Dominion 4 - Ascendance by Lissa Kasey

suddenly vanished into a calm sea of peace inside my mind. I felt very tired when all the adrenaline from the fight rushed out of me.
    The hotel looked iffy, but if Gabe stayed here, I’d have to try. The shake began in my hands, warning me of a pending panic attack. The nausea in my gut swirled like it hadn’t in weeks. Had I taken my pills? Yes. Religiously. Jamie had been good at drilling that into me. Exhaustion could bring on the attacks despite the medication, and I’d pushed myself pretty hard. Still, I had no reason to feel this shaken up.
“Do you have your phone on you?” Gabe asked.
    “Yeah.” If it hadn’t been broken in the fight. I pulled it out of my pocket. The gorilla glass I’d paid extra for was still intact. The thing seemed to be working okay.
“Call your brother, please.”
    I frowned at him. Was something wrong with Jamie? I’d just talked to him a few hours ago. After hitting the speed dial, the phone rang in my ear. Hopefully he wasn’t asleep yet.
Jamie picked up on the third ring. “Sei?”
    “Yeah, what’s up?” At three o’clock in the morning. I glanced at my watch.
“You’re okay? Kelly said he got a text, but I’ve been so busy with Hanna….”
Huh? “What’s wrong with Hanna?” Is that why he’d disappeared from the house?
     
“She was bleeding.”
    My weary brain took another minute or so to process that. Then it clicked that she was girl bleeding, and probably shouldn’t be since she was pregnant with our babies. Now the panic was really eating at me. “Are the babies okay? Is Hanna okay?”
“They’re all fine. Resting. Hanna is on bed rest for now. It happens sometimes, but we’re keeping an eye on her.” My stomach flipped over. “Where are you?”
    “At home right now. I left Hanna’s after midnight once she was tucked in. Ally said she’d call me if anything went wrong. Kelly’s got his phone on too, just in case.”
    He was at home, like Minnesota home? With Kelly? How was that possible? “When did all this happen? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
    “I got the call after we dropped you off with your gifts. Your phone kept going to voice mail, and I’d already left a message. I figured you’d call. Kelly said he got your text but hadn’t heard from you since. I didn’t want to worry you.”
    So he’d never left home. The room suddenly seemed to spin. Who had I let into my house? Who had hugged me when I cried? Gabe’s arm snaked around my waist. He had my phone for some reason. He spoke to Jamie. I just let the last few days replay in my head, heart pounding like crazy. “Come home with me,” I begged Gabe.
“Are you going to let us in this time?”
    He’d already been inside. But my heart thumped in a crazy beat while my head replayed those moments. Something had been off about him. That “something” meaning it hadn’t been him. Oh blessed earth. Someone was pretending to be Gabe and Jamie; at least I hoped it was the same person both times. I’d let them in the house, past the wards that had been built up for decades, and hadn’t even felt the difference? What was wrong with me?
    My world dissolved into black and white stars spinning about my head. The room lost all its air. Gabe was saying something, his arms wrapped around me, but I couldn’t understand the words. His voice broke through in my head first. Sei?
    I grabbed his shirt and pulled him down to me, not for a kiss, but to sniff his hair, which smelled like that awful fake cucumber-mint shampoo he always used.
    “I invited someone in. Another vampire, I think.” I had invited Jamie in. Only it obviously wasn’t Jamie. Was there a way to undo it? Who was it? Max? But then why introduce himself to me if he was already pretending to be Jamie? And then at the fairy ring, only to meet me back at the house as Gabe? Who else could it be? Caleb? Timothy? Mr. Odagiri? My heart seemed to be beating too fast for me to catch my breath, and my sight was spotted with black