Chapter 12 THE DEVIL’S BARGAIN #2
Anita scoffed at him. “The Order has spent millennia positioning themselves as saviors while systematically eradicating anything they deemed unholy. As you well know. How many covens have they burned? How many supernatural bloodlines have they driven to extinction?” She paused, her gaze sweeping across the room as though we were all exhibit A.
“And yet we’re the villains in your story? ”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” said Gabriel, not budging.
“Trust has nothing to do with this, brother. Only that we have the same goal. Protecting the child.”
“And what happens when this is over? What’s to stop them from turning on her the second she’s no longer useful?”
“What’s to stop you?” Arianna spoke for the first time, her voice softer than I expected. Musical, almost. She tilted her head, those amber eyes still fixed on me. “She’s already killed me once, and yet here I am, standing in your living room, willing to help.”
“Exactly my point,” retorted Gabriel, his arms folded across his chest as he studied her. “She killed you, yet you wish to help her? You. Dark Casters. Forgive me if I doubt your intentions.”
“Please. Spare us the righteous outrage,” sneered Annabelle, curling her lip at him. “If we were here to finish her off, she’d already be dead.” Her gaze slid to me, cool and assessing. “And clearly, she isn’t. Mostly anyway.”
“As if you’d be able to walk out of here alive,” warned Tessa from the chair by the fireplace. She looked exhausted. Completely worn out. But her eyes were on the sisters like daggers.
Annabelle gave her a lazy once-over. “I’m truly trembling.”
“I don’t like this.” Gabriel exhaled sharply, the tension in his shoulders never wavering. “After everything that’s happened, you expect us to believe you’re here out of the goodness of your hearts?”
“Of course not,” replied Anita, seemingly disgusted by the thought of it. “We’re here because she stopped a Horseman. That changes things.”
“How so?” Gabriel demanded.
Annabelle sighed, already bored. “She wants the child alive. So do we. The Order wants him erased, and they’re willing to burn her down to accomplish it. That makes us aligned.”
“And when the alignment ends?” asked Gabriel, needing to understand the ins and outs before he could even consider willingly entering into an arrangement with the She-Devils.
Dominic's lips curved into a humorless approximation of a smile. “We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”
Annabelle snorted. “Call me crazy, but I like him.”
Arianna shot her an irritated look while Anita ignored both of them. Her eyes were trained on me, moving thoughtfully over the dark lines spidering all over my skin, on the way I sagged into Trace’s hold, on the way my eyes refused to stay focused on any one thing.
When she finally spoke, her tone had lost some of its roughness from before. “It’s up to you whether you want our help or not. But I assure you, the spell rot won’t stop on its own,” she informed evenly. “Not without our help.”
I tried to speak, but all that came out was a weak rasp that didn’t even sound like a human noise.
Trace’s hand immediately came up to cradle my face, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone as he read through my thoughts like a book only he understood now.
He listened for a bit and then looked back at the sisters. “She wants to know what you want in return,” he said, his jaw muscle feathering as everyone turned to face us. “Nothing comes free with you three. So what’s the price?”
“We want the same thing she wants,” said Anita, her eyes never leaving me. “The child protected. The Horsemen stopped. The Order’s hold broken.” She took a single step forward, and I felt Trace tense beneath me. “We save her, she helps us accomplish that goal. Simple as that.”
Gabriel made a scoffing noise at the back of his throat, but it didn’t deter Anita.
“Despite her current predicament, she’s still the only one uniquely positioned to do what we’ve been trying to do for decades.
The Order fears her. The Horsemen are connected to her.
And if she survives this—” She gestured vaguely in my direction like that was still up for debate, “—she’ll be powerful enough to actually make a difference. ”
“If she survives,” repeated Tessa, not missing the modifier. “That’s looking like a pretty big if right now.”
“Which is why we’re here.” Anita’s tone sharpened, impatience bleeding through. “You want her alive. We want her alive. Dominic was smart enough to see that our interests align. The only question now is whether the rest of you are going to waste what little time she has left arguing about it.”
I didn’t trust them. Not Anita with her cold calculation. Not Annabelle with her barely concealed contempt. Not even Arianna with her knowing gaze that felt like it could see straight through me.
But I was literally dying. And they were the only option we had left.
Drawing in a shallow breath, I squeezed Trace’s hand weakly, letting the bond carry the decision I’d already made.
Trace didn’t hesitate.
“She said she’s in,” he told them calmly. “Just tell us what we need to do to stop this.”
Anita’s posture shifted—a subtle pivot that reminded me of a predator getting confirmation of the kill. Somehow, I doubted that was a good thing though.
“Right now, the problem is she’s simply carrying far too much power for one vessel to contain,” she began, her tone clinical and stripped of all niceties.
“Slayer abilities, Nephilim blood, and now the Horsemen’s power—three of the most volatile forms of magic in existence, all converging in a single body.
” Her gaze traced the black veins clawing up my throat again.
“Unfortunately for her, absolute power corrupts. And I don’t mean figuratively.
The magic is eating her alive because it has nowhere else to go. ”
“We’re aware. Caleb figured as much,” said Gabriel, jerking his chin to Caleb who stood quietly off to the side with Carly and Morgan.
She didn’t bother to glance in their direction. “Then you understand that the only way to stabilize her is to redistribute the load. To reallocate enough of it that her body can process what remains.”
“How do we do that?” asked Tessa, breathless.
“By tethering her to one of you.” Anita’s eyes swept the room again, pausing on everyone as if to evaluate their worthiness. “An anchor strong enough to take on the excess magic and bleed it off safely. This way, the load is split. The corruption slows and eventually, balances itself out.”
“The stronger the anchor, the better this works,” added Annabelle, her brow arched high. “Weaklings need not apply.”
I absorbed their words in numb, disjointed pieces, trying to force them into some kind of sense.
They wanted to temporarily tether me to someone else so the magic inside me had somewhere to go.
Somewhere else to spread. Just enough to stop it from killing me.
It sounded like it could work. Maybe. I just had no idea if something like that was actually possible. Or safe for that matter.
Before anyone else could speak, a chair scraped loudly against the wood floor, drawing everyone’s attention to my sister who was now standing by the fireplace.
“I’ll do it,” she said, lifting her chin. “I’ll be her anchor. I don’t care what it costs me as long as it keeps her alive.”
“That’s a nice sentiment, but it can’t be you, Slay Belle,” informed Annabelle, looking amused by something.
“Excuse me?” Tessa’s eyes narrowed on her with anger. “Why the fuck not?”
Annabelle’s smile widened just enough for us to know it was meant to be cruel. “Because, duh. You’re with child.”
All the blood drained from Tessa’s face as the room plunged into a silence so complete it felt like the floor had vanished beneath us.
What the fuck did she just say?