Chapter 20
Slade
Piper is still asleep. Curled on her side, hair a dark spill across her pillow, her amethyst pendant resting against her throat like a star that forgot it should be cold.
Newt sleeps on her ankles, paws twitching in feline dreams. The room hums faintly—her magic smoothing the air in slow, rhythmic pulses.
She looks… peaceful. Which is a lie. I can feel the curse moving under her skin, restless even in slumber. It beats against my senses like a second heartbeat, faint but insistent.
Piper’s phone vibrates on the nightstand. It’s Rhea—calling from Prague. At dawn. This can’t be good.
I step out of the bedroom and shut the door behind me.
“Piper,” she snaps the moment I answer, “wake up. We have a problem.”
“We have many,” I murmur. “Clarify yours.”
“You’re not Piper,” Rhea says with mild curiosity. “Where’s Piper?”
“Asleep.” I answer, tone clipped. I’m impatient, beyond ready to hear what is so… problematic.
She sighs heavily, “Fine. I suppose you’ll have to do. I met with my contact.”
That gets my attention. The antiquarian witch with a penthouse full of cursed books and very few survival instincts. If Rhea reached her at all, it means she’s already pulled favors that cost her something.
“What did she find?” I ask.
Rhea exhales—a blend of excitement and real fear. “The Bellamy curse isn’t limited to Christmas.”
Ice pours into my veins. “Explain.”
“It wasn’t just Veda,” she continues. “There were five sisters. Five bloodlines.” A rustle of papers. “They tied themselves—willingly or not—to the old pagan rites.”
“Which rites?”
“All of them,” she says sharply. “Lupercalia. Ostara. Summer Solstice. Samhain. Yule.”
A cold, heavy truth settles in my chest.
“Five pillars,” I say quietly. “Five rites. Five sisters.”
“Yes.” Rhea lowers her voice. “And every sister reacted differently to the original… event.”
Event. That word does not comfort me. “What event?”
“That’s what we don’t know yet.” Rhea’s voice tightens. “But the curse wasn’t a single spell gone wrong. It wasn’t an accident. It was a pact. A ritual. A sacrifice. Something they bound themselves to.”
I pace the living room, fingers flexing, magic simmering just under my skin.
“And Veda?”
“Veda wanted power,” Rhea says. “More than the others. Enough to sever her intended bond—with your ancestor. Enough to choose something darker.”
I stop pacing. Because darkness has a cost. It always has. “What did she choose?”
Rhea hesitates—way too long for my liking.
“Rhea,” I warn.
“We don’t know… yet,” she finally admits. “But whatever Veda bound herself to—it didn’t stay with her. It spread. It tied itself to every Bellamy born from those original sisters. All of them.”
The living room lights flicker.
Piper reacts even in sleep—her magic flaring, pulsing up through the floorboards, brushing against the edges of my senses. Rhea hears the silence. “Oh gods,” she whispers. “Slade. She’s reacting, isn’t she?”
“Yes. She’s reacting,” I admit quietly.
Rhea swears under her breath. “Slade, this isn’t just a Christmas curse. Or some holiday cycle. This is the entire wheel of the year. Every season. Every rite. Every ancestral thread that’s tied to the original sisters.”
My jaw tightens. This curse is bigger than her. Older than her. Hungrier than anything a mortal-born witch should ever have been asked to carry.
“What about Veda’s disappearance?” I ask. “Any record?”
“Just fragments,” Rhea says. “But one thing is clear… Veda didn’t simply vanish. Something took her. Or she willingly went to something no one else would follow.” She takes a shaky breath. “And Piper is the first Bellamy of our family to find her true mate.”
The lights surge. A low hum vibrates through the apartment. Piper shifts behind the closed door—half-asleep, sensing the rise in magic.
I force my own power down. “You cannot tell her all of this at once,” I say. “She’s not ready.”
Rhea scoffs. “She’s more ready than any of us.”
“No,” I snap. “She’s powerful, but she’s untrained. And if Veda’s darkness touched every sister’s bloodline, then the thing Piper awakened last night is not just ancient—it’s adaptive.”
Rhea goes silent. Then, softer, “She needs you, Slade.”
The words hit harder than they should. Because they’re true. The bond knows it. I know it. And now Rhea knows it. “I won’t let anything take her,” I say.
Rhea exhales. “Good. Because the next part is worse.”
“Rhea.”
“Your ancestor’s journals had an entry,” she continues. “A prophecy fragment. It said the Bellamy witch who reawakens the line will be the one who—”
Static crackles across the line. Interference? Something magical, maybe? “Rhea,” I say sharply. “Repeat that.”
The noise grows—“…the witch who—” …. “…balance or break—” …. “…Veda’s choice—” …. “…Slade, someone’s trying to—”
The call cuts. I stare at the phone, fury sharpening through my chest. Something—or someone—doesn’t want that prophecy spoken aloud.
The apartment door creaks open behind me. Piper stands there, sleepy, curls tousled, pendant glowing faintly against her throat. “What happened?” she whispers.
The curse hums. The bond pulls. And for the first time since she summoned me—I’m truly afraid of the thing waking inside her blood.
