I hugged her back, holding tight.

  Deep down, I knew she was right. Just like I knew Ronan was.

  I knew I walked the path of self-destruction and embraced it.

  What I didn’t know was how to find another path.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked her.

  Nat leaned back, and I eased up on my grip to give her the space. “Well, we’re both fucked, but now that we’re not dancing around it we can work on it. It’s not going to be instant in either case. You’re going to get pissed at me sometimes for pushing you, but you need it—and I need you. You’re not the only one who's lost family in all this. Barry was all I really had for years . . .”

  A sliver of guilt added itself to the pile because I’d been a shit roommate and friend. While I’d been moping over everything gone wrong in my life, Nat was suffering in silence too. God, we were quite the pair.

  A drunk rage demon with guilt issues and a chaos witch hearing voices.

  I knew I’d probably remember this moment as long as I lived, whether it was a year or ten thousand. Ronan once said that people want to be understood, and despite our vastly different backgrounds—I found that in Nat.

  Different from Ronan, but equally profound; somehow this witch had become my person.

  “Fuck Barry. You may not want him dead, but that piece of shit is more to blame than either of us. He’s lucky you traded your favor with Ronan for his life.”

  She said nothing, but the twist of her lips told me she didn’t think I was wrong.

  “He’s made bad choices. Either he’ll change and try to fix them, or karma will catch up with him before any of us could.”

  I hoped she was right about karma because I really didn’t see the former happening.

  “Speaking of bad choices . . .” I was going to tell her that I’d said some regrettable things to Ronan when I was angry and wasn’t sure what to do about it just yet.

  Unfortunately, the universe had other plans.

  Several rapid thumps on our door made us both pause.

  I frowned.

  Nat walked over and looked through the peephole. Her entire expression changed as she scrambled to undo the door locks, then thrust it open.

  Standing outside the apartment was Señora Rosara and the succubus-shifter twins, Sasha and Sienna.

  Only for the life of me I couldn’t tell which was which. They were both bloodied and bruised. One of them was standing and carrying the other—who was unconscious.

  “These two showed up downstairs, asked to see you,” Señora said, thrusting her chin in my direction.

  My lips parted. The question of why was on my tongue, though it was fairly obvious in a sense.

  The twin still standing stumbled forward. Her gaze was wild, and yet somehow subdued; desperate but hard. “We need your help.”

  “I can see that,” I answered. Judging by the harshness in her tone, I was fairly certain Sasha was speaking. “How did you know where to find me?”

  “The little witch. We heard a rumor she was living with the crazy cat witch.” Her answer was true enough, though I sensed there was more. Señora Rosara tsked under her breath, unmoved by the gruesome twins. She rolled her eyes and then turned on her heel and went back to her apartment, muttering something about blood on the floor. Her door slammed shut, and when I didn’t immediately speak, Sasha continued. “Please. I know you have no reason to trust me, but we were attacked. There was a rally for the humans. It turned into a riot. We were walking back to the shelter when someone threw a bomb. Sienna jumped in front of me.” She swallowed hard. “I can’t lose her.” The glassy sheen of her eyes told me she was close to crying, but the proud Sasha I knew didn’t let the tears fall.

  “Why here? Why me? A white witch would have better odds healing her.”

  The bitterness in her voice was expected. But not the answer.

  “I’ve tried that. It didn’t work. She’s not healing . . .” she began but didn’t need to finish. I knew what she wanted then. It was the one thing that I could truly do but didn’t want to.

  “You want my blood.”

  “You’re a demon. If your blood can’t save her, no one can.”

  5

  Her heartbeat was shallow. Magic fading.

  Whatever bomb had hit her, it wasn’t the ordinary kind. The wounds inflicted . . . if someone couldn’t get them to close, it spelled death.

  You can, a small voice whispered through my mind. It was the same part of me that chose to be used as the sacrifice to Aeshma, that jumped in that summoning circle that brought Ronan here, and that begged Ronan to save Nat.

