Page 33

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

W hen we reach my brother and Kit, it’s clear the shit has already hit the fucking fan.

It seems like almost two-thirds of my coven are here, all standing around in a large huddle of over a hundred witches. What’s worse is they’re inside of the damn barrier, like it hadn’t hindered them in the slightest. At the front of the group is our coven’s leader, Zenith, with Alina and Lorcan standing at her sides. I find it a little odd that the other coven elders aren’t present, but maybe they’re simply hiding out of sight.

Forrest is yelling at them as we approach, his threats cutting off as he realises they’re all staring behind him. Staring at me. Yup, get your looks in now at the freaky witch who got pregnant with demon spawn, because you’re not going to be here for long.

Suvi and Daion had joined us along the way, and so the six of us join Forrest and Kit, standing in a line together. Well, seven if you include the damn sprite who had stubbornly followed us and has taken to standing on my demon’s left shoulder. Ash keeps close to one of my sides, and Torrin takes the other, with Daion and Rio at his other side, staying as near as they can.

I open my mouth to demand what they’re doing here, despite already having a pretty good idea of it, but Suvi beats me to the punch.

“What happened to never bringing harm to another witch, or our duty to heal?” she snaps at our coven’s other few healers. They freeze, shock clear on their faces. I’m not sure if it’s her words or if it’s that she’s had the audacity to side with me, a demon-screwing heathen, and then berate them for their lack of ethics.

“We’re not here to cause harm,” a voice says, but it’s not one of the healers. My eyes dart to Alina, who is looking between my face and my stomach like she can’t believe what she’s seeing. The last time she’d seen me, my bump had been tiny, and now I look practically ready to burst. So, I suppose, her surprise makes sense, even if her words are complete fucking nonsense.

“It's a little hard to believe that when you’ve come after me and my unborn baby,” I retort furiously.

“We’re not coming after you. We’re here to help you,” she objects, a few members of the coven either echoing her words or nodding along.

Her mother, Zenith, is notably silent. She’s staring at my stomach almost covetously, and I don't think it’s because she’s looking to have more kids. If there’s something she desires, I'd bet on it being power, which is extremely bad news for me.

“And my baby?” I question, my eyes flickering between Alina and Zenith.

“Your…it’s not a normal baby, Eden,” Alina replies hesitantly, shifting her weight between her feet, clearly not having expected the protest. “You have to understand that, right? They will put us all in danger, including you and your family. It’s more like you’ve been infected with a demon parasite.”

“Is that what you actually believe? That my child is just a demonic parasite? Because I can assure you, this is a baby. My baby. So what if they’re half-demon? Are you conveniently forgetting they’re also half-witch? That there are also plenty of demons who come to Earth and don’t cause any problems?”

“It’s what…” she trails off, looking at her mother, who catches the imploring eyes of her child and sighs deeply.

“You may be carrying the spawn, but the reality is that they will grow to be both powerful and extremely unstable, more so than a regular demon. All of their kind who have been allowed to live have caused chaos ever since the very first put our two species at odds. It is for the good of our entire community that this must be done.”

I wish I could point out that it’s untrue, that I could tell them all I've met a hybrid, and they live a somewhat normal life as a demon hunter. I can’t expose Daion’s secret, though. Especially not if the information could end up being discovered by Paimon. I want to scream at them for being ignorant, but seeing as everyone’s talking, maybe there’s still a chance to end this without resorting to hurling spells and fists at each other.

I’m worried about Forrest having to clear over a hundred dead bodies off the property, because if they attack, that's what will happen. We might be outnumbered, but they’re outmatched. I don’t know the full extent of Ash’s abilities, but I do know he’ll protect me and our child with all he’s got. Between him, and three demon hunters who are used to going up against opponents with far more raw strength and magical power, this isn’t going to be the easy win the coven thinks it is.

“There’s no guarantee they’ll end up like the others, and who knows if the records are even fully accurate? Maybe there have been others too, and we just don’t know about them because they never went mad or caused any trouble and instead stayed in hiding,” I respond, attempting to meet the eyes of as many of them as I can, hoping to make some at least consider the weight of what they’re attempting.

“I don’t see how you can be here to help Eden when you’re also clearly here with the intention to kill her unborn child. There’s no way to do one without the other,” Suvi points out, crossing her arms over her chest as she glares at the coven members. She’s pissed, and an angry Suvi is scary enough when no one’s threatening to kill me.

“You’re wrong,” Alina disagrees, her eyes rimmed red, shaking her head and grabbing her mother’s arm, tugging it like an unruly toddler. “Tell them what you told us.” She sounds desperate, and it’s getting on my fucking nerves. Why the hell is she upset? She’s here to kill my baby.

“Alina, sweetheart,” Zenith says slowly as if she’s trying to sound gentle, yet it comes off as discomfitingly patronising regardless. “I know what I said before, but I just couldn’t bear to see you so upset. At your age it can be difficult to understand the necessity of sacrifice?—”

“No!” Alina snaps, cutting her mother off, her desperation reaching new levels as she glances over to me again. “You said you could remove the child without hurting her. That you’d found a way. It’s what you told all of us! If we can’t do it without killing her, you can’t seriously want to go through with this? Why not simply wait until it’s born?”

