by Bella Falls
Despite his predicament, Nick grinned and emitted a slight chuckle. Dash released him, and the spa owner collapsed onto the floor, gasping in air and clutching his neck.
“Fine,” the wolf shifter grumbled, his eyes still blazing yellow. “But I shouldn’t have to remind you that Lucky’s out there trying to save Fenwen because he hurt her.”
Holding up my hands in surrender, I waited for his animalistic side to calm down. “I know, and he’s going to have to answer for his actions. But first, we need to find out what’s going on, especially with whatever’s in those jars.”
“I said fine,” Dash grumbled, stroking his facial hair. “And my beard is not scraggly.”
His ego wore on my patience. I pushed him out of the way and offered a hand to Nick. With an appreciative nod, he lifted his tattooed arm and allowed me to pull him to his feet.
“Thank you,” he choked out, still rubbing his neck.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Don’t thank me just yet. If I don’t like your answers to my questions, then I’ll tell my friend to let his wolf go wild with you.”
For good measure, Dash smiled wide to show off his growing fangs. A low growl rumbled in his chest.
“Fair enough,” Nick agreed. “Won’t you please sit down while we talk?” He gestured at the small couch we’d found Fenwen collapsed on.
With a shake of my head, I crossed my arms. “I prefer to stand. Now, the first thing you need to tell us is what you mean when you say there are pieces of souls in those bottles.”
Nick didn’t answer right away. He took his time, maneuvering around the desk and bending down to slide open a drawer. The sound of glass clinking echoed from inside the piece of furniture, and he pulled out a Jack Daniels bottle and two tumblers.
He uncorked the whiskey. “I keep this here for emergencies. Care to join me?”
“No. I’d prefer for you to provide us with some answers,” I complained, watching him pour out a hefty amount of amber liquid into one of the crystal glasses.
Nick shrugged and held up his drink in the air. “Here’s to bad choices.” In a few gulps, he drained the contents.
It took all my strength to keep myself from shooting a hex at Nick’s glass and shattering it in his face. “You ready to talk after relying on liquid courage?”
A wry grin curled on his lips. “Oh, it’ll take more than a little whiskey to make me less of a coward.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and poured himself some more. “I’d prefer a little ice. My touch can make things warm up a little too fast when I’m nervous.”
Dash stomped forward but stopped when I flashed him a warning glare. Threats hadn’t gotten us anywhere yet, so we needed to switch tactics and be patient.
Nick finished his second round of whiskey and slammed the heavy glass on his desk. “I’ll give you some answers, but I’m not sure they’ll satisfy you.”
“Try us,” I challenged.
He ran his hands through his hair, messing up his perfect coif. “Here’s the down and dirty. I’m a demon. A crossroads demon, to be precise. Those bottles contain pieces of souls I was able to strip from my clients. And everything that’s happened in this town is my fault.”
Nope, I was not prepared. My brain processed through his statement and separated each element on its own. “When you say demon, you mean like with horns, a pitchfork, and a tail?”
Nick chuckled and lifted his hair from his face so I could see his forehead. “No horns. No tail. But I suppose I could find a pitchfork.”
“Is there a difference between a regular demon and a crossroads one?” Dash asked. “They both sound bad to me.”
“You live in a town with all kinds of supernatural beings, yet you’re casting judgment on me?” the spa owner sneered. “I can’t help what I was when I was born. But not everything in this world is all bad or all good. There’s usually a pretty good mix of both.”
“But most of the time, the scales dip to one side or the other,” I countered. “It’s all about the choices we make.”
Nick winked at me. “Exactly.”
His arrogance disgusted me. “Then by your simple confession, we have to assume that you’re pretty much the bad guy based on your actions.”
“Again, so quick to judge.” The demon leaned against his desk. “To answer his question, just like there are all kinds of shifters, there are different kinds of demons. My family happens to be in the business of making deals with those who want certain things.”
