Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Love isn’t in the falling. It’s realizing you never hit the ground.
“This is an unusual place for tea and treason,” Aunt Liz said as she strolled through the open vault door.
More like tea and trauma.
I sipped my peppermint tea and raised a hand to encompass the wealth of artefacts and history surrounding us. “Everywhere else is busy, and I need a beat to think.”
I’d filled everyone in on the ambush in town, but missed out the part detailing the escape into a secret realm. The Serpents already wanted to cage me, and there was no need to give them more excuses to control me.
She dropped onto a chair and ran her hands through her hair. She looked tired. Dark shadows ringed her eyes, and she sported a haunted look that showed the nightmares plaguing her day and night. I could sympathize.
“How are you feeling after regaining your memories?” she asked.
Aunt Dayna wandered inside with a cup in each hand, Aunt Sophia a step behind her.
I eyeballed the baggy sweater, knowing what she kept inside.
I felt like a piece of my childhood had been broken.
The way wool would appear from nowhere was akin to Santa arriving.
The vault door slid closed, locking us inside and protecting the Roberts women from eavesdroppers and enemies alike.
I shrugged. “I’m okay.”
Sophia snorted as my aunts settled onto their chairs. “You’re battling demons made by your flesh and blood,” she pointed out. “I would be more concerned if you were okay.”
I grimaced. “Fine. I’m coping.”
Dayna handed Liz the spare cup and tilted her head to look at me. “You wear the cloak of death.”
“As I’ve always done.”
“No, Abaddon’s power is divine and the link to the veil. Your ability to cross people over is a birthright. This new power is bigger, stronger, a brush with the world that rules the dead. It existed before Heaven and Hell and will endure long after those constructs fall.”
Silence settled around us as we absorbed Dayna’s words.
Aunt Sophia twisted her lips to the side. “She’s out for your blood, Cora. You not only stole what she believes is rightfully hers, but you wield it in a way she can only dream about.”
“Because she has twisted it to control souls, which isn’t what the source is about. If you try to manipulate it, it will retaliate. In another few weeks, the power will hollow her out, much like she has done to the army of elementals.”
“Do you think the trapped souls are elementals?” Dayna asked as she stroked a fertility statue.
“It’s a high probability, yes. They felt more than human. Don’t get any bright ideas,” I said with a pointed look at the artefact.
She smiled. “You don’t need any help in that area, Cora.”
Save me now. “A little privacy would be fantastic,” I uttered. “Between the attention from every faction, the stupidly large wedding and the preparations for it, and the impending war, I hardly think you can look forward to the pitter-patter of tiny feet.”
“If wars stopped children, then the population wouldn’t be at eight billion,” Liz said.
“I won’t be bringing a child into this world,” I reiterated before they started redecorating one of the rooms as a nursery.
“That’s not what Stella said,” Sophia mumbled.
I tipped my head back and closed my eyes. My Aunt Stella saw the world and the future in ways we couldn’t comprehend, but she was never wrong
“Stop catastrophizing,” Liz snapped. “She didn’t say right now.”
“Does it feel different?” Dayna asked. I opened one eye in question. “The power from Donn that you’ve accepted. I know on paper what I’m seeing is different in your aura, but if you can’t feel it, then you can’t use it.”
I swiped a hand down my face and straightened to face my family. “I feel connected.”
“To what?”
“To death and to what is beyond the veil. Angelic power gives me dominion over the soul at the point of death. It grants me a vision of a person’s life, their greatest triumphs, and their worst sins.
Donn’s power is like stretching a hand through that which divides us.
An ancient and absolute force that doesn’t rule but entwines the universe’s bonds. ”
“Wow,” Dayna whispered. “That is... wow.”
“It is,” I agreed. “But I don’t know how to use it.”
“You do,” Sophia corrected. “You just fear it.”
I scowled at her. She tutted and rolled her eyes.
Fearing death was not unreasonable. In fact, it was an instinct buried deep in our brains.
“Fine,” I conceded. “I don’t know how to use it without losing myself.”
“See?” Sophia said with a smile. “That is growth.”
Yes, yes, I’m all aligned now that I accept the fear. The war is won. Sound the trumpets and contact CNN.
“We can tell you’re thinking up a super-sarcastic response in your head,” Sophia said.
I folded my arms and huffed, but kept my silence. I was a grown woman with the weight of the world on my shoulders, but a scary aunt who used a crochet hook as a weapon of mass destruction could still chastise me.
A clatter sounded above our heads. We all raised our eyes and waited to see if it was a situation that required our presence, or if it was just the daily chaos that was living at Summer Grove House.
Silence, then a roar. Not Hudson, but full of violence.
With a sigh, we stood and filed out of the vault, my aunts trailing behind me as I bounded up the stairs.
Ezra had a guy pinned to the wall with a hand around his throat. Rebecca stood beside him, wearing a long, pale-blue silk and lace nightgown, her arms folded and her perfectly plucked eyebrow arched. “I have every right to take to my bed whomever I please. You don’t own me.”
Oh, boy. I had no patience for this.
I shot Hudson a look. He leaned against the wall with a foot braced against it, his posture relaxed and a lazy smile wreathing his face. “Are you going to do something?” I whispered as I approached him.
His hand snaked around my waist, and in a smooth move, he plastered my back against his chest and pinned me in place. “No, and neither are you.”
“He’s going to kill him.”
“Unlikely, since he didn’t make it to her bed. Ezra will probably let him go with a beating.”
Probably? Liz glared at Dave, and he rolled his eyes. Glad to see the idiot duo of shifters were back in sync.
“Wrong, princess,” Ezra growled. “And my bite marks on your body prove it, just like the telltale ones on mine.”
