Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Choice is the cruelest kind of power, because it always costs something.
For the first time, I felt the suffocating weight of the king of Hell’s power.
Lucifer’s power didn’t flare or announce itself.
It simply existed, vast and immovable, like a mountain that had never once considered stepping aside.
He was angry, and I had no doubt the reverberations could be felt well beyond this realm where secrets were made.
Hudson hit the ground first, rolling with the impact as instinct took over, coming up in a low crouch with a snarl vibrating through his chest. The ground beneath him shook for a few terrifying seconds before hardening again, as though the Serpents’ domain was offended by the violence of our entrance but begrudgingly accepted it.
The air twisted around me, sharp and metallic, tasting of lightning trapped in stone.
I landed with far less grace—on my hands and knees with a hiss.
Hudson was on his feet a moment later and dragged me up to stand beside him.
We were on top of the hill, the table empty of the usual treats, but one by one, the Serpents joined us, each with a look of bewilderment at being dragged here.
Dave was last.
Harry straightened his spectral tie with a huff. “Right,” he muttered. “Who do I file a complaint with? Because I was in the middle of something very important.”
“Like what?” I wondered. Please don’t say sexy spiritual shenanigans.
He blinked at me. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
I was sure that was true, but when did Harry start keeping things under his hat? I guessed it wasn’t important right now.
The blossom tree arching over the table shook in the breeze and lost a few petals. Lucifer waved his hand at my chair. “Take your seat, niece.” He glanced at Hudson, flicked his fingers, and a smaller version of my chair materialized next to mine, which would put him directly across from Dave.
The sky above was neither day nor night, but suspended as a pearlescent expanse fractured with slow-moving veins of gold. But the terrifying thing was the gaping, jagged red slash through it that was pulsing with each heartbeat.
Lucifer stood, wings half unfurled, posture rigid with restrained fury. His hands were clasped behind his back, and his expression was carved into something cold and precise, and entirely focused on me. I felt chastised, and he hadn’t even said a word.
“You tore the veil,” he said. Everyone glanced between us like we were on the brink of an angelic battle.
I straightened my spine and clasped my hands in front of me on the table. “In my defense, she was trying to kill us.”
Lucifer’s eyes blazed with gold. “That is not a defense.” Behind him, his wings expanded, shadowing the faint light.
“I didn’t mean to tear it,” I whispered.
Aunt Sophia tsked and found a crochet hook with green wool appeared in her lap. “Oh, Cora. You didn’t just tear it—you broke it.”
That was trickier. Tears could be sewn, but breakages were far more difficult.
Dave drummed his fingers on the table and clenched his jaw while staring at Hudson. My mate refused to even blink. The turbulent tension sharpened to something more tangible and dangerous.
“I can explain,” I muttered, attempting to divert the tension to myself and not the two shifters whose animals were prowling close to the surface.
“I can’t wait to hear this,” Dave drawled.
I needed to keep this to the bigger picture and not the fracturing of trust occurring. “We were attacked,” I started. Then I explained what had happened in the parking lot to a stunned and silent group of Serpents. “So you see, it was my only choice.”
“No,” Lucifer sighed. “It wasn’t.”
I opened my mouth to tell him about the hollowing out of the elementals and remind them about the harvested souls. A man I’d never seen before poofed into existence next to him and placed a vaguely familiar scroll onto the table in front of the devil.
Lucifer frowned at me and then at the scroll. Wait. Was that my signature? I rose to my feet and squinted. “What is that?”
“The veil law that you signed during your first meeting.”
I scowled. There were a multitude of rules on that paper that I had broken. I folded my arms. “I already told you I’m out if I couldn’t tell my mate. You agreed.”
“We were coerced,” Lucifer snapped.
I snorted. “You couldn’t be coerced, Uncle. Those laws don’t apply to me, because while you are all Serpents, I’m the freaking apple. I don’t get the same choices as you, despite representing the free will you have tasked me with.”
The unfamiliar guy raised his silver eyes to me. “Huh. She has a point.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Dave snapped.
