Free Blood Instinct by Lindsay J Pryor

to Sophia again. ‘How long have you known about this?’
    Sophia met his gaze in the mirror only briefly before she shrugged in a way that only added to his frustration at her lack of disclosure.
    ‘Since the second I could get her alone,’ Leila cut in. ‘About an hour after I temporarily closed the dimension.’
    And Sophia had said nothing. Absolutely nothing.
    Her lack of disclosure felt like an unfamiliar snag of betrayal.
    ‘How?’ he asked, addressing Leila again. ‘ How can she lose it?’
    ‘I can’t,’ Sophia said, the adamancy in her glare convincing as she locked it on Leila’s reflection. ‘Which is why she shouldn’t even be bringing it up.’
    ‘I have every right to bring it up, just as Jask has a right to know about it.’
    Sophia spun to face her. She took a couple of steps towards her. ‘What, know that you’re living in a fucking fantasy world?’
    Leila’s eyes instantly narrowed. ‘ Don’t talk to me like that.’
    Sophia’s hands whipped upwards in despair. ‘Then stop bringing up irrelevant suggestions. There’s only one way you’re going to help me,’ she said, jabbing her finger towards the floor, ‘and that’s by killing Caleb Dehain.’
    ‘Because that’ll make everything okay? You’ll still be a serryn, Sophie. Even if we do survive the next week, it won’t solve anything for you . If I kill Caleb, if any of you kill Caleb, you may as well be signing your own death sentence too.’
    Jask’s pulse kicked up a notch. ‘What do you mean signing her death sentence?’
    Leila’s solemn hazel eyes snapped to his. ‘We need him. We need Caleb alive and cooperative in order to rid Sophie of this.’
    Like trying to catch falling bricks, every drop of information brought a harder blow.
    ‘Which just so happens to be perfectly convenient for you,’ Sophia snapped.
    But it was also painfully logical. Suddenly Leila’s unrelenting determination to get Caleb on side made even more sense.
    Jask attention jumped back to Sophia, now leaning against the vanity unit again, her arms folded defensively.
    He could tell from the distress in her eyes that this was more than Sophia simply slipping back to her belligerent and stubborn self though. He was missing something. Something pivotal.
    ‘Why?’ he asked Leila. ‘Why do you need Caleb alive and cooperative?’
    ‘For the impossible,’ Sophia interjected.
    ‘It’s not impossible,’ Leila retorted.
    ‘Will one of you please tell me what the fuck is going on here?’ Jask demanded.
    ‘She’s talking about a spell,’ Sophia explained, ‘for which she needs my blood and, as the serrynity transferred from her, her blood too. But that’s not all. She also needs Caleb’s blood, as he was the catalyst, and her original serryn blood.’
    Jask’s turned back to Leila. ‘You have your original serryn blood?’
    ‘No,’ Sophia remarked. ‘She doesn’t. That’s the whole point.’
    ‘When I was with Caleb, I took two syringes of my blood one night in an attempt to kill him,’ Leila said. ‘He destroyed one in the fire right in front of me. The other one went missing.’
    ‘The one that everything hinges on,’ Sophia clarified.
    It was another falling brick.
    ‘What makes you think he has it?’ Jask asked Leila
    ‘It went missing from his bed.’
    The bed that they had no doubt shared.
    ‘Okay, so even if he had it, what’s to say he still has it?’ Jask asked.
    ‘ Exactly ,’ Sophia said. ‘Which is why this is a fantasy. And even if he does still have it, he’s not going to give it to her – not without her telling him why she needs it. And he’s really going to hand it over if he knows that, by doing so, he’s kissing goodbye any chance of completing his transformation.
    ‘And to top it all off,’ Sophia added, ‘to conduct the purification spell she needs access to her spell book, which also happens to be in Caleb’s possession. So, basically, she wants to walk back in there and ask him to hand