Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Protect your peace. Tell me your secrets and bare your soul… but keep it outside.
My pulse raced as Hudson pulled off the main road. His hands gripped the wheel with that deceptively calm, Principal-level of self-control that meant something inside him was coiling, not relaxing.
The forest swallowed us whole, like it did when he’d whisked me away to propose.
It was the same hidden track, the same light-dappled tunnel of oak and cypress.
I knew where we were going long before the gravel turned to moss and the world went quiet enough that even the birds held their breath.
His secret place. Our secret place. And apparently where we were now holding life-altering conversations.
He could keep the pack house and its many acres. This is where I’d choose to live out my days.
He parked beneath the towering oak, whose roots curled like sleeping serpents, and the stunning cabin suspended between the thick branches took my breath away.
It looked exactly the same as the last time we’d come here to breathe when everything had been falling apart around us—Eloise’s schemes, my psyche, ghost armies, and a little interference from Heaven and Hell.
It was heartbreakingly peaceful.
Hudson cut the engine and dropped his head back against the seat. “Text Rebecca and let her know we are okay and will be back tomorrow,” he muttered.
I grabbed my phone from my bag.
Me: Gone to a secret treehouse in the forest for a little heart to heart. Be back tomorrow.
Rebecca: That’s what you kids are calling it these days?
Me: Just call me if anything urgent comes up.
Rebecca: Hopefully, both of those things are in your near future.
I scowled at the phone. What?
Hudson snatched it from my hand and shoved it in his jeans pocket. “Let’s do this.”
I climbed out of the car. “Why are you saying it like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s a gauntlet.”
He shrugged and strode toward the tree holding up the house. “Because being with you feels like a war.”
I blinked and froze. He spun on his heel and came back to me while swiping a hand down his face. “That came out wrong.”
“I’ll say.”
His hands landed on my hips, and he leaned his forehead against mine.
“I want a world where we aren’t trying to pick up the pieces and fight a war with every faction on some level.
I want to wake up with you late on a Sunday morning and cook you pancakes in bed before devouring you, over and over.
” He walked me backward until I hit the tree.
His fingers curled around my chin, and he tipped my head back so our gazes collided. “I want all of that,” I whispered. “But we didn’t choose this; it chose us. We can’t run, we can’t hide, and even if we could, we aren’t those people.”
“What kind of people are those?”
My fingers wound around his neck, and I clung on to him. “Selfish.”
He huffed a laugh. “I could learn to be when it comes to you. I’m greedy, impulsive, and a little crazy.”
My lips twitched. “Just a little.”
“Am I alone in that? Because we just left a woman with broken fingers that speaks otherwise.”
I narrowed my eyes and yanked on his hair, making him hiss. “Don’t provoke me, Principal.”
“Or what? You’re threatening me with a good time here, little witch.”
I wanted to dance with him like this. Freely, without constraint or a freaking audience. But first...
I let a little of my angelic strength flow and shoved him away from me. He staggered back a step, and his eyes rolled with a green sheen.
“Secrets first.”
He nodded and glanced up at the welcoming house. “You want a lift up?”
I shook my head. “No, I’d rather keep our sanctuary, just that—our sanctuary. We shouldn’t step into it until we’ve shared everything on our minds.”
He folded his arms and raised a brow. Right, okay.
I guess I was being the adult and going first. Should I start with the Serpents before moving on to Donn, or the other way around?
If I left Donn last, he might forget several people closest to him have a secret group chat, or if I lead with Donn first, then he might not care about it.
Ugh. The mind of a crazy shifter in a mating dance. I had no doubt the dating situation was going to get a more visceral reaction out of him, even if it was the less complicated one.
“Your silence is not reassuring,” Hudson drawled.
I needed to decide this like an adult. Right hand, Donn. Left hand, Serpents. I fisted my hands and held them out in front of me. “Left or right?”
He blinked. “What?”
“Pick one. I have two things I need to tell you, and I can’t decide which one to lead with.”
“Two, huh?”
I wiggled my fists at him. “Right.” He pointed at my left.
“My right or your right?”
“Mine.”
Which makes it my left. Serpents it was.
I dragged in a breath. Where to start? I should have gone with Donn. I rubbed my forehead and started to pace. Why was I so nervous? Because he’s looking for an excuse to leave you. You are more trouble than you’re worth. Self-doubt was a bitch.
“Cora.”
Did I explain everyone involved, going back to the beginning of the Serpents? Wait, no. I didn’t know that, not really. Okay, maybe I could start with I’m here because of the apocalypse. Ugh. That makes me sound all doomsday-y. Is that a word?
“Cora.” Hudson’s hand snapped around my wrist, and he yanked me to a stop.
“Three dates,” I blurted. Okay, then. Guess we were starting with the god of death.
Hudson cocked a brow. “We are way past dating, mate.”
“No, I promised Donn three dates and the chance to woo me. On the completion of these dates, he will have withdrawn all of his power from Eloise, leaving her vulnerable.”