  Over the years I’d tried to quell it. Never successful for long. She’d been awfully silent in the month since Bree returned.

  But here she was now, once more persuading me.

  The gaping wound on Sienna’s chest was dripping blood onto Nat’s couch. Her skin was ashen. Pale. She’d betrayed me once . . . but she also tried to save me. Much like myself, she operated in between good and bad—and would die for those she loved.

  My gaze slid sideways to Sasha. Her black cat tail swished side to side in a jarred, uneasy pattern. Her skin was damp and sweaty. Her pupils narrowed into thin slits.

  Next to them, Nat kneeled, using a washcloth to clean Sienna’s wounds. She’d told Sasha we needed to see how bad they were.

  In truth, she was giving me time to form an answer.

  Sasha wouldn’t accept no, but I wouldn’t be pushed into saying yes.

  “Every time I manage to staunch the bleeding, it starts again. The magic is festering like an infection,” Sasha uttered. “She doesn’t have much time.”

  “I’m aware,” Nat said, not lifting her eyes from the wound she was dabbing. “This solution is meant to slow whatever magic is preventing her from healing. While it won’t be enough to save her, it’ll give her a better shot if Piper decides to give blood.”

  Sasha’s eye’s narrowed further. She picked up on that single word.

  If.

  “She’ll die if you don’t,” Sasha said, her voice scathing. “Do you really want that on your—”

  “If she dies, it’s not on me—and guilting me won’t make me help you.” My voice was steady, but there was also a lie in it. It wouldn’t be my fault. But I could change it if the magic took. “I have to consider the repercussions for me, and for her,” I added.

  Sasha’s lips twisted in a frown. “If she lives, it’s worth being indebted.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” I told her. “You aren’t the one who would be indebted to me. And while I don’t want it—that doesn’t mean the implication isn’t there. Taking a demon’s blood gives them power over you. She won’t be able to escape that.”

  Sasha went quiet for a moment. She stared at her sister’s limp hand, locked in between her own.

  “Then take me too.”

  My eyebrows lifted. “No,” I said after a second. “You don’t need my blood. You’ll live.”

  Sasha lifted her head, and if the shifter succubus could have set fire to the world with just a look—she would have. I believed that.

  “She has to live. I can’t do this without her.” She didn’t say what ‘this’ was, but I knew. I understood. “So if she has to be indebted to you for that, I will too, for asking. I’ll share the burden. Pay the price. Just please, please don’t make me say goodbye to her.”

  Her voice broke, though she kept the tears in.

  I turned away, swallowing the lump in my throat. My hands clenched into fists.

  It was too much. What she asked for . . .

  Soft fingers touched my shoulder. The scent of jasmine, raspberries, and juniper made me keep myself in check.

  “Sasha, I’m going to have a word with Piper in the other room.”

  “But—”

  “I wasn’t asking,” she replied, steel coating her tone. “Sienna isn’t going to die in the next couple of minutes,” she added in a softer tone. The lack of rebuttal from Sasha told me she would deal with it. Nathalie grabbed my arm and pulled me aside, into the room off the living area. A small cot, armchair, and antique bookshelf filled with trashy romance novels were the only things in there. She closed the double French doors firmly behind her.

  “She won’t hear us. I have the bedrooms and this room spelled for silence.”

  “I don’t know if I can do it,” I said. “I don’t know if I can tie another person to me. To have that kind of power over them . . .”

  “You worry it makes you no better than Lucifer,” she said. I nodded, then ran a hand through my wild, unkempt hair, pulling harder in the places it snagged.

  “Demons took over my world with their blood. They turned humans into supes in return for their souls. I don’t want that, Nat. I don’t want to control people.” I sighed harshly, the uneasy restlessness in me straining. “Maybe I should reach out to Ronan—”

  “That’s a pussy move,” Nat said, making my jaw snap shut. I turned around, eyeing her. “If you want to save her, then save her and accept the responsibility that comes with it. But don’t push it onto Ronan so that you can tell yourself it’s different. That abuses what you have with him and it makes you weak. You’re not weak—you’re fucked in the head, as we established—but you can do this. The question is whether or not you’ll do it.”