My eyes flashed to the hidden closet. “And what’s the price of those deals?”
“Souls.” Nick stopped smirking and his brow wrinkled with concern. “If it makes a difference, I didn’t intend for things to turn out so badly as they did. I know you won’t believe me when I say I was actually trying to save your little town.”
“Save it!” I shouted. “How is taking pieces of everyone’s soul going to save Honeysuckle?”
The demon narrowed his eyes at me. “Because something far worse was supposed to happen.”
I thought about all the changes that had been worrying me. How my friends’ personalities were completely different. And what was going to happen to our town now that Aunt Nora had gained control of it. But my heart ached when I pictured Nana lying in her bed.
“Are you responsible for my grandmother’s state?” I accused. Energy zapped down my arm and crackled around my fingers.
“Charli,” Dash warned, switching roles from the aggressor to the protector.
Nick gave no reaction to my threat. “Yes and no. But before you hex me or whatever you threatened to do before to him,” he pointed at Dash, “please give me a chance to explain.”
“Do it fast, and I better like what I hear.” I drew in a breath to calm myself but kept my magic at the ready just in case.
The demon steeled himself with a deep breath. “I was born a demon. My father belonged to a pretty prominent family whose business was to make and collect on deals. I was his firstborn, so all of his expectations to continue the family’s reputation rested on my shoulders.”
“We didn’t ask for your life story,” Dash complained.
“But you need to hear it if I’m going to have a chance at all for you to believe I am trying to save your town.” Nick pushed off the desk and paced in front of it. “It didn’t take long for my mother to fully guess at my father’s intentions for my life. I was supposed to be taken at an early age and brought to a family estate with other cousins close to my age to be groomed.
“Most demon parents would approve and care more about their status rising than raising their own children themselves. But Mom wasn’t like most demons.”
Despite my doubts about Nick, his story about his family touched a part of me. I stayed quiet to encourage him to keep telling it.
“The night before I was supposed to be taken, Mom begged my father not to do it. Since I was only four, I didn’t understand everything going on, but I knew a fight when I saw one.” He lifted his hand to touch a spot under his left eye. “Her cheek was swollen and there was purple already blooming around the contusion when she woke me up. She told me not to make a noise, so I didn’t. In the dark of the night, she packed me into the back seat of her car and drove us away from our house.”
“She kidnapped you?” Dash asked in a low voice.
“She saved me,” Nick answered. “We changed cars outside of town with one of her friends. My mom wasn’t like other demons in our clan. She socialized with a wider group of women. A couple of them were witches. They helped her get away.
“Aunt Piper and Aunt Wanda. They gave us charms to hide the two of us from our family and would come around once a year to renew the spell. I loved them.”
“They became your real family. The one you chose,” I said.
Nick nodded. “They were. I got to grow up like a normal kid. Well, a normal kid with one foot in the mortal world and one in the supernatural. I made friends, got decent grades, and even had a few girlfriends. A couple of t
hem were witches, too.” He winked at me.
“You say were,” I noticed. “Did something happen to them?”
His face dropped. “They’re both dead. Died in a car accident.”
I couldn’t help the sympathy building in my heart. “Together?”
“They went on some retreat to the mountains, and while they were driving, their car tire slipped off the road. The wreckage was so bad that it took them a while to identify the bodies.” Nick pressed a hand over his heart. “Mom was devastated when she found out. We both were.”
An awkward silence filled the small space of the room. Unwilling to sit where we’d found Fenwen, I pulled over a chair and sat in it. Dash leaned against the doorframe, blocking the exit.
Nick perched on the arm of the small couch. “It wasn’t until much later…when it was too late, actually…that I figured out it hadn’t been just an accident. They were murdered.”
My eyes flashed to his. “Did you figure out who did it?”
