Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nowhere was safe. Better to join the deviants and have fun.
After dressing, the elementals dispersed into the night, no doubt vowing never to return to a Roberts gathering again.
The key thing was that they shared, gossiped, and whispered about what they witnessed tonight.
Weakening Eloise’s position wasn’t just about the physical power; it was about the family network she had lost.
The foreign heartbeat continued to thrum against my ribs.
“We need the wards back up. Now,” Hudson snapped.
I gritted my teeth and connected to the barrier we lowered to allow everyone inside.
The remnants pressed down on it, a suffocating weight that made me drop to my knees.
My wings brushed the dirt as the shadows crawled closer and wrapped around my wrists, shackling me in place as they tried to tear me apart in their desperate bid for a tether to this world.
I rolled my shoulders and grimaced at the sensation of blades skimming my spine.
They were so cold, lost, and empty. It broke my heart, but I needed to grip them tight and wrestle them back. Another passed through my chest, stealing my breath.
“Do you need help, daughter of death?” The voice was like a heated knife cutting through butter. Donn.
I shook my head. I was already dancing on the edge of darkness; I didn’t need to invite it in. “Leave me alone.”
“Who is she talking to?” Dave asked.
“No idea,” Aunt Liz replied.
“Cora, put the wards back up,” Dayna coaxed.
“I’m trying,” I ground out.
“It’s the remnants,” Hudson growled. “They’re overwhelming her.”
“Help is coming,” Rebecca said, her voice breathless. Where had she gone?
“Miss Roberts,” Harry whispered close to my ear. “I want you to let me in. I can lend you my strength and the strength of every spirit on your land. Together, we can push them back.”
“If this doesn’t work, I’ll be forced to take action,” Hudson snapped.
I huffed. What was my mate planning to do against spectral beings? Growl them to death? Spoiler—they were already dead.
Harry’s essence brushed against my own, and I tried to open my soul and allow him in. He met a wall. Not mine, but Donn’s.
Donn’s laughter echoed in my mind. “When you made a deal with me, you let me inside you.”
“Phrasing,” I muttered.
“In return, you are inside me.”
I gritted my teeth and shook my head. “What are you talking about?”
“Meaning you can take from me, Cora. Just a little to get control of the power emerging at your fingertips. If you don’t, you will be overwhelmed and of no help to your family as they consume you.”
They were nipping at my soul. “Cora,” Harry demanded.
“What’s happening?” Rebecca asked.
“She’s deciding how to get control,” Hudson said. “But if she doesn’t succeed in the next few minutes, I will sort it.”
“You know you can’t scare these things off with growls and a menacing stare, right?” Rebecca checked.
“I need neither,” Hudson answered.
What was his plan?
Donn’s power swept through my veins, a caress of something foreign but mine. It whispered seductive promises of control. Nothing in my life was in my control, and that was why I weakened in the moment and took the gift he offered. The consequences were tomorrow’s problem.
The second I invited him in, I knew I’d fucked up.
I might be the daughter of death, but my power was rooted in the elements and angelic light.
This was the flip side, a magic so old it made my bones hurt with the undercurrent of gathered knowledge that stitched the universe together.
It dripped into my soul, soothed the frayed edges, and pulled taut.
I climbed to my feet and opened my eyes.
“Holy fucking shit,” Sebastian murmured, stumbling back.
I grinned, knowing I was channeling a little of Indigo with sharp teeth. “Go back inside the house,” I instructed Harry.
“But—”
“Unless you are ready to join your afterlife, you need to give me space.”
He hesitated for a beat before making a hasty retreat.
I swept my arm through the air and dragged the remnants toward me.
They became a thickening whirlwind as I claimed more of them.
Sensing I had them all, my head snapped back to the sky, and I pointed.
They flowed upward and scattered into the darkness.
The wards rose, making Summer Grove House a savior once more.
Hudson held his hands up and edged toward me. “Easy, darling,” he murmured, his voice a rough purr meant to lure.
“Why are you all looking at me like I’m about to murder your puppy? And why are you calling me darling?”
Hudson made a circular motion over his face. “Your eyes are glowing.”
“Define glowing,” I croaked, my throat raw. My head throbbed with a steady pulse.
“Like if a lighthouse and a nuclear reactor had a baby,” Sebastian said.
“Perfect,” I muttered. “Just the look every girl wants—apocalypse chic.” The power thrummed under my skin, heady and dangerous.
Donn’s voice was silent now, but the echo of him pulsed like a second heartbeat, closer than before, but still distinct and separate.
I could taste iron and something sweeter—temptation.
Hudson reached me, his claws still half-formed. “You with me?”
“Define with.” My wings gave a weak twitch before folding tight against my back. “Because I’m ninety percent sure I just got a gift from a death god that comes with conditions and is unreturnable.”
Rebecca snorted, drawing my attention. Her hair was wild, but her red lipstick was still perfect. “If we’re doing confessions now, I might have accidentally snacked on an elemental who tried to livestream the severing.”
Liz groaned. “You can’t just kill anyone who breaks the rules, Rebecca.”
“I didn’t kill him, just his Wi-Fi and ability to think coherently for a few days. He’ll be right as rain and have no recollection of anything that happened.”
A low yowl cut through the tension. Everyone froze. Bella emerged from the smoking grass, tail flicking, a squirming remnant clenched delicately in her mouth like a prized mouse.
“Oh, for the love of—” I started.
She strutted to the middle of the pentagram, dropped the glowing spectre at my feet, and sat primly, licking her paw.
The remnant whimpered, a wisp of terrified smoke.
