Page 7 of Bad Demon

I forced myself to clamp my mouth shut when the urge to call bullshit was overwhelming, but again, why would she lie? Even if what she’d said seemed utterly insane, I wanted to hear what she had to say. I also wanted to get out of here in one piece.

“I might have been exiled, but I’ve kept tabs on my family,” she said. “Until you vanished, that is. Your mother mated in secret, and she conceived soon after, right before the coven found out about her mate.”

A cold blast hit me, making me shiver.

“They would’ve had to have murdered him, like my own father. A demon as powerful as that, he would’ve wiped out the entire coven before he let them take his female away from him. Your mother didn’t know she was with child though, and the pain of losing her mate was unbearable, enormous, so incredibly strong that it created violent magical and demonic power surges inside her. She was forced to lock them down, to hold it in, or risk exile. Your sisters didn’t survive it, but their powers, their magic, did, and with nowhere else to go, you absorbed them all.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “That can’t be true … it can’t be.”

“I don’t tell pork pies, child.”

Fear churned inside me. “But I don’t have any powers.”

“They’re untapped—that’s all. And for now, that’s what’s keeping you safe.”

“Safe? Without powers, I’m a sitting duck. I have no real way of protecting myself.”

“Is your store and your home warded?”

“Yes.”

She nodded. “Good, because until I know more about the kind of power you have, it’s far more dangerous to set them free. Luckily, with all that powerful demon blood, you’re immortal. Just don’t lose your head, and you’ll be okay.”

I’d already figured out the immortal part for myself. A being couldn’t go through all I had and survive, but death wasn’t the worst that could happen to someone—I knew that firsthand. And everything else she’d told me? It definitely wasn’t the information I’d come here for.

I came here for help; now the ground under my feet felt even shakier than before. “What do I do?”

“No idea. Never thought I’d encounter a threeling. In this, my knowledge is limited. I’ll need to do some poking around. Come back this time next week, and maybe I’ll have something for you.” She stood.

My mind was in a whirl with everything I’d learned. “Thank you, Agatheena.”

“You can repay me by bringing me another offering,” she said, then shoved something into my hand. “Protection. Carry it when you move through the forest or when you leave the safety of your ward. It needs to have contact with your skin.”

She opened the door. Magic coiled around me tight, and then I was dragged out by invisible hands.

I all but flew down the path and was expelled from her property, tossed onto the ground.

Oof. I quickly got to my feet and brushed the dirt off my ass as I searched the trees around me.

A roar echoed through the forest close by. Agatheena said the charm she’d given me would keep me safe, but I wasn’t risking it, and I took off at a jog, heading back the way I’d come.

ChapterTwo

RELIC

Warrick’s phone chimed,and our alpha frowned down at the screen.

“What’s going on?”

“Lucifer.” Warrick glanced up, running a hand down his beard. “He wants to meet, says he’ll come to us.”

That wasn’t normal. Lucifer didn’t leave Hell often, not after his son had locked him out a while back, trying to overthrow him.

“I’ll contact Maddox. He might know what this is about,” Warrick said.

Maddox commanded our brothers in Hell for our alpha. War made regular visits, keeping an eye on things, but we’d left in Lucifer’s absence, refusing to serve his twisted son. After spending my entire life in Hell, it turned out I liked it up here a whole lot more, and so did my brothers. War had made a deal with the king of Hell; some new hounds were created, and we’d hung around, training them up so there were enough of us to keep the demons there under control. Now, we took shifts, ensuring we always had several of us older hounds in Hell to make sure nothing went tits up below ground.

I planted my hands on my hips. “He say when he’s coming?”

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