Gathering Black (Devilborn Book 2)

by Jen Rasmussen

  He nodded. “I don’t blame you.”

  “But you blame my father.”

  Cooper laughed, and not at all pleasantly. “Who would you like me to blame, if not the traitor responsible?”

  “I want you to blame Cillian Wick and the rest of his disgusting clan, obviously!” Arabella shot back. “They have his wife! I’m not Serena’s biggest fan, but my father loves her. What’s he supposed to do? What would you do?”

  Cooper met her square in the eye—without sparing a glance for me, I noted—and said with icy brittleness, “I would grieve for my wife.”

  “Cooper!” My rebuke escaped my lips unbidden. He still didn’t look at me.

  “You’re a liar,” Arabella said. “You wouldn’t leave an innocent woman to die—”

  “Is her life worth more than Crawford’s?” Cooper interrupted. “Is it worth more than mine, and Verity’s? Is it worth more than the countless humans the Wicks would destroy, not to mention every single Blackwood in existence, if they ever managed to plant a forest?”

  “It is to Dalton, it would seem,” I murmured.

  “It would never get that far, not with a counterfeit North,” said Arabella. “Obviously he’s done a lot wrong, but the position he’s in—”

  “—is simple,” said Cooper. “This is a war. People die in wars. He knew the risks, and I hope his wife knew them too, before she married him. Because once they took her, it was too late for that. He knew damn well that she was lost to him from that second on, no matter what he did. But he chose to betray the clan anyway. What? To give her a few extra months of life as a hostage? You really think she’ll thank him for that? Because my experience with the Wicks just lately tells me they’re not very good hosts.”

  He was right, I supposed. There was no way the Wicks would ever just let Serena go. There was no possible happy ending for either her or Dalton Blackwood. But to hear Cooper be so coldly calculating, to know that this would be his reasoning if they ever took me…

  (If they ever take me again.)

  I got up to get more coffee I didn’t want, just so I could turn my back, and neither of them would see that I was crying.

  When I came back to the table Cooper said, “Look, we can argue this all day long, but what’s done is done. The real question is, what do we do now?”

  “We protect the West Seed,” I said.

  “We should try to get the East and the South back,” said Cooper. Then, as if it was an afterthought, he shrugged. “Maybe they’re keeping Serena in the same place. Maybe we can rescue her, too.”

  “Sounds like a suicide mission,” I said. “Don’t you think that’s the first thing Dalton would have tried?”

  “Dalton can’t leave his house,” Cooper pointed out. He leaned toward me, his eyes bright. “But I’ve been talking for months about going on the offensive. I think it might finally be time to bring the battle to the Wicks.”

  “You’re both wrong,” Arabella said. “The first thing we have to do is go and get my father. Or if he won’t listen to reason, at least the North Seed.”

  Cooper sat back and looked at her, considering. “I’m not all that inclined to worry about your father. But you make a good point about the seed. He certainly can’t be trusted with it.”

  “Do you think they know he double-crossed them?” I asked. “Surely he wouldn’t have sent you after us without a cover story.”

  “He said he would tell them I deciphered one of their communications,” said Arabella.

  “So what are you worried about?” Cooper asked.

  Arabella shrugged. “It’s kind of a sucky story, isn’t it? Suppose they don’t believe him? Or they do believe him, but still blame him? They’ll be pretty pissed that you two escaped either way. Plus I happen to agree with you: Serena is lost. The best my father can do now is save himself—and serve the clan.”

  “So you want to convince him to come here,” I guessed.

  “It’s a sanctuary, right?” Arabella said. “He’s probably safer here than in that house they trapped him in.”

  “At the very least, the North Seed is safer here.” Cooper drummed his fingers on the table. “It comes back to this thing of starting a forest with two seeds. Are we sure that’s true? It wasn’t just a lie to help motivate us to get the East?”

  “As far as I know, it’s true,” Arabella said.

  “Well then, we have to protect the North and the West at all costs,” said Cooper. “Everything else we can deal with later. The West we’ve got covered, but securing the North needs to be our first priority right now.”