“Not the specific person, but I knew the why. Mom freaked out after they were gone, and she begged me to move with her, saying we needed to stay off the radar. I asked her why we needed to run. Since I was an adult, I figured there wasn’t anything my father or his family could do anymore.” Nick snorted. “My arrogance would ruin both of us.”
“They found you,” I guessed.
“Mm-hmm. My father had never given up on searching for me. He didn’t care about my mother other than wanting to punish her for taking me. Without my aunts and their charms to hide us, it didn’t take long for dear old dad to show up.” Nick closed his eyes. “He wasn’t the monster I’d pictured since I was little. He was polite to Mom. Even nice. At first.”
The demon’s shoulders slumped. “I allowed him into our lives. Met with my father in secret, knowing that Mom would disapprove. But I was curious about him. I wanted to try and figure out what made him so bad that my mother would take me away.”
“The little boy in you wanted to get to know his dad,” I said.
“Yes, all of my actions were that of a child. He fed me stories about all the riches I’d been missing out on, the lifestyle, everything we didn’t have but could possess. Everything my mother had taken me away from.” Nick’s eyes blazed with fury. “And then he showed me the one thing I’d been missing that changed everything. He showed me a picture of my sister. Lorelei.
“My mom did everything she could to give me the best life I could have, but it was a lonely existence. She never once dated, or she did a good job of hiding any relationships from me. All my life, it had just been the two of us. And now, my father dangled a real live sister in front of me. And I swallowed the bait hook, line, and sinker.”
Nick launched himself off the end of the couch and paced again. “Mom found out about my secret dinners with my father and chewed me out. Asked me what she sacrificed her life for if I was going to let my father worm his way back in. A lot of things were said in anger, but my biggest regret is that I listened to my dad. Let him convince me that she didn’t really have my best interests at heart. And that I should show her how successful I could be by returning home with him and becoming a real brother to Lorelei.
“I broke Mom’s heart when I left. It took her several months to die from it.” He drew in stuttered breaths. “I guess I proved your point. I am more bad than good. Because I killed my mother.”
The urge to throw my arms around the broken man overwhelmed me. I ached for his loss and hated his father for manipulating him.
“I know a little about wanting to know who your family is and hoping that they turn out to be better than you’d hoped,” I said, swallowing hard to keep from crying. “You wanting to get to know your sister isn’t a crime.”
“Pssh, it should have been.” Nick rubbed his hand down the tattoos on his arm. “She played nice for a while, all sweet and innocent. Like she adored me as her new big brother. Once I bought into the family business, it didn’t take long for her to show who she really was. A mini clone of my father. Ruthless. Ambitious. And willing to do anything to get what she wanted.”
He walked around his desk and picked up a frame sitting on the front of one of the bookshelves. After touching the picture with care, he handed it to me. A younger Nick smiled at the camera, wearing a dark cap and gown for his high school graduation. He towered over a shorter woman beaming up at him with pride, no doubt his mom. Other than the one picture, his office lacked any personal touches.
“She’s beautiful,” I commented, handing the photo back to him. “And I doubt her death really rests on your shoulders. A mother wouldn’t want that for her son, no matter how you left the relationship.”
“And now I see how your scales tip all the way to the good side. Even when you know I’m the villain, you still try to make me feel better.” Nick held onto the frame a second longer and then put it back in its place. “My mom would have liked you. And she would have liked Honeysuckle Hollow, too. If she’d have known there was a place like this…”
Dash cleared his throat. “You spin a good yarn, and if I believed it all, I might feel a little sorry for you and what you’ve been through. But since we’re talking about our town, let’s get back to all those bottles you’ve got.”
Caught up in the pull of his past, I forgot to hold Nick accountable for the present. “Are there really souls stored in that room?”
“Like I said, it’s pieces of their souls,” he replied.
“That lack of explanation doesn’t give me warm fuzzies.” I shivered and pushed harder. “You’d better start from why you came here and get to what you were doing.”
Nick settled into his chair behind the desk. “We’ve established that my family business is in creating and closing deals with others for the low, low price of one’s soul.”
