Page 105 of The Rebel Witch

“How can you talk like that?” I hated how calm she was.

“I talk like that because it’s true,” she replied simply. “Now do you want to get dressed or do you want to fight about this? I know what you’re looking for and it’s futile. It’s gone.”

I couldn’t believe that. I knew what had happened when she’d pulled my wolf off. My wolf hadn’t departed this world. She hadn’t been sucked up into some magical knife. We might be going about this wrong. “It’s not gone. We’ve heard rumors that Myrddin keeps the souls he takes on the Hell plane, but I wouldn’t put it past him to put that rumor out himself. It’s a good way to deter anyone who might want to look. We need to go about this a different way.”

“I think that’s a problem for another day.” Trent put his napkin down and pushed back from the table. “We need to wholly focus on tonight. I think Lee’s going to make his attempt at getting the feather. I say we give it a shot. We can leave the negotiations open, and if Lee gets what we need and we can heal Dean ourselves, we do it.”

“He’s going to use the Mantle of Arthur?” Liv asked, and she seemed to consider it for a moment. “It could work, though I worry Lucifer will know something’s happened.”

One big shoulder shrugged as Trent blew past that worry. “If he can’t prove it, he can’t harm us. Lucifer is caged in by certain rules concerning Gray. He can’t physically harm Gray.”

“But he can hurt any of you,” Gray pointed out. “Not that I think he will, but he can be unpredictable when he doesn’t get what he wants. I would rather control it by negotiating a decent contract. Eddie can watch over us when it comes to this.”

Because Eddie was a satan, and despite the fact that he spent most of his time overseeing a cleaning crew and baking up the most delicious desserts, he could still judge a contract.

There were problems with that scenario. “A good contract should be looked over by a lawyer. Lucifer knows we’re running out of time. He’s going to try to slip something by because we won’t be able to take it back to base and have Hugo Wells look over it.”

Hugo was my go-to academic when it came to legal work. Casey might be able to fix anything technical, and he’d become a whiz at research, but I needed Hugo for this one.

Trent’s expression went smooth, letting me know he was worried I was about to lose it. “Let’s play it by ear. If we need to talk, we’ll request a private room and we’ll work it out. I’m not going to let anything happen to you or Gray. Go and get dressed. I need you to trust me that this is going to be okay.”

Well, that felt like he wanted to get rid of the little woman so he and Gray could talk. But the truth was I wasn’t sure I could be reasonable about this. We were walking into a powder keg and hoping it didn’t explode. I let him kiss me and followed Liv out.

“I don’t want it back, you know,” she said as we hit the stairs that led to my suite.

“I don’t care what you want,” I shot back, feeling a bit mean.

“Yeah, I got that.” She was quiet until we got to the suite, waiting for me to open the door.

I didn’t have to do that. The big French doors glided open as I approached. It was weird to have a magical house. I didn’t even have to ask for Alexa or Siri or anyone. The house simply knew. “What would you do if you were me? Just leave you to scorch the earth with your rage?”

“That’s what I should have done. If I’d let you be, I wouldn’t have this problem now, would I?”

I felt the blood drain from my face because she was literally talking about letting me die. That she would have been better off if I had been successful that day when we were teenagers. I’d been confused and scared and so fucking sad because my father had tried to kill me in the woods. I’d watched him slaughter baby wolves, and my power had flared for the first time. I’d had to run, and weeks later I still hadn’t processed.

Liv had saved me, and she’d been my safe space.

“Kelsey, I’m sorry I said that to you.”

“Are you?”

She stared for a minute. “I know I should be. I know I should feel something.”

“But you don’t want to.”

“If I feel something, I have to feel the pain, too.”

I took a long breath, letting the pain sink into me because I’d learned long ago not to ignore it. Existing meant feeling. Everything. Love. Joy. Pain. Remorse. Anxiety. If you took one away, the others meant less. They balanced each other, defining the opposite emotions so they’re clear and real and we learned from them. Liv didn’t want the pain, so she was comfortable not feeling anything at all.

I might have to face the fact that I’d lost her all those years ago, and what stood in front of me was nothing but a ghost. The blood she’d been taking had made her more capable of looking at things in a logical fashion, but it couldn’t make her want to feel again.

“This is your choice?”

Her jaw tightened. “If I say yes, will you execute me? Do I have a right to exist if I don’t do what Kelsey Owens tells me to?”

A weariness threatened to invade my bones. It was too much. I was trying to solve every problem I had, and I was about to lose Gray again. Even a few days out of his original contract with Lucifer, he was a different person. He was happier and a better husband and father. I hadn’t been here when he’d originally worked for Lucifer, but I knew it had wrecked his relationship with Fenrir for a while.

Would this baby feel that pain?

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