Goosebumps crept up her arms.
Temptation. The pursuit of that which should not be pursued.
Not a welcomed card, but not unexpected either. She thought it represented Raina more than her. Or perhaps through Raina, Willa had become embroiled in the same problems.
She placed her fingers on the third card, her present.
THE HANGED MAN.
Sacrifice.
Release.
Willa squeezed her eyes shut and sent up a silent prayer.
Please do not let me regret this.
She flipped over the fourth card.
THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE.
Inevitability. A fate you cannot control.
It was the cards telling her what she already knew: she couldn’t change the future.
Her hand shook as she took the fifth card between her fingers. Her future. It was still face down.
It could be anything.
Brace yourself, the cards whispered.
It is inevitable.
A lump formed in her throat.
She flipped the card over.
THREE OF SWORDS.
Tears blurred her vision.
She clamped her hand over her mouth to stop the sob from escaping her throat.
Loss.
Pain.
Suffering.
The Three of Swords was the very same card that had foretold Maggie’s death all those years ago.
No.
No. Goddammit. No.
She regretted the reading already. She wished she could give it back, to wipe the knowing of it from memory and start again.
But she couldn’t.
And this was exactly why she had forbidden herself from using them for so long.
She couldn’t unknow what she now knew. So she asked for a little bit more.
Who? she silently asked the cards.
Who will I lose?
And the cards said: Everything.
She swiped her hands through the spread. A tear escaped her and marred the surface of the Three of Swords.
Willa dropped to her knees and buried her face in her hands.
All the years she’d been trying to protect Raina, to keep her out of trouble. All of the years Willa had sacrificed everything for her. She’d isolated herself, insulated their lives to keep them safe and everyone else around them.
And for what?
It was as if the demon were whispering in her ear now.
It is inevitable.
You cannot control our fate.
Willa gritted her teeth.
She would do everything she could to protect those she loved.
Even if that meant sacrificing herself in the process.
She was the Hanged Man. She always had been. It was her past, her present, and her future. Her inevitability.
She might as well embrace it.
Chapter 20
POE
Poe was getting really fucking tired of his family telling him what he ought to do.
“I promised Willa I would not let harm befall her or her sister.” He inhaled on his cigarette. The ember ate away at the last of the rolled paper. “And besides, if Raina ends up dead, Willa would never give me my caeli.”
Red glared. “We have bigger issues at stake. Have you forgotten Cassie’s warning? Caleb Corvin will bring chaos to our door and you must sacrifice something.”
Poe shook his head. “Do not ask this of me. It is my caeli.”
“And we are your family,” Dae said.
“That’s rich coming from you,” Poe said. “Family only means something to you lot when it’s convenient for you.”
Mad snorted and paced away to the window.
Thorin scratched at the back of his head.
Dae scowled at Poe. His eyes flashed red. “Is that really what you think?”
“Yes, that’s really what I think.”
With the smoke still curling in his lungs, he stood up and mashed the cigarette into an ashtray. “I will not put Willa or her sister at risk in order to best a demon. There are other ways we can fight this. Or rather, I will fight it. Since you lot want the easy road out.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” Dae said.
“And why not? Isn’t that who I am?”
“Do I have to remind you of the Worthrope djinn?” Red bristled. “Do I have to remind you how many died because of that demon before it was brought to an end? This is one human to save many. It’s hardly a choice worth debating. The choice is obvious.”
“I’m on Poe’s side with this one,” Thorin said suddenly. “Human life is not dispensable. We could think this through together. Demons may have an edge over us, but not when there’s five of us against one.”
Poe’s resolve diminished ever so slightly at his youngest brother’s plea. If Poe had a soft spot for any of his brothers, it was Thorin. He been noticeably absent the last few days tending to his own business. It surprised Poe to realize that he knew nothing about his littlest brother’s current comings and goings.
Usually he and Thorin had coffee together in the morning in the breakfast room. Thorin would read the newspaper and fill Poe in on all of the ways the world was failing and Poe would pretend to care. Thorin was a lot like their mother that way—a bleeding heart if ever there was one. He cared about everything and everyone. But occasionally, when caught off guard, Thorin could display a temper that could only be described as volcanic. Poe liked to think of it as his little brother’s superpower. When called to action to be big and scary, Thorin had them all beat. It just took him a hell of a lot to get there.
But this was not an issue that could be solved by banding together like a merry little crew. Not when Red and Dae and Mad wanted to kill Raina. Poe did not trust them with this.
They would never see eye to eye.
“I will deal with this on my own,” he said. “As I’ve done many times before.”
He turned and left and they did not try to stop him.
All he wanted right now was to be by Willa’s side. Not feeling her beside him had him anxious and uneasy.
He had chosen her over his family and not a single part of him regretted it.
