Free The Protect Her Box Set: Parts 7-9 by Ivy Sinclair Page B

remember now?”
    “I would have thought that it was abundantly clear,” Benjamin said.
    “I don’t understand,” Paige said.
    Benjamin stepped around me and before I could grab him, placed his hand on Paige’s chest. Paige hissed. I shoved Benjamin away from her.
    “Don’t touch her!”
    Benjamin’s smile was anything but warm as he extended his fist and flipped it over so that we could all see what was inside as he opened his fingers. A small pocket watch sat in the palm of his hand. “Isn’t it ironic that the thing you sought has been with you the entire time?”
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER EIGHT – PAIGE
     
    My mind reeled as I looked at the small item that apparently had so recently resided inside my body.
    “How could you do that to her?” Riley said crossing the distance between them and grabbing Benjamin’s shirt by the collar. He shoved Benjamin up against the wall, and Benjamin didn’t do anything to stop him. Benjamin’s gaze never left mine, and his hand still extended toward me. “That thing is a weapon of mass destruction and you hid it away inside of a person?”
    I thought about the fact that Bruno Proctor had been after this relic for hundreds of years. It crossed my mind how chagrined he’d be to know it had been that close to him twice in the last week. It wasn’t processing yet what this all meant in terms of what might have happened to me otherwise, or the fact that I had been a walking plague.
    “I have no control over where my spell chooses to hide the relic. It was a unique safeguard that ensured the relic never stayed in one place too long. I took the appropriate measures to shield it and ensure that it could not harm anyone when it came into my hands for safekeeping. She was perfectly safe.”
    “What the hell are you talking about? What spell?” Riley asked.
    “He erased all memory of its potential location but tied it to a breadcrumb trail in his memories,” I said.
    “Memories of what?” Riley’s voice dropped to a sharp whisper.
    “Happiness and home, two things that have always been in short supply in my life,” Benjamin said. “I have kept it safe, but now it would appear that it is time for it to have another guardian.” He untangled Riley’s hands from his collar and pushed Riley away. Riley didn’t resist. Benjamin stretched his hand closer to me. “Take it. It’s yours.”
    I reached out. It was what I wanted, after all. But my hand trembled even as my fingers closed around the object that was the heart of all of this mess. The metal was cool against my skin. My thumb found the spring that popped the lid of the pocket watch open. It looked so ordinary, except for the place where the twelve would be there was a round stone that looked like a diamond instead. I knew that it wasn’t a diamond. It was a part of Eva’s life force transformed into physical form. It was the part of her that had been cursed by a cloaked man a thousand years ago.
    “We can never allow Eva to set foot back into this realm. You know that.”
    I nodded. Eva had once been a being of justice and light, but that was corrupted and turned against her after her Protector was murdered, and their shared life force was poisoned. She had gone mad, and that madness had increased tenfold after her judgment day when she was sentenced to the ether where her spirit would never find peace.
    “I will never accept her,” I said. “No matter what. No more spells or tricks. I will do whatever I need to do to keep her out.”
    “I know you would try,” Benjamin said softly. Then his face hardened again. “But it is my responsibility to do whatever is necessary to ensure that never happens. Not yours.”
    I didn’t grasp the true meaning of his words until it was too late. But Riley was already there in front of me, and I felt his body jerk as Benjamin’s knife drove hard into his body.
    “NO!” I screamed. But even as I felt Riley’s body fall back against me, I saw Benjamin’s body pitch