Page 91 of Which Witch is Willing?
Aerin nodded. “Yeah, I’m following.”
“Excellent,” He continued. “Real sacrifice, I’ve learned, is painful. Often not physically, but on a deeply individual level. It is usually a mechanism for personal growth and change. It often galls you or humiliates you or, at the very least, humbles you. Humility, I gather, is neither of our strong suits.” He threw her a cheeky smile, evoking her to answer with one.
“That it is not, sir.”
Barriston took in a breath of the fragrant night and peered up at the moon for an appreciative moment, finding beauty, it seemed, even in the blood. “It seems to me, if the devil is building an army, so must you all. And… it strikes me as odd, that Port Townsend is full of witches who can’t seem to work together. Does that seem right to you?”
Gall rose in Aerin’s esophagus as she narrowed her eyes and shook her head at him. “I hate you right now.”
He grinned. “Because I’m right?”
“Because you’re… not wrong.”
He leveled her a cheeky wink paring it with a what-can-you-do shrug. “Sometimes the answer isn’t bending the world to your will, but bending your will for the sake of the world.”
Drawing up to the mansion, she put her hand on the gate. “I’m going to go get drunk,” she announced, “Would you like to join me?”
“I’d be delighted!” His merry eyes twinkled and he gestured expansively for her to go before him. “Maybe I inquire as to the occasion?”
“I need to fortify myself if I have to go make peace with a bunch of bitches tomorrow.”
“Don’t you mean witches?” he clarified.
“No, Sir Barriston. No, I do not.”
43
From her hidden vantage, Lucifer watched the de Moray witches approach the Raven Rook Inn where the coven gathered. They waked in a triangle formation around Moira, as if to shield her gigantic belly from the world.
Human gestation was so disgusting.
They’d come for a reckoning.
She pondered the monstrous book ill-concealed beneath Moira’s jacket.
About just how many holy books were full of lies about her.
Except for one thing.
The Devil used to be an angel.
Well, kind of. Not like a wings and seraphim angel, but celestial in the way of the Horsemen and beings of their ilk. An extra creation of the Goddess. Favored. Blessed.
Necessary.
Once upon a time, Lucifer had been a title rather than a name. She was the MorningfuckingStar.
Until her star had fallen.
She’d only wanted to help, at first. Had looked forward into eternity, locked in a struggle for balance against the originalTugadh Solas. The Bringer of Light. She hated their destiny, to be eternally balanced.
Even though he’d loved her.
Adam.
She’d begged him to change, and he wouldn’t listen to her. No one listened. No one cared in those days to change or question anything. Humans had been happy frolicking about in their Eden, naked and ignorant. They’d reveled in the light of her lover, basked in it, letting it warm their skin and nourish their souls.
And they feared her darkness. Feared the power she wielded and the way she hid the truth from the light. They hunkered down and covered their heads, turning away from the night and all her beautiful creatures. All her terrible secrets. For the dark is where sins were committed and things were concealed.