Chapter 21
POE
Poe went to the library first, but Willa wasn’t there.
He checked the kitchen and then the guest bedroom where she’d been staying.
His anxiety grew.
He turned his hearing outward to the rest of the house looking for the now familiar beat of Willa’s heart. He would be able to pick it out in a crowd. He was sure of it.
He heard his family still in the conservatory discussing how he was acting like a complete idiot.
He heard Oddie in the basement doing laundry.
There were two gardeners outside.
But no Willa.
He went outside through the porte-cochère and followed the paved drive to the five-stall garage around back. Red’s Jeep was parked outside the bay door, but Willa’s car was noticeably gone.
“Bloody hell,” he said and turned his awareness inward. He concentrated on the thread that bound him to his mark. His magic bloomed around him, guiding him.
He left the driveway and reappeared in the passenger seat of Willa’s car. She was already far outside of the city.
“Where are you going?”
“Fucking hell!” she screamed and the car swerved off road. Willa overcorrected the wheel and sent them sailing into the opposite lane before righting the car with another jolt of the wheel. “Don’t do that.”
“Sorry, love. But you weren’t in the library.”
“I know. I...” She bit at her bottom lip, worrying the plump, pink flesh with her teeth.
Something had changed.
He’d known she had lingered in the hallway and had likely overheard some of the conversation, but it was nothing she hadn’t known already.
He thought back to the conversation, the information that might have been revealed. He couldn’t think of anything that would send h
er running.
“I know what I have to do to save my sister,” she said.
“Well I’m all ears.”
She slowed for a stop sign and was careful to look both ways even though the road was clearly dead.
“Will,” Poe said.
“I’m doing this alone.”
Ironic, considering he’d just told his family the same thing. But unlike them, he was not going to let Willa make that choice. “You absolutely are not.”
“Poe—”
A lump formed in his throat. She needed to listen to reason. “No, Will. I made you a promise and you can’t—”
“I don’t need your help!”
The lump in his throat grew thorns. Anger coiled up his spine. “I just told my family to fuck off for you. For your demon dilemma.”
She grimaced. “I didn’t tell you to do that.”
“You didn’t need to. I’m not leaving you to do this alone.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
“Yes I do, love. You still have one wish left, remember? It is my duty to protect you while within the confines of the deal and I will not let—”
“Poe,” she said again and pulled off to the side of the road. Dust swirled around the car. “Don’t you get it? I was just...I—I was using you.”
His ears rang. “Excuse me?”
“I needed someone to heal me. I knew a deal with you was the quickest way to it.”
She refused to look him in the eye.
“I don’t believe you.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“But you promised me my caeli.” He clenched his teeth. “Was that a ruse too?”
She swallowed hard. “Everyone knows it’s what you want most.”
He clenched his hands into fists. “You don’t know the name of my caeli?”
“I told you I don’t do readings. And even if I did, you really think that’s something the cards would tell me?”
“You had no intention of paying your side of the bargain?” His voice rose in volume. He was close to shouting now. “You swindled me for a deal just to fucking heal you?”
He turned in the car’s seat so he could face Will. Sunlight poured through her window, gilding her long lashes and the delicate arch of her nose.
He wanted to hurt her as much as she’d hurt him.
He wanted to make her feel this carved out feeling in the pit of his stomach.
But...she was no match for a demon.
She would end up dead.
“Will,” he said and tamped down on the anger biting at his heels. “Think this through. If you go after that demon alone, you’ll—”
Her grip tightened on the steering wheel. The leather groaned. She turned to him, tears welling in her eyes. “Jesus, Poe! You really don’t know when to let someone go! Then again, you still stuck with your family after they left you in that dungeon. I shouldn’t be surprised.”
The blow hit him like a punch. All of the air left his lungs. He was burning hot all over, his skin crawling. He climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut.
Willa followed him out.
“Might as well end this now,” she said over the hood of the car.
Poe snorted. “Be my fucking guest.”
“I, Willa Locke,” she started.
The air trembled in anticipation.
“—wish to invoke my third wish.”
His magic pounded at his insides.
“I wish for Poe Blackwell—”
His eyes flared with the beat of his power and the fire of the betrayal.
“—to leave me alone.”
He staggered back as the magic and the wish was ripped from him.
Wind rushed down the narrow country road and the trees shook in the sun like a rattler’s tail. Willa’s hair fanned around her face as she stared at him over the roof of the car, her chest heaving.
A tear rolled down her cheek.
She swiped at it angrily.
Leave me alone, she’d said.
Poe’s magic glittered in the light. Its piney scent drowned out the smell of honeysuckle and wet forest floor.
He knew the moment the deal was done. The moment the gate slammed shut on his power. The void it left yawned open at the center of him.
