnerving at it was to have the leader of the Wild Hunt quote rock lyrics—even classic rock lyrics—Ioan was right. When the horse took off again, we flew. Not actual flight—that would have been almost disappointing. This was rocketing at speeds so fast we seemed to burst out of our world entirely, flashing through other dimensions like an old-time casino dealer shuffling cards too fast for the eye to follow.

I saw lights unlike any I’d seen before. I heard sounds I shouldn’t hear, sounds I couldn’t recognize, sounds that made me strain for more, and sounds that made me burrow against Ioan’s back, my shoulders hunching as if they could stopper my ears. I caught the smell of fire and then fire-that-was-not-fire, if that makes any sense. Smells I wanted to hold on to forever and smells I wanted to cast out in a sneeze.

Then the horse stopped, and I clung to Ioan’s cape, part of me wanting him to keep going, to please keep going, and yet part of me saying that was enough, thank you very much. Enough for now. Not enough for forever. Sensory overload that my brain needed to detangle or I might find myself in a place very much like the one towering in front of me.

The abandoned asylum.

Hello, my old friend.

My old enemy.

We dismounted in the overgrown cemetery. A hidden cemetery, a convenient burial ground for inconvenient patients, those who died without family to pay for a proper gravestone. Tucked away in this plot, markers nestled into the earth, allowed to submerge beneath the weeds and vines, probably before the place even shut down.

Shut down…

I flashed to a memory of Pamela’s, of being brought here to see the woman I now realized was my great-great-aunt, a figure who’d haunted my visions and nightmares. Unable to deal with her own fae powers, she’d wound up incarcerated here, clawing out her own eyes and cutting out her own tongue.