Oh, because killing the baby once it’s born is so much fucking better?

“Even if you could, I wouldn’t let you,” I interrupt before Zenith can answer. I have to bite back my words before I tell her that I would rather rip her eyes out of their sockets and feed them to her mother. Somehow, I don’t imagine that would help with defusing the current situation.

“But—”

“What if someone wanted to hurt your cousin’s baby?” I demand, racking my memory to remember the girl’s name. “Raya,” I whisper, my brain finally clicking. “What if someone wanted to hurt Raya’s baby? Would you help them if they told you the child would grow up to be unstable, with no actual evidence that it’s a guaranteed outcome? No real proof?”

“I-I don’t…Raya’s child is just a regular witch,” Alina objects, but she looks uncertain, like the doubts are beginning to get to her. Maybe those doubts are reaching the others, too? I see the way some of them shift, glancing between each other.

“And regular witches have never been unstable?” Torrin asks. “I could name a few from history, and I’m sure most of you can think of at least one. Should Raya’s baby not be killed for the same reasons? What gives her the right to live, but not Eden’s?”

“That’s a bullshit comparison,” Lorcan’s scornful voice chimes in. “Witches don’t have the same capacity for destruction. You shouldn’t argue with Zenith, Alina. She’s our coven’s leader as well as your mother.”

“Who the hell do you think you are to tell me that, Lor?” Alina hisses at him, leaning around her mother to glare his way. She’s beginning to fray around the edges. Is the thought of killing an innocent baby finally getting to her?

He narrows his eyes at her, opening his mouth to reply, when another member of the coven chimes in with their own concerns. As if their questioning of the situation had ungagged everyone else, the entire coven appears to dissolve into arguments. It’s almost nice to know that not every single member of the coven wants me dead or agrees with killing my baby for simply existing. If it wasn’t for the majority still at least being in favour of getting rid of the dangerous hybrid.

“How did they get past the barrier?” I turn to ask my brother quietly while they’re distracting themselves, a nagging thought spiking my anxiety, causing my heart to race.

“Our parents’ blood,” he answers grimly, and now it feels like my heart will pound out of my chest. “Apparently they’re alive and just being ‘kept safe’ by some of the other coven elders.”

“Absolute fuckers,” I mutter back, furious at them for hurting my family. They’re lucky my parents are still alive.

“We’ll get them back,” Forrest promises, his husband nodding beside him as he offers a supportive glance my way.

“ENOUGH!” Zenith shouts, putting her power into the command, forceful enough to cause several close to her to physically stumble under the weight of it. She looks over at us. “You will hand over Eden for judgement by her coven, as is our way.”

Rio scoffs, and I don’t know if I find the semi-feral smirk on his face scary or sexy. I’ll need to examine my reaction to the bloodlust in his eyes later.

“I quit, actually. Didn’t you get my letter?” I question sarcastically, hearing a muffled snort from one of the guys. Probably Torrin. The thought makes me smile, just a little. My playful pie-bearing protector. His timing isn’t the best, but he’s cute; I’ll give him that.

“You will either hand her over or we will take her by force,” she continues, ignoring my words and addressing the men around me instead. These fuckers brought a coven to a demon fight. I know most of those people and have for years. Lorcan is so weak that I wonder if he can even light a candle with his pitiful magic…

“No,” Alina objects before any of us can tell Zenith to go fuck a cactus, stepping back from her mother and closer to us. I can’t see her face, but I see the way her head tilts up in defiance. “I won’t do it.”

Huh. I didn’t think she had it in her.

“Me either,” one of the healers about our age agrees as he goes to stand near Suvi, giving her an apologetic smile, even as Rio snarls at him for getting close.

“Idiot,” she mutters as he reaches her, smacking his arm and then rolling her eyes. Interesting. I clock the interaction with some curiosity, but it’s hardly the time to question my friend on it now.

To Zenith’s obvious disbelief and fury, more members slowly trickle over to our side. Some also turn to leave, clearly deciding it’s better not to get involved at all in this mess. Still, they have the numbers when everyone seems to settle where they stand on the whole murdering me thing. I try not to let it upset me. It’s not as if I’ve managed to get close to these people in the few years I’ve been a part of their coven. It’s a miracle any of them decided to join us. Lifelong teachings don’t easily crumble under one conversation, so the fact that any of them realised they’re wrong is sort of a miracle.

Some people insist on clinging to their lack of knowledge and insist on holding faulty beliefs close to their chest, rather than face the reality that what they believe might be wrong. No one wants to admit they’ve been fooled so easily, so I’m grateful to the ones who grew a spine, even if it was just to walk away.

While we’re still outnumbered by at least three to one, it’s gone from eight or nine of us—depending on whether or not you count the field sprite—to nearly around twenty-five or so. All of the healers had notably either joined us or left, and I can’t help but think I have Suvi to thank for most of the support that’s come our way. Alina stays standing in the middle, back to us as she faces her mother and the group still standing with her, clearly not done with trying to convince her to stop this.