“Why not?” Hudson growled. “You are an expert at bending loyalties when it suits you.”
“She needs to be bound until we figure out how much of a threat that is,” Dave said as he jerked his finger at the evidence of my crime still bleeding in the sky.
I grimaced. It looked bad. Wait, what? “Bound?” I snapped.
“You will do no such thing,” Sophia snarled. Oof, Aunt Sophia was in full Roberts mode. Everyone, take cover.
“It’s temporary,” Dave responded, folding his arms and leaning back in his chair. “And we aren’t even addressing the fact that she brought her mate into the sanctuary of the Serpents.”
A low growl rolled out of Hudson’s chest, deep and ancient, vibrating the ground beneath our feet. His body shifted subtly, power coiling, predator instincts rising to the surface.
I rubbed my temple. “I don’t have time for a time-out because of some perceived slight against me protecting the person I love the most in this world by sneaking him into our secret meeting venue.
Grow up. We have bigger problems—like my grandmother actively turning people into hollowed-out soldiers and harvesting souls. ”
Dave opened his mouth. I shot him a warning look, but he ignored it. “Your problems start and end with the fuck-up you made,” Dave snapped. “And keeping you here until you get some perspective seems like the appropriate action.”
“Control,” I corrected. “You want to control me.” Just like everyone else did. It was the wrong thing to say when my agitated mate sat at my side seething at his best friend.
Hudson stood and flipped the table so high it spun in the air over Lucifer’s head. Harry was the only one who ducked. Ridiculous.
Dave, still in his seat, tilted his head. “You have a problem, Hudson? Because here, you are not my boss, my friend, or my Principal.”
“It’s clear I was never any of those things,” he growled. “But I will not tolerate talk of chaining my mate. You will have to go through me first.”
Sophia huffed as she collected her ball of wool and stuffed it up her sweater for safekeeping. Oh, that made so much sense.
Aira straightened her crimson dress. “Do we need to do this now? A shifter squabble is not an emergency, and I have guests.”
“Cora needs to remain here, whether by her own volition or ours,” Dave pushed.
You fucking idiot. Everyone else was trying to defuse the situation.
Hudson stepped fully in front of me, power rolling off him in feral waves. His stance was absolute, a line drawn without hesitation. “Try it.”
Dave lurched to his feet, his gaze lasered on Hudson as he rolled his shoulders. They were about to go furry, and this meeting was about to get bloody.
“Stand down, Principal,” Lucifer demanded. The words landed like a slap.
Hudson turned slowly, disbelief hardening into fury. “You don’t give me orders.”
Dave’s jaw flexed. “You aren’t getting it. Everyone here is by invitation but you. The only person who can’t give orders is you.”
“Plus, there’s the whole Reaper thing,” Sophia said.
The silence that followed was thick, old with history.
“You knew,” I said. “You knew what he’d done and didn’t tell me.”
“Oh dear,” Harry muttered.
Sophia rolled her eyes. “Not important, and not my secret to tell. For your mating to survive the test of time, you must reveal your own secrets. That’s the only way trust can be earned and bonds be healed.”
“I know you feel betrayed,” Dave said.
Hudson pointed at him and snarled. “You kept secrets from me. Huge ones, life-changing ones. You gathered intel and reported it back to the fucking devil. Feeling betrayed doesn’t cover it.”
Dave didn’t flinch. “I kept secrets because leaders don’t get to survive if they know everything.”
Hudson surged forward, and Dave erupted from his seat, meeting him head-on. The impact cracked the ground.
They didn’t shift. That was something. This wasn’t about the kill; it was about frustration and pain.
Hudson’s fist connected with Dave’s jaw, snapping his head sideways.
Dave drove an elbow into Hudson’s ribs, efficient and brutal, following it with a knee that should have dropped him.
Hudson barely flinched. He grabbed Dave by the collar and slammed him into a standing stone, ancient sigils flaring in protest.
“Enough!” Aira shouted.
Neither of them heard her.
“Let them work it out,” Lucifer advised. “With their kind, it’s the only way. Better they do it here than at the pack where they have to provide a united front.”