  I sighed. Another journey up to Boston. And who knew what awaited us there. But as far as I could see, Cooper was right. We couldn’t just leave the North Seed in Dalton’s hands now. “Okay, so when do we leave?”

  Cooper gave me an uncomfortable look. “We don’t. Bella and I will go. I need you to stay here.”

  I laughed in his face, of course. “After all we’ve just been through, I am obviously not sending you up there to risk your life without—”

  “Without what? You to worry about?” Cooper asked. “I can’t afford any liabilities right now.”

  For a few seconds I just sputtered in disbelief, before I finally collected myself enough to yell at him properly. “Any liabilities?”

  “Verity, someone has to stay here and keep an eye on the… sanctuary,” he said, with a pointed glance at Arabella.

  Meaning the vault, of course. We still didn’t know if Dalton or anyone else new about its vulnerability to Blackwoods. That was very practical of him.

  But that word. Liability. I wasn’t about to let that drop.

  “What do you mean, exactly, by calling me a liability?”

  Cooper threw up his hands. “Come on, do you really want to do this now?”

  I looked at Arabella. I thought she might offer to leave us alone—although I didn’t trust her quite so much yet that I loved the idea of her wandering around my hotel unattended—but she just said, “Don’t stop on my account.”

  I raised my eyebrows at Cooper.

  “Don’t get defensive,” he said in his most controlled voice, the one that always came off as patronizing during a fight. “I’m just saying, you’re not an experienced fighter. If it comes to a physical conflict, when we’re together, I have to spend valuable seconds trying to make sure you’re safe. And even then, sometimes you get in the way and get shot.”

  “Oh, for the love of—”

  “It’s safer for both of us if I don’t have to worry about you.”

  “Really?” I said. “Because I wasn’t such dead weight when I knocked over an entire building this morning, so we could escape it! Oh, but I guess you wouldn’t know much about that, because you were sleeping at the time!”

  Arabella snickered, which was not helpful.

  “You saved us there, and I’m grateful,” Cooper said. “But you said yourself you don’t know how you managed it. Your magic isn’t reliable, it isn’t—”

  “Useful?” I interrupted.

  Cooper sighed. “Verity, nobody is questioning that you’ve done more for the cause than any Blackwood. The West Seed is safe here because of you. I hope one day soon, all the seeds will be safe here because of you. But in the meanwhile, someone has to stay behind and keep watch over the West, and of the three of us, you’re best suited to that.”

  “You mean least suited to dodging Wicks and fighting for the North Seed, if it comes to that.”

  “That too,” Cooper said simply.

  I can honestly say, I had to fight the urge to pounce on him and scratch his superior face. Why was I so angry?

  Because I’m afraid he’s right.

  Because I know he is.

  I’m not cut out for this. I’m not useful.

  Okay, but so what if he was right? The Blackwoods were born to all the traveling and hiding and fighting; I wasn’t. Nor did I want to be. I’d been missing Bristol since I left. Soulsick since I left. I had no desire to go back on t
he road again, on another life-threatening mission.

  But it still would’ve been nice to be wanted.

  And balls, I had just pulled down a barn.

  “Verity, we both know you shouldn’t leave Bristol anyway,” Cooper said quietly. “It’s not healthy for you.”

  I stiffened. “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Dr. Claus told you?”

  “What am I, an idiot? I didn’t need Dr. Claus to tell me. I have eyes and ears. I worked it out all on my own.” He reached for my hand. “I’m thinking of what’s best for you.”

  I snatched my hand back. “Don’t lie to me. It’s bad for me to leave, someone has to guard the West. Those are very good reasons for me to stay, I’ll admit. But they’re not the reasons you gave, are they? You said liability.”

  Cooper sat back and crossed his arms. “I’m not going to apologize for telling the truth. If you want to act like a toddler and throw a tantrum about it, that’s your business.”