His jaw clenched, but his grip remained gentle. His icy control when something pissed him off was five thousand times more concerning than his unbridled rage. Rage I could shout at. This death stare was terrifying.
“Say something,” I whispered.
“In the graveyard?” he growled through clenched teeth.
“Date one,” I confirmed.
“Have there been more?”
“Not yet.”
He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly. Another, and another. Okay, we were breathing. Good to know. Maybe he’d been doing some of those meditations Aunt Stella preached to us about?
“And he bound you to these dates?”
Erm. “Yes?”
“Why are you saying it like a question?”
“Because I don’t want you to freak out.”
“Why would I—” His body stiffened, and he narrowed his gaze. Predatory. Dangerous. “Blood,” he snarled. “He bound you to this promise with blood.”
I grimaced. “It certainly wasn’t my idea.”
“It should never have been an idea at all,” he roared.
Oh good, we were past the quiet terror phase and now were in the ridiculous shout your feelings out with facts one.
I blew out a breath. “You know how supernatural diplomacy works. The god wanted something, and it turned into… dinners. A drink. A kiss that he stole right in front of you, if you remember.”
Hudson growled. Actually growled at me. It was preferable to the shouting. “You kept that from me.”
“You kept Lucifer from me,” I snapped back.
He stilled. “That is not the same thing. I did that to protect you.”
“It’s exactly the same thing,” I muttered as I poked him in the chest and walked him backward. “You get to make dangerous deals to ‘protect me,’ but I can’t even have a politically inconvenient drink with a deity without you losing your mind? This isn’t a partnership; it’s a dictatorship.”
He reared back like I’d slapped him. “Coming from the daughter of the angel of death?” he murmured, bitter as a blade. “Classic.”
The words hit harder than he realized, because I was still wrestling with the real reason for the Serpents and what I meant to this world. The weight of decisions in my palm when I couldn’t even decide what freaking cake to have at my wedding.
Silence crackled between us like ice underfoot. I needed him with me. Now that I’d known what having his love felt like and having the protection of his arms around me at night, I didn’t like to think about how losing him would destroy me. How I’d break if that was torn away from me.
I swallowed. “Hudson—”
“No. You want the truth? Fine. You want every secret? Fine.” He turned and stalked into the clearing. “Let’s do this, Cora,” he said over his shoulder. “Bare bones.”
A chill swept over me. He sounded resigned and a little nervous. I followed him into the moonlit clearing. Hudson planted his feet, shoulders rising and falling in uneven breaths, but he kept his back to me.
“I didn’t make a deal with Lucifer,” he said.
“Bullshit.”
“I didn’t.” He spun on me, eyes blazing. “I didn’t, Cora. I never asked him for power. I didn’t bargain. I didn’t sign away anything. I—” He dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I ingested the essence of an angel.”
My brain stuttered. “You did what?”
Gold fire unfurled under his skin. His spine arched. His shoulder blades bulged, and wings exploded outward in a violent snap of shimmering, feathered force.
Not a demon. Not an angel. Something… hybrid. Massive. Lethal. Beautiful. Wrong.
Silver-gold light rippled across them, the feathers edged like blades, the wingspan enormous enough to swallow the moon.
“What did you do?” I whispered.
Fear crossed his features. “I did it to be strong enough to protect you.”
The wings shuddered, shedding motes of molten gold. Not bargain-born. Not gifted. Consumed. Like a shifter absorbs strength from prey, except the prey had clearly been a heavenly being made of pure celestial power.
I stepped toward him, heart pounding. “This could have killed you.”
“It didn’t.”
“It could have corrupted you.”
“It didn’t.”
I squeezed my eyes closed. “You don’t know that.”
He roared, his wings flaring high enough to shake the branches. “And you don’t know what it was like to watch you die in front of me.” His voice cracked. “To feel you slipping every time you use your gift, to sense Indigo taking pieces of you. I won’t lose you. I will never lose you.”
I stared at him, speechless. “I could have lost you. Did you stop to think about that for a beat before you did this?”
He took a shaky breath. “Survival is all I was thinking about, Cora. Yours, mine, ours.”
My throat tightened. “And what about my right to survive my way?”
He clenched his fists. “Your way gets you killed.”
“You don’t get to choose for me. You don’t get to rewrite destiny by swallowing divine power like it’s protein powder.”
His jaw flexed. “If it keeps you alive, I’ll swallow the whole damn pantheon.”
I stepped close enough that the heat from his wings brushed my skin. “That’s the problem. You think love looks like sacrifice.”
What had he become? Because I could face the truth now. He was still my mate at heart, but he was also something other, and that was a problem—one I needed to unravel before I spilled all my secrets. I needed to understand the consequences of this transformation.
“Who did you ingest?” I asked, dreading and knowing the answer as a familiar power brushed against my own.
“Lucifer.”
Fuck. I hated being right.