  I pressed my lips together, wanting to refute her. But she had a point.

  “We don’t even know if my blood will take. Not every supe can get blood from multiple demons. The power . . . it could kill her.”

  “It could,” Nathalie agreed. Her arms were crossed over her chest, but she inclined her head. “But she’ll die either way then, and that truly will not be on you.”

  While that was a possibility, it wasn’t what scared me most.

  No, that worry was if she didn’t die.

  Because if she lived . . .

  “If your reason for not doing it is because you’re scared of having anyone indebted to you, I’m going to point out I’ve taken your blood. You weren’t half as torn up about that. So what’s the difference, Piper?”

  I leaned back and let my legs buckle, taking a seat on the cot. My arms braced against my knees.

  “You’re you—”

  “Yes, me,” she said sarcastically. “The pain in the ass witch you’ve kidnapped, tied to a chair for thirty-six hours, threatened to shoot more times than I can count—”

  “Okay, smartass. You know that’s not what I mean. You’re you. The person I live with, and the dumbass that faced down a demon for me. You were helping me bring Bree back and tied to Ronan at the same time. We didn’t have to worry about my magic killing you because you’d already taken from him. It was different. This is . . . more complicated for me.”

  Nathalie nodded a few times. “It’s different, I see that. But what you aren’t grasping is that you’ve already done this. Being tied to someone doesn’t mean you have to use them how Lucifer did. You can set the terms. You don’t have to abuse it—that part is a choice.”

  “And if Sienna doesn’t see it that way?” I prompted.

  “I doubt she’ll lose sleep over it at night given she’ll be alive. She’s spent her whole life indebted to some demon, anyway.”

  I lowered my head and sighed, then let out a curse.

  “Sometimes it would be easier if you didn’t make sense,” I said. Nathalie snorted.

  “Easier doesn’t mean right, and in this case—I know you. It’s going to bother you if she dies, and you didn’t try to save her. Just like it will bother you if Ronan saves her, and she’s indebted to him. Like it or not, guilt is kind of your calling card.”

  And didn’t I fucking know it.

  I took a deep breath and pushed up off my knees. Nat grabbed my shoulders before I could reach for the door. Her face was completely serious as she said, “You’re not Lucifer. You’re not like the demons that took this world. You choose to be different, and that’s what matters.”

  I pushed my lips together and nodded. “Let’s hope Sienna sees it that way.”

  “She will,” Nathalie said with all the certainty to convince me. I knew she could lie through her teeth. That this may be a brave face for my sake, but I needed it.

  She opened the doors and we stepped back into the living room. Sasha’s head snapped up, and she looked between us expectantly.

  “Well?” Apprehension filled her voice.

  “Don’t make me regret this,” was my answer.

  Her immediate sigh of relief filled me with just the tiniest kernel of warmth. Hope.

  It would really suck if they both died now.

  6

  Blood slicked the edge of the kitchen knife.

  I carefully lifted it over Sienna’s chest. Her heartbeat was faint and continuing to slow. Her skin turned a deathly pallor in the few minutes Nathalie and I spoke. Her lips were parted and colorless. Dirt and tiny bits of gravel coated her skin where Nat hadn’t cleaned. The wound on her chest was a dark fleshy pink that seemed to fester because of the magic infecting it.

  I licked my chapped lips and took a slow steady breath, then flicked my wrist once. Two drops descended from the gleaming edge into the exposed part of her chest.

  Sasha’s golden-brown fingers wrapped tightly around her sister’s.

  My blood touched hers and we waited.

  Sasha had wanted to go first in case it didn’t take, but I refused. Sienna was already dying. If she didn’t make it, I wasn’t going to send Sasha to death’s door. If it didn’t work for one, the odds were it wouldn’t for the other. Will had little to do with it when magic was at play. The truth lies somewhere in the blood for why some supes could take magic from multiple demons when it killed others.