  “You know what? Fine. You two make your plans, then. I’ll just get out of the way and let the grownups talk, how’s that?” And with that, I demonstrated just how much of a toddler I was not being, by storming out of my own suite.

  I’ll allow it wasn’t one of my finer moments.

  I expected Cooper to come after me, but it was Arabella who found me on the grounds twenty minutes later, where I sat with my back to Cordelia’s trunk, trying to soothe myself under the cheerful glow of a Carolina blue sky.

  “Cooper told me to look for you here.”

  “Yeah? Too busy to come himself, was he?”

  Arabella shrugged. “You know. Boys. You do know the real reason he doesn’t want you along, don’t you?”

  “Because for the past several weeks I’ve done nothing but prove that I’m worthless in a fight?” I nodded at the knife in her belt. “Whereas you’re dead useful to have around, I suppose.”

  Arabella sighed and sat in the grass beside me. “Because what I just told you guys terrified him. Especially combined with what just happened to you two.” She shook her head. “Honestly, you’re lucky he’s leaving, because I am not looking forward to dealing with the mood he’s going to be in, knowing you were stripped, tied up, and tortured, and he couldn’t save you. Especially after you so kindly rubbed it in that he slept through the whole thing.”

  I shrugged, sheepish. “Okay, so maybe that was mean. But Cooper and I have been in bad situations before, you know. And despite my limitations, I have proven my worth on more than one occasion. Yeah, he’s protective of me, but—”

  “But he was lying,” Arabella said.

  I frowned at her. “Lying? About what?”

  “If the Wicks got you, he’d roll over in a heartbeat. Just like my father did. Betray the cause, get someone else killed, whatever it took.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said. How could she? I certainly didn’t know it. In fact, I rather doubted it.

  “I do know it, but that’s not the point,” said Arabella. “The point is, Cooper knows it. And he can’t stand it.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, while I considered her words. Was it really just fear for me, masquerading as pigheaded condescension? Or was he actually a condescending pig?

  Maybe both.

  But maybe he’s not the only one being pigheaded.

  That was certainly true. I had to admit, the whole argument was stupid. Because I fully agreed that I should stay behind. We’d hated leaving the vault undefended, or at least under-defended, the last time. And if anything, we were in more danger now than we’d ever been. I didn’t want to abandon our defenses any more than Cooper did.

  If only he’d simply said, Verity, I need you to guard the West Seed, we’d have moved on in complete accord, and no unkind words would have been said. But instead he’d called me a liability, and declared that he had no time to babysit me.

  And I couldn’t get past that, because I knew that he was right.

  “You’ve got to sit this one out,” Arabella said finally. “You know you do.”

  I nodded. “Fine. But you see to it that you bring him back to me in one piece.”

  Cooper left the next day, with Arabella instead of me at his side. I didn’t want to go. I wasn’t even mad at him anymore for not wanting me to go. It was more that I didn’t want anyone to go.

  Dalton was a dangerous enemy, one that Arabella still couldn’t even acknowledge as an enemy. (Not that I blamed her; not everybody had the benefit of being called Devilborn from birth. Some people with devils for fathers had to come by that knowledge in their own time.) And heaven only knew how many Wicks they’d be waylaid by along the way. Now that I knew what Talon was like, up close and personal, I was more afraid than ever, for all of us.

  But then, I supposed it was too late to worry about the danger of committing myself to this cause. I’d already given up both a part of my hotel, and a part of my soul to it. And besides, Bristol’s lot was thrown in with that of the Blackwoods now. We all needed to defeat the Wicks, and make sure that no sapwood forest was ever planted in our world.

  So instead of being sullen, I handed Cooper a stack of story spells I’d written to help protect him and Arabella. Then I hugged him hard, and kissed him harder. And hoped it wasn’t the last time I would ever see him.

  “Stay safe,” he said to me. As if I was the one going into danger.

  “You, too. And don’t worry about the West. It’ll be here when you get back.”

  He smiled, that Cooper Blackwood smile. And for one treacherous second, I wondered what my life would have been like, if he’d never smiled at me like that.

