Chapter 6 #2
Dayna flopped onto the sofa near the window.
“As requested, we’ve been poking at the curse,” she said without preamble.
“The original weaving by the scorned wives, Mary in particular, tied the condition not just to love, but to confessed love. Spoken, not implied. It’s in the footnotes. They were nothing if not bureaucratic.”
“Are you saying that as long as we don’t verbally acknowledge our love, the curse doesn’t take effect?” I asked. It sounds too easy.
Liz shot her sister a glare as she leaned on the arm of the chair and folded her arms. “It’s not that simple. The curse listens for the truth of it in your heart, not the sound of the words.”
“It could be in the actions of the loved one. Like risking it all,” Dayna added.
My mind flashed to the day Hudson had jumped into a literal hellhole to save me. “Is Hudson at risk?” I asked.
Liz tilted her head. “You are the first documented Roberts woman to fall for a shifter. The mating bond, while predictable for shifters, is a complex element for you. Our current thinking is that it would never put either of you at risk.”
“Unless one of us wrongly believed taking the power would protect the other,” I muttered.
Dayna held up both hands. “There’s a loophole. Not quite a cure, but more a… clause. Mary, the more powerful wife, wrote in a counter-weave that can happen if certain conditions are met. It’s rare and messy, but it’s there, hidden in the subtext.”
Liz tilted her chin in the air. “The conditions are insane.” She air-quoted conditions to ensure she communicated her feelings about them.
“I love insane,” Rebecca said. “Go on.”
I did not. I wanted routine, calmness, and for the biggest decision of the day to be which shirt I wore, not which world I saved.
Dayna counted on her fingers. “One: consent from both parties, spoken and sealed. Real consent, not ‘I suppose so.’ Two: a truth witnessed by a member of the line. Any of us qualifies. Three: a gift, freely given, from the one who holds the rights to channel the power.”
I stared. “You want me to give Hudson a… what? A gift certificate for Don’t Panic, I’ll Never Drain You?”
“It has a nice ring,” Rebecca murmured.
Liz shook her head. “You can’t be explicit in any of these conditions. Hudson would need to stay in the dark. Otherwise, you’d encounter unpredictable power imbalances and most likely close off that loophole forever. Magic knows when it’s being manipulated.”
“I don’t want information about the future of the curse. I need it about the history. There’s clearly more to it, since you’ve already uncovered a loophole. Why would she even put that in? And more importantly, how can I use this to help us wrest control from Eloise?”
Liz pressed her lips together and glanced at the floor. What now? “Spit it out,” I snapped.
“There is a fourth condition,” she said. “An exchange.”
Dayna winced. “I wasn’t going to mention that.”
“An exchange of what?” I asked, flicking my gaze between my aunts.
“Of risk,” Liz murmured. “You anchor half of the cost in yourself. He anchors the other half in himself. Then if either of you were tempted to pull the other’s power, it would give you a not-so-subtle kick.”
Rebecca’s gaze unfocused. “Like a prenuptial for power. You’d both be affected and receive backlash.”
Liz slapped a hand on the desk. “If it fails to break the curse, it will result in pain every time either of you wields power. A reminder that you meddled with a curse not made to be broken. It’s made to doom you both, to foster resentment, not love.
I forbid it. As you say, this doesn’t help our goals. ”
“It keeps her alive,” Dayna said. “If he loses control—”
“He won’t,” I snapped. Acid coated my tongue, and my vision blurred.
“He—” My throat tightened and flashes of memory spun in my mind.
The Hound circling me with a blade as he decided where the next cut should land.
My voice breaking against a scream that wouldn’t summon my savior anytime soon.
He did come… but it was too late. My body was alive, but my mind had checked out and fought against those trying to persuade me to stay.
I just wanted peace, and they were tearing it from my bloodied fingers.
I shook my head, dispelling the memories, and took a breath.
“I appreciate the research and the cabbage rolls. But what I do not appreciate is feeling like a body you are planning around. I am not a battlefield. I am a person. You cannot continue to move me like a chess piece, keeping me in the dark from nightmares that find me, regardless.”
Dayna’s face crumpled. “We know, Cora.”
“Do you?” I asked. It came out sharper than intended. “Because right now, I am a thesis. A problem. A project. And that’s before we get to the part where my mate is—” Absent. A liar. A thief. “Busy.”
“Do not mistake his absence for neglect,” Sophia warned. “He’s giving you the space to make decisions.”
