Page 62 of Blood of Night (The Thorne Hill)

“I know. The other Horsemen were too strong. We couldn’t have fought them without help.” I sniffle and sit up, cupping Lucas’s face with one hand. “Maybe if we can get my dad and Lucifer and Osiris all together, we can kill the Horsemen.”

“Maybe. But if you’re able to rally an army like that, you should go after Paimon.”

“You sound like my friends.” I run the palm of my hand over the stubble on Lucas’s face. “They basically said I should see Osiris taking the deal as a good thing.”

“Callie, they’re right. It is a good thing. We faced the Horsemen one at a time and lost. They were too powerful a weapon to be in the hands of a demon.”

“But in the hands of a God?”

“I may not trust Osiris, but I do believe he has no intention of destroying the world,” Lucas tells me. “Julian…he thought this through and wouldn’t have made the deal if he didn’t think we could trust Osiris.”

Tears roll down my face and I wish more than anything we could go back in time. If I hadn’t knocked Famine off the horse, if Osiris had taken all the Horsemen and Lucas was here with me, we would be celebrating. Iwouldbe coming up with an annoyingly dangerous and heroic plan to bust into Hell and kill Paimon.

And Lucas would be by my side.

“I don’t care about anything but getting you back. I’m not losing you again.”

“You have to care, my love,” he says gently and brushes my hair back. “Paimon was going to burn all the divinity in your body and use the little bit Juliet had inside of her. How do we know that’s still not his plan? He could be biding his time in Hell, waiting until she’s older before he strikes.”

“I can’t do it without you.”

“Yes, you can.”

“But I don’t want to.” My throat tightens and my body shakes with a sob. “Please don’t make me.”

“Callie,” Lucas says, and his own voice breaks. “You are the strongest person I know.”

“Then I’ll be weak. If that’s what will make you stay.”

“My love,” he whispers and stops, pressing his forehead against mine. I silently cry, not wanting to wake Juliet. Lucas kisses my forehead and gets up, carefully putting Juliet in her swing. He turns on the music and a soft lullaby that starts playing.

He comes back to bed and pulls me to him, laying us both down.

“I’m never letting you out of this bed,” I tell him, pulling a blanket over us both.

“Normally, I’d take you up on that offer. Though never leaving bed means you’re open to trying—”

“No butt stuff,” I say and laugh. Lucas kisses me and holds me tight against him. I splay my fingers over his chest, finding comfort in the way it doesn’t rise and fall.

“How did you come across a djinn?” Lucas asks, amusement in his voice. He pulls up my shirt and starts rubbing my back.

“In my attempt to find the oracle, I kinda went into crazy research mode, if you’d believe it.”

“You? No?”

I smile and let my eyes fall shut as I slowly rake my fingers up and down Lucas’s arm. “That Egyptologist you’d been emailing sent another email saying they had an object they thought to be cursed and hired the fucking Order to come get it. So, I had Easton help me break into the warehouse where they house said cursed things and a djinn bound to a ring attached itself to one of us. I’m not really sure who. We were both stuck in the same wish-mare. It’s what I’m calling it since it was like a nightmare form of a wish gone wrong.”

“Whose wish was it?”

“Easton’s. But I knew it wasn’t real and I kept going back to you. It’s how I was able to pull myself out. Though wish-Lucas did kill me once.”

“That had to have been disturbing,” he says slowly.

“Not as disturbing as knowing if I wasn’t born with magic, I’d work an office job.”

“I can’t see you any other way.”

“I don’t want to be any other way.” Sleep starts to take hold of me. “Easton’s fine, by the way. I know you’re so worried.”

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