  “I know it will,” he said, and then walked across the lobby, to join Arabella where she waited for him by the fireplace.

  She looked back at me, and gave me one quick nod. I nodded in return. Two Blackwoods, two vitals who could heal themselves from physical harm, who were experienced at both fighting and shaking off Wick pursuit. Surely it would all be fine.

  At least there was plenty to keep me busy, once they left. Lance was very good at his job, and he had the ever-competent Agatha to help him, but they were still only the managers. The Mount Phearson was mine, and I’d left it neglected for nearly a month.

  The rest of my hometown, too, and the people in it. The first thing I did, even before I attended to the pile of hotel business waiting for me, was call Wendy to see about lunch.

  “Good timing,” she said. “I’m coming to Colonel Phearson’s Pub a little after eleven to deliver some desserts. Want to just eat there?”

  With that to look forward to, I spent the morning going over books and paperwork and other administrative minutia with Lance, things that required focus, but were nonetheless not so taxing as to cause me any anxiety. The very thing to keep my mind off Cooper and Arabella, where they might be—and who might be following them.

  When I got to the pub at lunchtime, I found Wendy already in a booth, her husband Caleb beside her.

  “Hope you don’t mind me crashing ladies’ lunch,” he said. “But you know, when I heard where you were eating…”

  “You wanted the chips,” I said.

  He grinned at me. “Exactly. Already ordered some.”

  “Well, I’m glad to see you,” I said. “Even if you do care more about chips than me.”

  “Totally not true,” Caleb protested. “I’d say you’re about equal.”

  I ordered some sweet tea—I had sorely missed real sweet tea, on our trip north—then asked my friends about the goings-on in Bristol while I was gone.

  “Oh no you don’t,” Wendy said. “Agatha came in for coffee this morning and told me you guys came back naked. Clearly, your story is going to be better.”

  I glanced at Caleb, blushing a little. “I don’t know about better, but my story is for sure long.”

  And so it was; we’d gone through the chips and were halfway done with our main courses, too, by the time I finished telling them all
that had happened. Or at least, all that I was ready to talk about. I made no mention of Cayuga Lake.

  “So now Cooper’s gone again, to get the North Seed from this uncle of his,” Caleb said.

  “And you’re pissed about it,” Wendy added.

  I sighed. “Not exactly pissed. But I feel like he wanted me out of the way.” I frowned into my tea, considering both the source of my dissatisfaction, and how I might overcome it. “Actually, maybe you can help me with this part. I’m a witch, right? And I’m not a bad one. The things I can do, I can do well. But Cooper was right: most of the time on that trip, when we got into trouble, I was a liability.”

  “Except when you pulled that barn down,” Wendy said with a snort of laughter.

  I smiled. “Except then. But I don’t understand how I did it, and I don’t know that I could repeat it. My point is, I need something in my arsenal besides stories and speaking to trees.”

  “Like what?” Wendy asked.

  “I don’t know. But I’ve seen the Wicks fighting with magic. And Marjory Smith and her people. Madeline Underwood. Balls, even Asher Glass in high school. All these other witches can do stuff. Move things with their minds, curse people on the spot, make people start vomiting. I can’t do anything like that.”

  “So basically, you want to be badass,” Caleb supplied.

  “Perfect summary,” I agreed.

  “You have to play to your strengths, that’s all,” Wendy said. “You can’t try to master telekinesis just because you’ve seen the Wicks do it. You might not have the potential for a thing like that. You have to use the powers you have.”

  “Assuming they’re enough,” I muttered.

  “Everybody who can sense vitality keeps telling you how much power you have,” Wendy pointed out. “And we all know what your father was like. I bet you could do some crazy shit, if you applied yourself.”

  “How?” I asked. “I don’t even know what these strengths you’re telling me to play to are, exactly. Except the stories, but they need to be written in advance, and that’s a problem when I don’t know specifically what I need to defend myself from. You can’t pause a car chase to write a spell.”