Chapter 12 #3
“This is quite fun but my time here is limited.” Des shuts off his phone, and by the satisfied look on his usually walled-off face, I’m guessing he won whatever game he was playing.
Like a lifeline disintegrating right before my eyes, our connection is broken and Sage’s anger takes form by way of narrowed lids and curled lips. Fuck, I hate this.
“Hey, Des, do you by any chance know what makes her go from normal to feral for no apparent reason? I’m at a loss.” I’m expecting him to shrug it off and tell me to figure it out myself. Instead, he rises from his seat and walks the two steps over to the couch where the girls are sitting.
“Nothing I’ve ever heard of before. May I?” Placing his hand above Sage’s head, he waits for her consent—accompanied by an eye roll—before he bows his own and the room falls to complete and utter silence. No one moves, no one breathes, as if we collectively understand this part is important.
Two interminable minutes later, Des raises his hand off Sage and frowns. “Whatever it is, it’s not natural. It’s not born from her.” We don’t dare move, expecting him to elaborate, and thank fuck he doesn’t keep us in suspense. “My best guess is a hex.”
“So, let me get this straight. She’s cursed to die before she’s thirty and now she’s hexed with the sole purpose of hating me? That makes zero sense.” My mind is reeling trying to figure out who the fuck would do this to her. But the most crucial question is…why?
“With the sexual chemistry coming off the both you, I say fuck it out. At least that way you both get something good out of it.” Sage scoffs at Desdemon’s suggestion while I’m thinking it’s not the worst idea. “Another option would be Baba Yaga. That crazy old hag loves to be needed.”
I don’t remember her like that but Des probably knows more about her than I do.
“We’re not having sex. I can barely stand to be in the same room with him.”
I have to rein in my growl at Sage’s attack, reminding myself that Des can feel when shit’s not right and her feelings aren’t making a lot of sense.
“Petite Sorcière, you don’t need to like him to enjoy a good orgasm.” At his words, I rise to my full height and speak low enough that only he can hear.
“Drop the nickname.”
Instead of fearing me, Des rolls his eyes. “Demons are so sensitive.”
The Dei of vampyres may seem indifferent when he heaves a big, bored-sounding sigh, but he heeds my warning nonetheless and turns on his heel.
“Anyway, my work here is done. You two fuck or don’t, whatever. Danika, my darling, come with me before I go. I want to show you one last thing.”
As soon as Danika leaves with her brother, I take her place on the couch and stretch out Sage’s leg so her foot rests on my thigh.
“We’re not having sex.” She doesn’t look at me when she says it but when I inhale, her scent, like magnolia on a rainy day, tells a whole different story.
“I’ll follow your lead, Satapti.” I wink then add, “You know, I could take you to see her. Baba Yaga, I mean.” Her eyes light up and it reminds me of what innocence looks like before reality rips it apart.
“Really? You’d take me?” Fuck. How does she not know the answer to that. I want to tell her that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her. Nowhere I wouldn’t take her. No one I wouldn’t kill if it meant her safety. But instead, I tamp it all down and give her the simplest of answers.
“Yes.”
A few minutes pass in silence before she surprises me with her question. “Tell me about us. What are the best and worst moments together?”
I settle into the cushions, one hand holding the ice, the other soothing her shin with light caresses.
“The worst almost did me in, to be honest.” I can’t look at her when I start the story.
“On Hallow’s Eve is the moment the veil is the thinnest and our bond the strongest. One year, just as I was coming back from The Shade, our link was so strong it vibrated all through my body.
Gods, I remember the sheer euphoria at knowing you were back and old enough that I could feel you.
” When I dare look at her, she’s staring at me, immersed in the story.
“It’s not perfect science, there are a million variables to work with, but this one year, the bond was strong. Vibrant. Almost screaming inside me.”
“Like a fire?”
“No, more like a live wire. Electrifying.” She nods and I go back to my story. “I was in Georgia, we’d already bought our land by this time, although our homes were much smaller and, if I’m not mistaken, Slash and Pierce were rooming together while Pierce’s house was being built.”
“You all live around the lake, right?” I’m glad she listens.
“Yeah, and one day I’ll take you there. You’ve always loved it.
” I’m thankful she doesn’t reject the idea, that would be a first in my lifetime.
Little does she know, I’m a stubborn asshole and I’ve promised myself she’ll live a thousand lives before her thirtieth birthday and hopefully a thousand more after that.
“Hmm. Go on.”
“So I’m following the lead and it’s taking me on a criss-cross adventure up the east coast. From South Carolina to Florida, back to North Carolina then up to Maryland.
No matter my speed, it felt like it took me forever to make it up to Massachusetts.
” I stop talking, the memory ripping me apart all over again.
“What year was this?” Her question is whisper-soft like she already knows but hopes she’s wrong.
I don’t need to think about it because the date is carved into my memory. “Seventeen-eighty-one.”
She frowns and I know why, but my story’s not over yet.
“That’s when I realize you’re not on this continent and the link is pulling me across the Atlantic to the old country. To Ireland.” Sage is engulfed by my story and I’m not even sure she’s blinking as she waits for me to continue.
“Well? Tell me the rest, you’re killing me here.” She has no idea how true that is.
“You see, the world is divided into territories that have nothing to do with anthros borders, and everything to do with natural ones. Europe isn’t ours to roam, but for you, I didn’t fucking care.
I galloped in my demon form, with Cirrus taking us as fast as the slivers of light.
We were guided by the increasing warmth and the tightening pull inside my chest. I could feel you getting closer, I could almost taste you. ”
“Shit…wait. Seventeen-eighty-one, isn’t that…?” Her face is on point. She knows her witchy history and has figured it out.
“The Irish witch trials.” I can barely say the words, all these centuries later.
“That live-wire feeling almost electrocuted my heart when I finally made it to you.” I gulp down the bile that threatens to surface at the memory.
“I’ll never forget the image of you trapped, tied down against the wood pillar, the flames licking up your entire body, and just as I came to a complete halt, your eyes found mine.
Your soul recognized me, even in my demon form, and you…
smiled. Like you’d accepted your fate or something.
Like…we’d seen each other and it would have to be enough for the next decades to come. ”
“Oh, Zelos. I’m so sorry.” I blink out of the memory, realizing that my hand has gripped her leg, my fingers latched onto her calf as though somehow able to ground me from the devastation that still lives inside me.
“That night, the tradition for carving out pumpkins was born.” A slow grin rises on my lips and I don’t need a mirror to know it’s sinister and lacks any remorse.
“What? How?” Sage leans in as though my answer is akin to her next breath.
“Because I massacred every single being, anthros and supernatural alike, in the vicinity.” I still don’t know how they saw me in my demon form, but to be honest, I’m not sure I even tried to mask myself. My only goal was vengeance.
“For me?” One of her hands lands on mine and the warm touch of her gives me hope, it gives me life again.
“Always for you, Aiyana. Or Chosen. Or Sage.” It doesn’t matter who she is or when she is, everything I do is always going to be for her. “The only constant in my life…is you.”
The moment is broken when a well fed and alert Danika walks in with Desdemon from wherever they ran off to minutes ago.
“Aww, you look like you’re getting along.” On cue, Sage’s hand is off me as if she’d felt it pressed against a hot stove.
“It’s time for me to go but if you need—” Desdemon is cut off by the delighted squeal of another in our midst.
“Well, look at that! A demon, a vampyre, and a witch walk into a bar…”
Who the fuck is this crazy witch?