Read Online Dominion: Zoë Martinique Investigation, Book 6 by Phaedra Weldon - Free Book Online

worry
about the future."
    "Yeah." He threaded his strong, thick
fingers with my own thinner ones. "Not sure if that was happening
before I stepped into the Throne, or after."
    "I don't know. I sort of missed a
couple of months."
    "They were actually good months, Zoë.
I think I sort of learned what it was like to have
friends."
    I was glad he couldn't see my face or
the surprise on it. "You and Joe grew pretty close."
    "I consider him my best friend. And
Daniel."
    Wow. Confessions from a lonely
Phantasm? I'd come a long way from arguing with a weenie-mouthed
clown in a hospital room to being in its embrace in a park at
sunset.
    This…is weird.
    "Does Joe know that? About how you see
him?"
    "I think he does. On some level. Of
everyone in your circle, Zoë, I trust him the most. He's stable,
and he's loyal."
    "What about Daniel?"
    "Daniel, I love. He's my
brother."
    "Because of Inanna?"
    I was surprised when he didn't answer
right away. And when he did, I wasn't expecting what he said.
"No."
    Inanna, the First Born sharing
Daniel's body, was by all accounts Azrael's sister. His older
sister. And the one who sheltered him from their other sister's
wrath when she killed their father and took his place as the
Phantasm. "I don't understand."
    "It's complicated, Zoë. Inanna…wasn't
bonded to a human for long periods of time. She served my sister
far longer than any of us before she fled the Abysmal and sought
out a hiding place in the Physical. The first host she chose—she
chose him for purposes of power. She wanted to learn what it was to
be a leader."
    "Who was that host?"
    "A great woman, lost to history. Her
name was Eshe, a wise leader in Sumeria who often spoke to the
gods."
    I didn't know the name, but that
wasn't saying much. "After that?"
    "All of those afterward, she chose so
they could teach her, and she taught them. But all were
practitioners of magic, sacred geometry, and science. The one she
chose before taking Daniel was a man named James Wynne."
    I chewed on my lower lip. "Why does
that last name sound familiar?" I didn't think it should. I mean,
Wynne was probably a pretty common name.
    "His great granddaughter was Nora
Wynne."
    I blinked. I did know that name!
"Wait…my mom's mentioned her. But where?"
    "I'm afraid that's my fault that you
can't remember. I was distracting you that night."
    "What night?"
    "The night all of you were
discussing the Grimoire and the Cruorem in Nona's shop."
    Bingo! Before Allard Bonville dragged
Dags physically through the Abysmal Plane.
    I pulled away and turned to face him,
but he still attempted to keep my hand wrapped in his. "She was the
one who destroyed that group. And Inanna was inside her great
grandfather? I thought when a First Born inhabits a human body, you
can't have children."
    "James had children before Inanna took
over. He was dying of a rare blood disease and invited her in
freely. She possessed knowledge of the Planes he could only dream
of. But in learning what she knew, he realized the group his
forefathers had created, the Cruorem, was dangerous. And the book
they were amassing was equally so."
    "The Grimoire ."
    "Yes. But before then,
Inanna had already hidden away her journal, the one that contained
the spell to eradicate First Borns. And she was using James to go
through the Grimoire and remove the spells that could do the most damage. Only the
group discovered what he was doing and Inanna made James disappear
before they could kill him. But they got hold of the Grimoire before she could
sift through the spells and remove all of the dangerous
ones."
    "And somehow later on his great
granddaughter knew to destroy them?"
    "Yes. I'm not sure about all the
details. And the reason I'm telling you this is because so much of
this fucked-up situation is because of Inanna. She was always
someone who had to be independent. Never asked for help. And
because she raised me…" He shrugged. "I developed the same
attitude. Even when she joined with James Wynne, she took