“Did a deal bring you to Honeysuckle?” I asked.
The left corner of his lip curled up. “You’re catching on. It was a deal that brought me here. But it was my sister’s plan that made me want to stay.”
“I didn’t know your sister was here,” I said, confused.
“I never said she was. I said it was her plan that inspired me to set myself up in Honeysuckle,” he corrected. “Souls are tricky things, full of life force and energy. Some are stronger than others. And a soul that is already imbued with magic? That’s a prize that many in my family would kill for. Especially Lorelei.”
Realization hit me and I rushed over to the door to the secret storage. “You’re collecting souls for your sister? Does that mean everyone who’s got a bottle with their name on it is going to die?”
Dash cracked his knuckles. “You should have let me do this my way.”
“Brute-force threats aren’t that scary, dude.” Nick smirked. “I wasn’t fighting back when you attacked me.”
“And I was barely trying,” the shifter warned.
“Stop flexing your muscles, boys.” I held up my hands between them. “Nick, I need an answer. If you have all those souls stored away, then does that mean everyone’s going to die?”
“No.”
His response eased my tension a tiny fraction. “Okay, then what are you doing with them?”
“Lorelei wanted me to come here and take the souls of every single resident in town. She figured if we could present all of them at once to the family that we would get a big promotion.” Nick ran his finger around the rim of his whiskey glass. “Except I know Lorelei can’t be trusted. She can smile in your face while plunging a dagger into your back better than anyone I’ve ever met.”
I raised an eyebrow at Dash. “Sounds a lot like Aunt Nora.”
Nick laughed at my comparison. “Sweetie, Lorelei makes your aunt look like a cream puff. It’s how she’s risen as high as she has.”
“If she’s so ruthless, then why are you here and she isn’t?” Dash asked.
“My guess is that she thinks she’s duped me into doing all the grunt work of collecting the souls. But in the end, I’m expecting her to double
-cross me and take everything for herself.” Nick snorted. “And this is why my mother’s death rests on my shoulders. Because I left her just to try to have a relationship with Lorelei.”
“She sounds like a witch with a capital B,” I said, trying to imagine anyone worse than my aunt.
“That’s an apt statement,” Nick agreed. “But here’s where I need you to trust me. I came here not to destroy your town but to actually save it from her. All those bottles you saw, they don’t contain any full soul. You’ve seen your friends and neighbors still walking around.”
“Walking, yes. But definitely different. What did you do to get those pieces?” I asked.
Nick looked to his left and his right, gesturing with his hand. “This whole spa was my idea. Bring in the clients, and while they’re getting a massage, I encourage them to tell me about their desires. Their wants. Not big wishes, but small, incremental changes.”
“From what I’ve witnessed, those differences are not that small,” I said.
He shrugged with one shoulder. “I siphoned off a little of their soul and gave them a taste of what they wanted in trade.” Leaning forward, he spoke in a honeyed tone. “But there’s no contract, no formal deal. I hoped to appease my sister and focus her interests elsewhere with my compromise.”
“But you’re stealing a very important part that belongs to each individual!” I shouted. “You had no right to steal from any one of us no matter what your intentions were.”
Nick pondered my accusation, and I watched for his reaction. While he stewed in silence, a thought dawned on me.
“Sweet honeysuckle iced tea, you tried to steal from me, didn’t you?” My heart rate jumped as my eyes flashed to the closet. “Is there a jar in there with my name on it?”
The demon sat back in his chair. “No. In fact, my skills didn’t work on you at all. That’s had me puzzled ever since.”
“Ever since you hurt Fenwen.” The truth reminded me that no matter what his intentions were, Nick had caused damage.
He furrowed his brow. “That was unintentional. I meant to knock her out much like I did you. But my sister and I underestimated how our powers would work on other species. The fae seem to react differently. I truly regret what happened to your friend.”