Hudson wrapped a hand around Dave’s throat and lifted him clean off the ground. “You sat here in your lordly chair and played god with my pack, with my future, and with my mate,” Hudson snarled.
Dave’s hands locked around Hudson’s wrists, muscles straining.
“Everything I’ve done is to protect the woman you’ve chosen to be yours.
Everything. Even before you declared your intentions.
Even before you met her. My actions—our actions—are to protect Cora and the bloodline she holds.
She is the final seal, the ender of worlds, and the bringer of peace.
Nothing comes before that. Not even brotherhood. ”
Hudson roared and threw him. Dave hit the ground hard, rolled, and came back up bloodied and furious. He charged, tackling Hudson, driving him backward into the blossom tree. Petals rained down. They hit the ground again, grappling, fists flying, power detonating with each blow.
Harry hovered, eyes wide. “How long do we leave them to work this out?”
I snapped. “Enough,” I roared, my wings exploding. The power shoved uninvited into my psyche blazed in my veins.
The word hit the ground like a verdict. Divine authority poured out of me, not wild, not uncontrolled, but absolute. The air bowed. The stones groaned. Every Serpent froze where they stood, their power crushed flat beneath mine.
When the devil froze, you knew you were fucked.
An invisible force ripped Hudson and Dave apart and slammed them backward, pinning them where they stood. Both breathed hard, blood staining their mouths, eyes locked in mutual fury.
I stepped between them, power burning white-gold beneath my skin.
“Eloise is harvesting souls.” The words landed like a blade.
“She’s hollowing elementals,” I reiterated, because they were missing the vital point.
“Stripping the soul and leaving the body breathing. Obedient. Empty. She’s building an army that doesn’t question and doesn’t remember who they were. ”
Aira’s breath caught, one hand flying to her chest. “That violates everything.”
Aunt Sophia’s power flared, her elemental energy crackling dangerously. “Necromancy,” she whispered.
“Like Cora? Death magic?” Dave checked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I snapped. “Necromancy is a very specific magic that is banned for a reason.”
Harry swallowed. “She’s using the harvested souls to power an army of the dead.”
“Because she couldn’t get them fast enough from Heaven or Hell,” Aira correctly guessed.
“Unbelievable,” Harry mumbled.
I turned slowly, meeting each of their gazes. Harry’s. Dave’s. Hudson’s. Lucifer’s. Aira’s and finally, my aunt’s.
“She doesn’t need belief. She doesn’t need loyalty. She doesn’t even need fear. She just needs bodies and the souls she is capturing to fuel her crusade for power.”
The tear in the sky growled and widened. Everyone’s attention turned toward it.
Lucifer’s jaw tightened. “Something just occurred to me, niece.”
“What?”
“Did Eloise witness you open the veil?”
Fuck. I swallowed. “It was survival,” I whispered.
Silence stretched as they each turned to look back at me.
The wound in the veil pulsed, angry and raw. I could now sense the bony fingers poking at it, the borrowed magic that was eating my grandmother alive skimming the wound.
Donn’s power in me answered, recognizing its own, but noted the twisted nature and recoiled. This was going to hurt.
I lifted my hands to the sky and dug deep for the words gifted to me by an ancient god. Deep down, I knew using this power meant I’d accepted it. Right now, it sat unused in a corner, waiting with bated breath for the right time to claim me as its own.
I tore the lid off it and let it fly free.
Lightning cracked across the sky, and the silver eyes of a dark god flashed above us.
I just had to hope that the bond I shared with Hudson was stronger than anything Donn claimed, because alone, I would lose myself to the seduction of darkness.
It would be oh-so easy. But together, Hudson would remind me that things hurt for a reason, and he would need to be my light as I battled my own darkness.
Warm fingers tangled with mine. “Cora, you can stop now.”
Gold eyes I could drown in crowded my vision until all I could see was my home. The power left my body in a shuddering wave and gifted me Hudson’s final thought before I blacked out in his arms.
Extraordinary, mate. You always have been and always will be extraordinary.