“Please don’t do this,” Alina pleads. Confronting not only everything she’s been taught but also the woman who raised her.

“Are you really willing to defend against them?” Daion’s voice comes quietly from my left at the same time, where he’s questioning those who crossed the invisible line. I catch murmurs of agreement and some more whispering, but I trust Daion to deal with it as I refocus on Zenith. She’s not backing down, and I don’t like the way she’s looking at me. Super fucking creepy.

“Sweetheart, of course I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you,” she says, opening her arms.

Alina takes an uncertain step forward, and Zenith abruptly grabs her arm, pulling her close and pressing her fingers to her forehead, hissing a spell. Alina drops against her mother, unconscious.

She only remains there for a moment before she’s handed off to one of the other witches at Zenith’s side with the order, “Take her away. I’ll deal with her later.”

It’s at that moment I realise something odd. Lorcan isn’t by Zenith’s side, but I know he hadn’t joined us, that he’d never. I also doubt he’d just leave…

“Did she really just do that?” the healer who’d joined us asks disbelievingly.

“Only just now noticing Zenith’s a total bitch?” Suvi questions him right back.

Feeling a prickling sensation roll down my spine, I turn around, but there’s nothing. I’d dismiss it as paranoia, but the last time I did that, I was wrong. I nudge Ash and quietly whisper, “Something’s wrong.”

He nods, then detaches himself from my side as he scans the area behind us, trusting the others to have the threat coming from the front. The sprite on his shoulder suddenly screams. A hand lands on my wrist, and I turn to see which of the guys grabbed hold of me, only to find myself face to face with Lorcan.

How the fuck did he sneak up on us?

“Surprise,” he taunts, and then we’re falling, my stomach lurching at the odd sensation.

A moment later, we land roughly on a patch of grass that’s been encircled with a braided rope, with none of the others in sight.

He drops a piece of blackened rope he’d been holding in his other hand, and I barely resist the urge to snort at the sight of it. The method of teleportation he’s used is rudimentary, nothing like the tunnelling technique used by Paimon when he abducted me. It’s not even comparable to my family’s return key. A pre-set single-use charm only capable of transporting to one predetermined location. A location that can’t even be too far away, given the spell’s limits.

It takes a moment for me to realise where we are, roughly only a twenty-minute or so walk beyond the boundaries of the property, but the rocks are familiar. A few large slabs of limestone and other chunks of rocks are scattered all across the field. Whatever this place once was has been long forgotten, but to me, it was a place to explore as a kid. One of the few outdoorsy spaces I’d liked, and now I’m sure Lorcan’s about to ruin it for me.

I yank myself free from his grip on my wrist and slowly back away. “I don’t suppose you’ve brought me here to save me out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Sadly not,” he replies with a disturbing smile, turning his head as Zenith appears beside us. His eyes light up when he sees her, and something about it twists my stomach. At least, I hope it’s just that which is making my stomach clench and turn.

I back away faster as the pair suddenly embrace.

Goddess, that’s disgusting. She’s old enough to be his damn mother.

I’m about to turn and run when I smack into an invisible barrier. I reach out with my magic to feel the space around me, finding that this section of the rock-covered field is entirely encased in a bubble. They’ve already set up a barrier. Fuck.

A cold feeling wraps around me as I’m yanked off my feet by Zenith’s magic, her hand outstretched in my direction. She flings me down onto the nearest slab of limestone, a cry of pain escaping my lips as I hit it. Hard. Before I can recover, they’re pulling out bindings from behind the rock and strapping me down to it with a mixture of the ropes and the magic twisted into them.

I feel tears streaking down my face.

“You planned for this. All of it,” I accuse them as I struggle to break free, but I'm outnumbered, pregnant, and they’re far too prepared. I can’t escape no matter how hard I try.

“Of course. We’d be fools to allow such an opportunity to pass by, to let such power go to waste,” Zenith replies blandly, like she’s discussing the damn weather or something. Not my fucking murder.

“Hypocrites,” I hiss furiously.

“Hardly,” Locan huffs. “Don’t worry, Eden, we’ll put this abomination's power to good use. Unlike them, we’re not predisposed to insanity and rampages.”

“What’s your fucking excuse for being so unhinged then?” I ask sarcastically, trying to ignore the cramping feeling clenching my stomach.

This isn't happening. Not yet.

His hand smacks against my cheek a split second later, sending my head rolling to the side, scraping onto the rock’s surface. The result leaves both sides of my face stinging like they were the one slapped.

“You hit like a six-year-old girl,” I inform him, unable to resist the jibe, even in my current circumstances. He doesn’t scare me the way Paimon had. Compared to him, Lorcan’s just an arrogant little bastard with unchecked delusions of grandeur.

He raises his hand to smack me again, but Zenith catches it.

“There’s no need for that, now is there, darling?” she asks charmingly, one eyebrow raised as she looks at him. “We need her alive for the sacrifice. Wasting the power lashing out in anger would be pointless. You’ll be putting a dagger into her soon enough.”

A dagger? Oh, I really don’t like the fucking sound of that…

I may not be afraid of Lorcan, but a dagger? Of dying? Of them killing my baby? Those things make me feel both furious and terrified.