“Seriously? Because he disappears when the choices are linked to food choices and reappears to assert himself in my life decisions. I’m drowning in a world set to implode and being distracted by cabbage rolls.
” My heart thudded. “If the wedding is important to him, then he can make the thousand decisions while I concentrate on the impending war.”
Rebecca took my hand, cool fingers anchoring me. “I can take the weight of the wedding decisions,” she murmured. “Whatever you need.”
“She needs to be present for her future,” Dayna pointed out. “And stable.”
I shot her a look. They had already decided on my strength and stability when they stole that which haunts me. They didn’t respect me, not one bit. Everyone wanted to control me.
The temperature in the room changed by a few degrees, enough that everyone noticed.
Aunt Dayna’s curls lifted in an unfelt breeze.
The wards pricked, alert. Bella’s fur rose along her spine, and she did that soundless hiss cats make when they have seen the end of days and weren’t a fan of the future.
Indigo pressed her hands—my hands—against my ribs from the inside, testing, looking for frayed seams that we needed to mend with acceptance for what happened, not banished memories.
“They would chain us and call it love,” she rasped, voice old and flinty but mine. “They would bind you and say it is for your good. They do not get to choose.”
“I know,” I whispered. Or thought I did. The room listened.
Rebecca stepped back slowly, palms open. “Cora,” she said in that careful voice she kept for men with guns and friends with flames. “Breathe.”
I am breathing, you idiot. You all made sure of it.
Aunt Sophia set the tray down. “Elizabeth, the candle.”
A white pillar candle appeared in Aunt Liz’s hand. Flame bloomed in the air, gentle and blue. She set it on the desk before me and let it burn. The scent of rosemary, lemon, and a thread of something clean edged around my panic like a fence.
Dayna murmured in the old language, words that spoke of remembering the shape of yourself. Indigo bared our teeth. The lights above us flickered. The flamingo pool bobbed. Pete did a startled hop onto an unsuspecting Barbie and stilled, one golden eye fixed on me with amphibian judgment.
“I am fine,” I snarled as I rose, which was the official Roberts motto for this dam will hold because I said so.
“Step back,” Sophia said to everyone, voice calm. “Give her space.”
They did, including Rebecca. Indigo prowled. “They think we are porcelain,” she snarled. “They forget we are obsidian.”
My fingers trembled, and I curled them into fists. “Out,” I said, and my voice was not entirely mine. “Everyone out.”
No argument. One by one, they eased toward the door with the care of handlers leaving a big cat alone with a bone. Sophia paused at the threshold. “I love you,” she said. She had never been fooled by my sharpness. I nodded, because some ships can only be anchored by truths.
The door clicked, and silence poured in behind it. The candle flickered. The wards hummed. Indigo breathed once, twice, like bellows.
“Mine,” she growled, and for a wild second, I didn’t know if she meant my life, my choice, or my mate.
When the boundary wards went off, they didn’t chime so much as shudder.
A series of heavy footfalls pounded down the stairs.
The door slammed open, bouncing against the wall, and Hudson barreled in like a storm.
Breathless. Shirt askew. Gold burning in his eyes.
He took in the room in a single sweep. Me, candle, frog, cat, abandoned tray of cabbage rolls, no aunts, no vampire.
He moved toward me before stopping a pace away, palms out, the way a man approaches a skittish horse or an edged weapon he loves.
“Cora, I’m here,” he said, voice rough as gravel.
It was ridiculous how hard those two words hit. Indigo faltered. “Mate,” she said, grudging but true.
“You weren’t,” I replied, and the petty, human, small part of me savored the accusation.
His throat worked. “I had to put a man in his place for threatening one of our packs,” he said. “He’s not a problem anymore.”
“You’re very good at solving problems. Shame you enjoy creating them.” I was being unfair, but he took it anyway.
“I deserve that.”
The candle flame wavered. He glanced at it, then back at me. “Do you want me close, or would you prefer space?” he asked softly. “I can sit on the floor like a supplicant saint until you’re bored with looking at me.”
“Saint is ambitious.” The corner of my mouth twitched.
He dropped to a knee and bowed his head. “I will take ambitious over absent.”
Indigo prowled to the cage of my ribs and pressed her nose to the bars. “He offers his throat,” she observed, interested in the way predators are in prey that refuse to run. I let the image sink in for a heartbeat.
No, this is not how my mate behaves. “Get up,” I snapped. He rose slowly, carefully, like the ground beneath us might crack.
“Can I touch you?”