Chapter 16
There’s always been an underlying wrath within me having grown up as I did, but whatever I absorbed from Drake earlier is giving me whiplash. One moment I want to burn the world and in the next, I’m within touching distance from the tranquility I had earlier.
Regardless, my goals aren’t changing. I know what I want, and Natalia is going to help whether she wants to or not. I don’t get to run away this time and neither does she.
“Are you done with your magic games?” I ask her as Drake gets up and stands next to me. “I’d like to finish what we started earlier.”
“That’s not happening,” Natalia replies with a sneer. “I already told you. I’m not messing with the dark magic inside him. Not tonight, not ever. That isn’t the business I’m in, and you already know this, so don’t waste either of our time.”
Yeah, I’m fully aware of that, which was one of the reasons that I came to her in the first place. But this time, I’m going to demand an exception.
“Did you think that all these months of sharing my secret with you that I haven’t had a way to protect myself if I needed to?” I ask the witch casually. “That would be rather stupid of me, wouldn’t it?”
This finally gives her pause. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that I’ve watched your building.” I stalk closer to her. “I know who your most frequent clients are. I know that you very rarely put cloaking spells up and that even on occasion, when you have important supernaturals in here that prefer to remain anonymous, you forget to conceal your conversations. But the most important part you’ve failed to consider is the ramifications of using my blood in so many of your spells.”
She’s smirking and lets out a light cackle. “That only puts you in the crossfire if you tell anyone whatever it is you think you know.”
Standing right in front of her now, I lean in close and whisper, “No, that just means I can find every single person using magic with my blood.”
Her eyes go wide, but not in shock, in fear. “You wouldn’t hurt them.”
“My mate is in trouble, and that puts my family at risk,” I reply smoothly. “Do you really think there is anything I wouldn’t do to ensure their safety?”
I’m full of shit, but Natalia doesn’t know that. Guilt gnaws at me. I don’t like lying or threatening innocent people. Especially after seeing her light within my mind earlier, I want to consider her someone we can trust, but not at the expense of Drake. We need her to help him, and if Natalia needs to believe I’m still a heartless bitch a while longer, that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
She swallows thickly. “What do you want?”
Just as I presumed when I came up with my blackmail, Natalia cares too much for the people she helps. She left herself vulnerable. The only difference between when the idea occurred to me all those weeks ago to use that vulnerability against her is that now I feel guilty doing so and I didn’t before. Still, that doesn’t change anything. I have to keep up with the ruse.
“That’s much better.” I pat her shoulder, then turn toward Drake to find him watching me closely. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but he probably now believes that I’m the worst person in the world for threatening innocent supernaturals. At least I can tell him later that I’m only bluffing.
“Why don’t we get comfortable?” I suggest, inviting myself into her backroom. I’ve only been in this part of the shop a few times. The first time was when I was deciding to do business with her. I felt the need to inspect every inch of the place and be certain she wasn’t up to any kind of shit I didn’t want to be involved in. The other times were on my more paranoid days, when I needed to be absolutely sure we were alone while she took my blood.
Drake stays right by my side, and Natalia trails behind closely. I can practically taste the sour venom she currently has for me, but I can’t allow myself to care. There’s too much on the line.
Behind the curtain, there are walls of completed potions, ingredients for more complicated spells, and random supplies that don’t hold my interest. The space is darker than normal, but it’s also the middle of the night so I shouldn’t be surprised.
I take a seat on the black leather couch and Drake stands next to me, staying silent. As I stretch my legs out and cross one over the other, I smile at Natalia who also chooses to stand. “So, how about you tell us why you really freaked the fuck out earlier and how we can break the curse on my mate before going after Kel ourselves?”
Her russet eyes glare at me. “You’re truly screwed up in the head.”
“Try telling me something I don’t already know.” Playing the part of a sadistic killer is almost too easy.
But it’s too late to back out now. I need to see this through. I can apologize to her later when Kel is dead and no longer a problem, because the fact that Drake said he could sense her isn’t something I intend to let last long.
I might not have wanted Drake at first, but now that I have him? Nobody else will touch what’s mine.
Natalia nods toward him. “His blood contains old and sinister magic that hasn’t been seen in this world for centuries. So long, in fact, that most believe these witches were nothing more than a fable used to scare us into maintaining a pure bloodline.”
She pauses, idly rearranging the bottles on the shelf next to her before she continues. “There was a coven millenniums ago. Their leaders were mated to demons, ones hellbent on power. Stories say, they recruited the worst of the worst, finding ways to increase their lineage magic until they were unstoppable. Our elders say the coven was killed off, but I’m starting to believe otherwise.” Natalia glances at Drake. “The darkness in your blood? Whatever curse she’s placed on your wolf is likely the only reason you’ve survived this long with that much dark magic pulsing through your veins.”
“How do you know this for sure?” Drake asks, his voice gruff.
Instead of answering him first, she glances at me. “When I mix your blood with my magic, the crimson turns white before becoming almost translucent. That’s the purest kind of power I’ve ever mixed with my own.” While this revelation is new to me, I don’t get to say anything before she looks at Drake again. “When I did the same to your blood, it turned black and then began to smoke. Not even the dark witches still on this Earth can make their blood truly go black. Not like this. I knew right then what I was dealing with, even though it should be impossible.”