  And I wasn’t gambling with Sasha’s life so that she could die with her sister.

  Though part me suspected that was the intention.

  Seconds passed. Time ticked by. As it slowly crawled toward the minute mark, the wound in her chest began to close. Flesh knit itself back together. Every nick and scrape and bruise or bump turned to pale, but flawless skin.

  She didn’t gasp awake, but her heartbeat picked up and a subtle warmth flushed over her skin. She seemed to glow with an inner radiance that wasn’t there before.

  I let go of the breath I didn’t know I had been holding. It took.

  “She’s going to make it,” Nat said quietly. Sasha nodded her head, relief stark in her features. A single tear spilled from the edge of her eye and she swept it away quickly.

  “Thank you,” she said, turning fully to me. “Thank you.”

  I pressed my lips together awkwardly and nodded once, not sure how to respond. Praise wasn’t something I was accustomed to. Not after everything I’d done.

  I backed away, looking for something to do and deciding I would go clean the blade.

  “Wait,” Sasha said. “I’m next.”

  I paused mid-step and looked over my shoulder.

  “You don’t have to. I’m not asking for it,” I told her.

  She swallowed once and still shook her head. “But I am. I’m the one that brought her to you, and you’re right that I chose for her to be indebted because it was that or die. I want to share that with her, so she knows she’s not alone.”

  I took a breath and nodded. “All right then, we’ll do it on the floor. I’m not flicking blood into your wounds.” My nose scrunched and Nat snorted.

  Sasha slid to the ground, her jeans pressing into the thick cream carpet.

  I took a seat across from her.

  “Don’t get blood on that carpet,” Nathalie said when I lifted the blade. I cast her an annoyed glance, which she returned.

  The blade pricked my skin. A single droplet of blood welled before the tiny wound healed itself. I ran the tip of the knife over it, gathering my very essence.

  “I ask for honesty to me in all things, and that you would never knowingly act, organize, or aid someone else in harming me and those that share my blood.” My wording was specific to encompass not only Nat, but Ronan and Bree as well. “I give you my blood so that you may share the burden with your sister. Sasha Loren, do you accept the terms of this bargain?” I uttered the words in Nathalie’s apartment for the second time.

  Because Sienna was unconscious, she couldn’t set terms. I’d truly saved her life which meant she owed me it. There were no restrictions. No limitations. I could demand anything, and she’d be forced to do it—but I didn’t like to hold that power over anyone and refused to set the bar there when I had a choice.

  That must have surprised Sasha. Her emerald-green eyes widened for a second as her sculpted eyebrows lifted.

  “I do,” she said instantly and without fear.

  I suppose it wasn’t as scary when the blood was almost guaranteed to not kill her.

  “Then take it,” I whispered, extending the knife.

  She took the blade in hand and licked along the edge.

  The moment my undiluted magic came into contact with her, her eyes began to glow. Claws extended from her fingers. A low growl built in her throat and she clenched her hands into fists, claws tearing at the flesh of her palms.

  The reaction was sudden and unbidden.

  “That’s not supposed to happen,” I said, grabbing her shoulders to hold her up as she sagged forward. “Sienna barely responded to my magic.”

  “Sienna was on the verge of death. Sasha isn’t,” Nathalie murmured from the couch. She sat on the edge, watching us.

  Sasha’s body bowed as the growl turned to a scream.

  The air around her seemed to stir.

  The hairs on the back of my neck lifted as I sensed the shift.

  Everything went dark.

  The void consumed us.

  Pitch black, I tightened my hold on her shoulders, to be certain she was still there. It was only when her scream broke that I realized she’d never stopped.

  Heavy pants told me she was still alive, but the darkness remained.

  “Um,” Nathalie started. “What just happened?”

  “I’m not sure . . .” I turned my head, looking in all directions, but no matter how hard I squinted, I couldn’t see a thing. “Sasha?”

 

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