Bella’s free paw smacked down on it, and she blinked at me with an expression that said, I caught him. What are you going to do about it?
Puff, puff, pass.
Hudson blinked. “Is your cat eating souls?”
“Our cat,” I said. “And she didn’t eat anything. She just caught one like a mouse.”
Bella tilted her head. With an indignant pop, the little ghost escaped upward, leaving Bella’s paw singed and her expression utterly offended.
Rebecca snorted.
The laughter rolled through us, shaky but real, cutting through the tension like sunlight through fog. Around us, the last of the remnants faded, leaving only the scent of ozone and lavender.
Rockhard clapped. “Well, that was eventful as always, Cora.”
“Yeah, never a dull moment when there is a threat to your life on a minute by minute basis,” Lenson agreed.
Liz brushed her bloody hand against her skirt. “We did it,” she whispered. “Eloise is no longer part of us. I feel... lighter.”
Sophia nodded. “Now we wait to see what the fallout will be.”
My body trembled with exhaustion, but we’d achieved what we set out to. “She’s cut off, but not powerless. And Donn—” I swallowed, the name scraping my throat. “He’s closer.”
Hudson’s gaze sharpened. “How close?”
Inside me probably wasn’t the wisest answer. “Very,” I edged, staring at the faint scorch where my blade had struck. “I need to understand what he gave me, and what he took.”
Rebecca fanned herself dramatically. “Ah yes, post-ritual soul-searching. My favorite chapter in every tragic romance.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m just saying. Between the god bargains and the winged wardrobe malfunctions, your wedding vows are going to be wild.”
Dayna perked up. “Wedding? We’re finally talking about it?”
I groaned. “The world is ending, and your focus is on the color of napkins?”
Rebecca looked affronted. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve already decided that.”
Awesome. Go team. “You probably have my panties picked out too.”
Hudson growled low in his throat. “That’s my department, and yes, it’s been decided.”
My aunts snickered. “There’s still time for a little celebration under the moon,” Liz mumbled.
I spun to face Dave. “That’s your cue.”
Liz blinked. “What?”
Dave ran a hand down his face. “Seems wrong after all the apocalypse talk.”
“Romance is never wrong, Dave. It reminds us what we are fighting for.”
“Oh, this is going to be good,” Rebecca added.
Ezra stalked from the edge of the property behind her, and I smirked. “Yup, so good.”
She frowned and spun on her heel to face her guy. “Absolutely not. I told you—” She squealed as he picked her up fireman style without breaking his stride and continued into the woods.
“A little help?” she snapped at me.
I shrugged. “Sorry. I’m busy making inane choices for my wedding. Have fun, kids.”
“People should keep their curtains closed tonight,” Dayna muttered.
“I think the ghosts are also feeling the pull of the solstice and the magic in the air,” Harry said with a nod at the house.
“Are there ghosts getting naked on my dining table?”
“I believe they are on the stairs.” He tilted his head. “And the sofa.” He squinted at the shadows moving behind the curtains. “I would also avoid the kitchen.”
I rubbed my temple. “This is what happens when you mix gods, ghosts, and family therapy.”
Bella meowed, knocking over the bloodstained dagger and sending it skittering across the ground straight into Hudson’s boot.
He stared at it, then at me. “Is she trying to arm herself or me?”
“Depends on who feeds her next.”
The cat yawned, and a curl of ghostly mist puffed from her mouth. Everyone took a careful step back.
“How sure are we that she didn’t eat a soul or two?” Stella asked.
“About sixty percent. Cats will be cats and do what they damn well please.”
I eyeballed Dayna’s house. “I think your place is a better bet for tonight.”
Dayna nodded. “We can base all nonsexual activity from there.”
This was why TripAdvisor was dangerous. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I went on and wrote that Summer Grove House was a fine establishment on the brink of making me millions, would it come true? Worth a shot.
I stalked toward Dayna’s house, with my aunts and Sebastian trailing behind me.
Hudson’s arm slipped around my waist, halting my progress. “Where are you going?”
I blinked up at him. “I need to wait until morning and then access the vaults. They might hold something about Donn. I need stuff from the house, and I don’t want to fight through spirits having sexy time.”
“That’s hours away.”
I squinted at him. “So we get sleep.”
His hands gripped my hips and walked me backward, away from the house and toward the tree line. My back hit a trunk, and then all I could see was him. All I could smell was him. And suddenly, all I wanted to feel... was him.
“You feel that?” Hudson growled, gliding his nose down mine. “The way the magic skims your skin like a whisper of silk?”
Heat flared low in my stomach. The moonlight reflected in his gaze, gold turning to silver.
His lips found mine, and the world—and my worries—bled away.
Our tongues tangled as if we’d been together for eons, not months.
I leaped up and wound my legs around his waist so he could put pressure where I needed him the most. A fleeting thought of us taking this somewhere more private came and went in a heartbeat.
Everyone knew that glancing outside on a full moon put you at risk of seeing things you wished you hadn’t.
Calloused fingers gripped my butt beneath the silk of my dress and hooked into my panties as his mouth left mine to graze his teeth down my throat.
“Sorry to break this up, daughter,” Abbadon drawled. My eyes flicked open, and Hudson stiffened. “But we have a god problem that you just made a thousand times worse.”
My forehead pressed against Hudson’s shoulder, and I sighed. “Raincheck?” I muttered.
“God check,” he grumbled. “At this rate, I’ll be murdering him for getting between me and my mate.”
I flinched. That was a little too close to the truth. Was it too much to hope he hadn’t caught it?
“Cora,” he drawled. “What did you do?”
Damn it.