Rebecca threw her hands in the air. “I’m not made to be with one person. He is nothing more than an itch that needs scratching.”
“Then you scratch it with me,” Ezra snapped.
Rebecca took a step back, heading toward the stairs and no doubt prepping for a retreat.
Ezra growled, making her freeze. “Don’t run from me, Rebecca.”
She heard his warning and clenched her jaw.
The spirits openly gawked at the unfolding drama. I guess they had gotten used to not averting their eyes since the living couldn’t see them most of the time. The voyeur’s dream.
Ezra dragged in a breath before turning to the poor dude trapped against the wall. “I’m going to let you go, but you will get out of White Castle, no, out of Louisiana, and if you happen to see me heading down a street somewhere, turn your ass around and run.”
He shoved off the wall, and the man didn’t pause as he made his escape.
“That was rude,” Rebecca muttered. “He doesn’t even have his wallet.”
“He has his life,” Ezra snarled. “How much clearer do I need to be with you?”
She tilted her nose in the air. “You have been crystal clear and understood. I just don’t agree.”
He stalked her one step at a time until he’d backed her up against the wall. Maggie’s head popped out from behind the reception desk, her big brown eyes blinking at the show.
“What are you afraid of, Rebecca?” His soft voice was ten times more terrifying than his growly one. This was restrained violence wrapped in silk.
“Nothing,” she whispered.
His fingers wrapped around her chin, ensuring she couldn’t turn away from him. “You are running scared, princess, and it’s the thought of caring, of falling, and of being hurt that you fear.”
Rebecca’s eyes watered with unshed tears, but she didn’t deny it.
That was progress. The vampire princess believed she didn’t deserve something real.
I’d never gotten to the root of it, but I suspected it had everything to do with why she was hiding out in a different country at a bed-and-breakfast. Her parents knew where she was, but they knew they’d have to go through me to take her.
“You don’t scare me, Ezra. I could never fall for a pushy, growly, idiotic male with boundary issues.”
I begged to differ. They had a way of getting under your skin when you weren’t looking, and by the time you realized you’d lost your heart, it was too late.
Ezra grinned, all teeth, his energy rolling across the room in a wave that lifted the hairs on my nape. He turned to me. “Cora, I have paid for the room next to Rebecca’s for a year. Maggie can confirm.”
Rebecca shot Maggie a hurt look. Maggie raised her hands. “He paid double, and we have a wedding to pay for.”
She had a point, and there was no way Rebecca would move rooms, since it was the only suite in the house with a separate sitting area and a bathtub you could swim in. She was a sucker for long soaks in scented bubbles.
Rebecca’s mouth twisted, and something sharp and defensive hardened behind her eyes. “You don’t get to buy proximity and call it devotion,” she snapped. “I didn’t ask you to stay. I didn’t ask you to watch me. And I certainly didn’t ask you to care.”
Ezra didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just watched her like prey he’d already decided to protect, even if it hated him for it.
“Don’t mistake physical needs for emotional connection,” she continued, words coming faster now, brittle around the edges.
“I don’t want what you’re offering. I don’t want forever, or promises, or someone looking at me like I’m something that can be broken.
I am not built for soft landings, Ezra. I ruin things. People.”
Goodness me. What happened to you?
His jaw tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.
“So if you’re waiting for me to wake up one morning and decide I’m suddenly the kind of woman who settles,” she said, lifting her chin, “you’re going to be waiting a very long time.”
Silence fell heavily between them.
“I have all the time in the world, Rebecca, and I’ll be right here at your door, waiting for you to realize you aren’t at risk of falling—you’ve already taken the leap, and I caught you.
No, you don’t land with softness; you are a force of nature.
It’s time you started embracing your power and stopped hiding from the fight.
Your best friend is battling her own flesh and blood to save the world, and you are, what?
Sitting around and making wedding favors? Grow up and get up, princess.”
That hit hard.
Rebecca spun on her heel and started for the stairs, silk whispering with every furious step.
Halfway up, she paused, shoulders stiff.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she said without looking back.
“I’m afraid of being stupid enough to believe you.
” Then she swept up the rest of the stairs, head high, dignity intact, spine as rigid as the belief she didn’t deserve love.
Ezra watched her go, something dark and feral shifting in his eyes. A slow grin spread across his face. “I’m going to marry that vampire,” he declared.
Maggie let out a small, strangled sound. Hudson snorted. Liz muttered something about men being idiots, and Harry came barreling through the hallway wall like he’d forgotten it was there, tie crooked, hair disheveled, eyes wide with panic. I broke away from Hudson to face my chaotic ghostly friend.
“Cora,” he said, hands gesturing in waves like he was washing windows. “We have a pineapple situation, and I don’t mean the romantic kind. It’s coming for us. Something’s—”
“Calm down,” I whispered. We didn’t need to cause a spirit panic. I gestured to the stairs leading down to my office. He floated backward.
My foot caught on the edge of the rug, and I pitched forward. Instinct kicked in before thought, and I reached for the nearest anchor—Harry. My hands closed around his arms. What an idiotic thing to do. This was going to suck.
Pressure slammed into my mind, making me suck in a strangled breath. Heat surged up my spine, sharp and breathless, like plunging a hand into molten gold. Power roared through me, old and vast and answering something deeper than command.
Harry blew out a breath that swept across my cheeks. His hands wrapped around my waist, preventing me from tumbling. Real hands. Warm. Impossible.
The house groaned, and the spirits in the room recoiled.
Harry stared down at his hands, his eyes blown wide. “I—” He swallowed hard. “I can feel you.”
Silence swallowed the house whole.
My heart hammered, palms pressed against a body that very much should not exist.
I hadn’t brought him back—I had given him weight.
And death had noticed.