She feels it. The shift in the house, tension in the air, and the curse stirring like a creature rolling over in its sleep.
I don’t soften my voice. I can’t. “Rhea called,” I say. “From Prague.”
Her brow furrows. “Is she okay?”
“Yes.” No. Not really.
“She found answers,” I continue. “And we need to talk.”
Piper crosses her arms, chin tilting in that stubborn angle I’m already half in love with. “Talk about what?”
“The curse.”
Her breath catches, and I gesture toward the living room, toward the couch she likes to bury herself in when she’s overwhelmed. She doesn’t move. She’s bracing herself. “I’m fine right here,” she says.
Of course she is.
She wants walls. Distance. Time to prepare. But… There's no time for any of that.
“Piper,” I begin carefully, “the curse… it didn’t start with Veda alone. There were five sisters—”
She cuts me off with a sharp, incredulous laugh. “Five? As in… more than one crazy ancestor making bad decisions?”
“They weren’t decisions,” I correct. “They were rites, the old ones. Pagan, the ones bound to the wheel of the year.”
“That makes absolutely no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense,” I say. “For an ancient curse. For a bloodline that keeps producing witches powerful enough to attract attention—human and otherwise.”
Her jaw tightens. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this isn’t just a Christmas curse, Piper. It never was.”
She stares at me like I’ve kicked her chair out from under her.
“Rhea said the curse is tied to every major rite, every holiday our covens celebrate,” I continue. “Lupercalia. Ostara. Solstice. Samhain. Yule. All of them.”
She pales. “Meaning…?”
“Meaning your entire bloodline—every branch descended from those sisters—is bound. Not just you.”
Piper takes a slow step back. “My whole family,” she whispers. “All of them. All these years.”
“Yes.”
Her hands shake. She hides them in her sleeves. “And Veda?” she asks, voice tight. “What happened to her?”
“No one knows. But whatever she chose… it consumed her.”
Piper closes her eyes, shoulders trembling once. “I can’t do this,” she says softly. “Not right now.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I say. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
“Great,” she snaps. “So I’m on some cosmic timer?”
“You are.”
She glares at me. “Slade. You’re supposed to lie in moments like this.”
“I don’t lie.” Not to her.
Before she can argue, the front door unlocks—of its own accord. A swirl of frost-scented air sweeps through the apartment. And Rhea strides in. Hair wild from travel. Coat dusted with snow. Eyes sharp with knowledge she looks desperate to unload.
“How,” Piper croaks, “are you already HERE?”
“Private portal,” Rhea says simply. “I wasn’t going to trust that call to finish.” She sets her bags down and marches straight to us. “I heard the interference,” she says to me. “Someone does NOT want this prophecy spoken out loud.”
Piper swallows. “Prophecy?”
Rhea turns to her, expression fierce, almost protective. “You have until Christmas Eve.”
Piper freezes. Completely. “Until Christmas Eve to what?” she whispers.
“To decide,” Rhea says, voice low, “whether you accept the bond.”
My entire body goes still. Rhea continues, undeterred. “If you accept Slade—if you let the bond click into place—it will break the curse.”
Piper’s lips part. No sound comes out. “And if I don’t?” she finally manages.
Rhea’s expression darkens. “Then the curse will move on,” she says softly. “For another hundred years. Another cycle. Another generation of Bellamy witches.”
Piper stares at her cousin like the world is tilting sideways. “You’re telling me,” she says slowly, “that I have three—three weeks—to decide if I’m going to mate myself to a demon lord to stop an ancient bloodline curse?”
“Technically two and a half,” Rhea corrects.
Piper looks at me. And I feel the bond surge—raw, hot, too aware of her fear.
I take a step forward. “Piper,” I say gently, “this isn’t about forcing a bond. It’s about protecting you. Your family. Your power. Your life.”
Her eyes shine—not with tears, but fury. “Don’t,” she whispers. “Don’t make it sound noble.”
“It is.”
“It’s convenient,” she snaps. “You show up in my living room, tell me I’m your mate, then surprise—if I don’t agree by Christmas, I doom my family for another century.”
“It’s not convenient,” I say. “It’s cosmic alignment. Bloodline fate. A choice only you can make.”
“And if I choose wrong?”
“You won’t.”
My certainty only makes her angrier.
She storms past both of us, pacing the living room like she wants to rip the walls apart. Rhea watches her carefully, then shoots me a sharp glare—like she’s silently telling me not to make this worse. Finally Piper stops, breathing hard.
“So let me get this straight,” she says.
“I either let an ancient curse ruin another generation of Bellamy's… OR I give in to a fated bond I didn’t ask for?” She looks between us, scrunching her nose in frustration when she realizes we’re not contradicting her. “Some Christmas this turned out to be.”
The curse hums through the apartment—sympathetic, agitated, alive.
And for the first time… I see the moment Piper fully grasps the weight of what she carries. The moment she realizes fate isn’t something happening to her. It’s something demanding… from her.
And the worst part?
She might choose to walk away from me to spare herself the burden.
The lights flicker. The damned amethyst at her throat glows. And the morning begins with one truth beating through my chest…
She will choose. And I will not survive it if she chooses wrong.