But worse than losing his magic was realizing what the wish implied.
Willa did not want him. She’d always planned to leave him. He’d been just a useful side amusement for a time.
She didn’t want his help or his protection.
She wanted him to leave her alone.
He wanted to point out to her the folly of her words. Leave her alone for how long? He could leave her now and revisit her in an hour and the wish would be fulfilled.
If he did not care for how she felt, he would have done as much just to piss her off.
But he did care. And what a fool he was for it. His family had been right.
But he was too. He was better off alone. He always had been.
And besides, getting his hands dirty had never been his style.
“You are no match for a demon,” he told her. “You are just human, after all.”
He turned around and did as she bid. He left her.
Over his shoulder, he yelled, “Willa Locke, your wish is granted and our deal is fucking done.”
Chapter 22
WILLA
Willa cried all the way to her cottage. Great big heaving gasps. The tears came so heavily that she nearly had to pull off the road again. Thankfully, the country roads were deserted. She wanted—needed—to put as much distance between her and Poe as she could.
The deal was done now and he could no longer come and go as he pleased.
And when she realized what that meant, that she’d left him on a road in the middle of nowhere, she nearly turned the car around.
But no. No, she needed to keep moving. Poe was an immortal djinn. She could bet he’d found himself stranded in the middle of nowhere many times before.
She hadn’t meant for that whole thing to go down the way it had.
She’d figured Poe would come looking for her and when she told him she’d go it alone, he’d be totally cool with it.
Sure, they’d had an amazing time in Scotland. And the sex was out of this world. But he hadn’t really cared about her. Right?
She was just a human, after all. He’d said as much. The way he said it almost sounded like an insult.
She was glad she hadn’t told him the truth, that she was his caeli. He would be sorely disappointed but would put up with her for the sake of the power and she didn’t think she could handle that.
She kept driving. Kept moving forward. That was the only thing she could do now.
She was the Hanged Man after all. What she wanted, what she really wanted, didn’t matter.
When she finally reached her destination, the tears had dried up and her resolve had strengthened. She could do this. She had to do this.
Once the cards had been pulled and the reading clear, Willa knew there was only one person left she could ask for help. Especially after she pushed Poe away.
But now that she was here in the driveway of a cozy A-frame cabin, she was having doubts.
Anyone she pulled into this was at risk. But she hadn’t been able to think of another way.
Billy the werewolf came through the front door of his cabin and waited for her on the front deck.
She shut the car off and climbed out.
Willa had called Billy as soon as she left Blackwell House. The conversation had gone something like, “I just need you to hide something for me,” she’d said. “But if you don’t want to, or you can’t, I will totally understand and—”
“I’m more than happy to help,” Billy had said.
“But Caleb is still looking for me and Raina is...well, she’s possessed and—”
“I know what I’m getting into, Ms. Locke. I’m all right with the risks. I wouldn’t have helped you the other night if I wasn’t. And...I hop
e you don’t mind me being forward, but you can use all the help you can get.”
Wasn’t that the damn truth?
Billy’s cabin was about a twenty-minute drive north of Blackwater. It was a modest house nestled into a grove of pine trees. The smell of pine in the air immediately reminded Willa of Poe and thinking of him made her stomach twist.
All of those horrible things she’d said to him.
You had to. You had to make him believe you.
Bag in hand, Willa walked up the dirt drive and took the five steps up to the deck. Billy towered over her.
There was a worried frown on his face.
Hiding the collar was not the only favor she’d asked of him.
“You sure you know what you’re doing?” he said now.
There was an amber vial in his big hand that nearly blended into his skin.
“The wolfcaine is just meant to be a warning. You know, for the demon,” she said.
Billy looked like he didn’t exactly believe her, but he handed the vial over anyway.
The label on the backside said Wolfcaine in a tight, slanted handwriting.
“Don’t make me regret this,” he said.
“I won’t.”
Don’t make me promise.
“You’re not going there alone, are you?” he asked. “I could come—”
“Oh, no. The Blackwells are helping me,” she lied.
“The djinn? Djinn don’t cross paths with demons.”
“When the threat is big enough. You know, Caleb plus a demon. The Blackwells aren’t happy about all that. I think they just want to show their might.”
Billy nodded like that made sense. “I always told Caleb he should be cautious around the djinn. Bravado will get you nowhere with people like the Blackwells.”
“No one ever said Caleb was the smart one.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” Billy chuckled, then, “So what is it you need me to hide?”
She dug into her bag and pulled out the leather collar. “Hide it wherever you think is a safe place. Bury it if you have to.”
Billy took the collar in hand. “All right. I can do that.”
“I’ll be back for it later.”
“You got a code word or something? How am I to know it’s safe to give it to you?”
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