Drake grabs my shoulder and frowns. “She could be right. Tartarus is thousands of years old. Kel might have been sent there at the creation instead of born in the world like I was. I never wanted to know her well enough to ask that kind of question before she spelled me.”
“So, what?” I ask, looking between the two of them. “She’s one witch left from a coven that no longer exists. That doesn’t mean she’s unkillable. Quit trying to scare us, Natalia. Break the curse and tell us how your ancestors killed her coven before.”
Natalia frowns and shakes her head. “She could have been banished for a reason, like because she couldn’t be killed. We have no clue, and I’m not willing to risk my life to find out.”
I’m up on my feet in the next second and glaring at her as my chest rumbles. “But you’ll risk the lives of everyone you’ve helped by refusing me?”
She steps toward me, but I don’t back down. Even though I’m bluffing, I’m not scared of her or her power. I never have been, and I sure as shit don’t intend to start now.
“Quit threatening people, Spencer,” she says calmly. “Lying doesn’t look good on you. You might have gotten to me before, but I wouldn’t have done business with you for so long if you had that kind of evil inside you.”
Damn this smart witch.
My mind scrambles to think of another way to force her hand, but before I find something to throw back at her, she surprises me once again.
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help you,” she snaps back. “I said I wouldn’t risk my life. If you two want to be idiots and go after her, then I won’t stop you, but you won’t return to my shop again until she’s dead. If you do,” she looks back at me, face devoid of all emotion, “I will help this other witch find you.”
I’m pretty sure that’s as good of an offer as we’re going to get, so I nod. “Fine. We have a deal, then.”
Natalia goes back to digging through her shit on the shelves, I assume to find items that we wouldn’t know to ask for that might help us survive killing the darkest of dark witches from the sounds of it. Even assuming that, when I turn back to Drake, I’m not afraid.
He spent hundreds of years trapped inside his own mind and body, basically frozen in time. While my situation of running and gathering for the last three years can’t exactly compare, I’m ready for this to be done for the both of us.
This entire day has awoken a part of me I’m not sure I ever knew existed. For the first time in maybe ever, I want all the things I thought I could never have. I want a real home that isn’t filled with fear. I want friends I can count on. I want—my stare stays on Drake—him.
Change happens fast, and being done trying to control everything around me is a peace unlike anything I’ve known.
We will find Kel, kill her, and end whatever nightmare she might be out there right now trying to conjure.
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Drake asks me quietly.
I grin up at him and nod. “The moment I accepted that there was no point in fighting the pull toward you, it was decided. I don’t do anything half-assed, and I won’t live the rest of our lives wondering what’s around the next corner. Nobody should live that way.”
Saying that now makes me realize how dumb my plan was before. Building a cabin in the woods and hiding my family there would have been doing just that, but it was the only option I could think of while still respecting my mother’s wishes to not kill my father.
Though, that’s no longer a problem.
Natalia makes an odd noise, garnering my and Drake’s attention. When we both look her way, she’s holding a towel and dusting off an old bottle as she turns around. “There you are.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
The glass is etched but I can’t make out the finer details from across the room. The top isn’t the normal cork style I often see. It’s made from silver and worn down so much that there are only faint lines from whatever design was once there.
“Something that will help,” she says confidently. “Like I said before, I’ve only heard the stories of these witches. By knowing how powerful her spell is through Drake’s blood, I can guess that this Kel was higher up in the coven. Maybe not a leader, but possibly so. Either way, you’re going to need old and new magic to combat whatever she has become in Tartarus. This is the start of that.”
She hands Drake the possibly ancient potion but doesn’t release it once he holds his hand out. Instead, she grips on to him and stares intently. “You will only get one shot at breaking the curse. If anything goes wrong, I can almost guarantee your death, and I make no promises this will work.”
Her sharp gaze cuts to me as she takes the potion back. “You will make a magical vow right here and right now that if this fails, if Drake dies, you cannot retaliate against me or anyone else because of what you’re making me do.”
My chest rumbles, and I want to punch that cocky look right off her face, but I know she’s not doing anything that I wouldn’t do to ensure the safety of those she cares about. Though, hearing her say that Drake could die, I’m not sure how I feel about risking his life.
Looking back up at him, I shrug. “Maybe running wouldn’t be so bad.”
The thought makes me want to vomit after envisioning what life could be like with a mate, in a real home, making a life for myself that I never thought I could have.
He’s so tense that his head shake is barely perceptive. “I can’t live like this forever, Spencer. And I won’t subject you to a life with only half a mate. You’re better off without me than keeping me like this.”
The anguish in his voice breaks me and reignites my desire for murder all at once. I hear him, but I can hardly feel him. I didn’t notice it earlier, not until he said that I would be living with half of a mate.
He’s hiding his pain and rage from me. There’s no denying that now, but that only serves to make me want to fix everything for him even more than before.
I turn back to Natalia, confident that fate can’t be so cruel as to tease me with a mate like Drake only to take him from me.
Whatever the risk, he’s going to be okay and there’s no believing otherwise.
He’s not destruction. He’s mine. All mine.
“Whatever you need to do to break the curse on my mate, get it ready,” I tell Natalia. “You’re going to free his wolf, and then you’re going to help us with the spell to kill this bitch once and for all.”