Page 87 of Hell to Slay

As I told her about Nico teleporting us in just in time to see the explosion, she smiled sadly. “My mother was there… she helped me when the devil tried to possess me. I couldn’t have done it without her.”

I squeezed her forearm, rubbing circles with my thumb. “I’m so glad she was there when you needed her.”

Her sad eyes lifted to mine. “She gave us her blessing, you know. I still want to talk to her on Samhain, but… I don’t feel tied here anymore.”

Jax’s eyebrows raised. “We can figure out where we go from here later. We’re just glad you’re okay, kitten.”

“I’m okay.” She lifted her chin for another kiss, and Jax obliged. Then she added, “And I’m ready for a change of scenery.”

Jax looked around the hospital and nodded. “Me too.”

She swatted at him. “I meant, I’ll consider moving out West with you all.”

I dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “You won’t miss the Roost?”

“Not when I have the three of you instead.”

I heard fabric sliding, and an orange and black shape came careening toward the bed. I whirled before realizing it was only Tempest.

She landed lightly on the railing at Mel’s bedside, her body going up in flames.“The four of us, you mean,”the demon corrected.

Mel chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’d never leave you behind.”

That seemed to reassure the little hellfox, and she banked her flames as Mel ran her hand over her spikes.

“You’re definitely coming with us, little demon.”

“Good.”Tempest let out a contented sigh inside our minds before curling up in the blankets at Mel’s hip.

Only a few minutes later, Nico arrived, and the Wildes coven wasn’t long after.

Rye started his shift and checked her thoroughly, both with magic and without. Then he officially discharged Mel.

He smiled at Mel and Nimue, who was sitting on her bed. “We’re all glad you’re healing, Mel. Now, take this party somewhere else!”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Mel

A week after the Charlotte threshold shrank back to its original size, we arrived to the newly restored park in Uptown. Hudson, Jackson, and Nico were dressed in suits that made them all look like my bodyguards. With access to healers, both Jax and I were in tip-top shape for today’s ceremony.

There was a crisp chill in the air as most demon hunters from the agency plus many more covens gathered. There were even a few regs looking nervous and stiff in the front rows of seats facing a very traditional metal stage that had very traditional stairs leading up to it. I guess we didn’t want to make the reg authorities even more nervous by having earth elementalists raise them up to an earthen platform like we did for most witch ceremonies.

To me, it felt like graduation all over again. Except it was completely the wrong time of year — it wasn’t Beltane. We were only a few days away from Samhain, and it made me curious why Bao Preta, the new DHA director, hadn’t simply waited until then to roll all of this into one big ceremony.

That was the other thing that was strange about all of this… the location.

After the Year of Rending brought the infernal threshold all the way east past Graham Street, the first containment wall had been placed along Tryon Street. But as the threshold slowly expanded in the years since, regs had been forced to move the wall ever further east, to Caldwell Street. Which had necessitated closing most of the skyscrapers and high rises many Charlotteans had once called home.

Uptown had become a ghost town, and businesses had moved to other parts of the city, like South End, or to safer neighboring cities. The metropolitan area had been changed forever.

And now, it would change again, this time for the better.

To the west and north, the city was leveled, and the scorched earth still clearly showed that this area had once been on the wrong side of the infernal threshold. Yet we were standing in a green oasis amid the post-apocalyptic landscape. From the looks of things, landscapers and hearth witches alike had been working tirelessly to create this marvel since that final battle.

My coven proceeded down the center aisle, filing in behind other demon hunters. Circe Foster waved to us, gesturing for us to come up to the first row of seats on the left side, where the Wildes coven already sat.

“We were wondering when the guests of honor might arrive.” Rye grinned, getting up to shake the guys’ hands and give me a big hug.

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