We remained off to the side of the path as we fought, not coming into contact with any humans. As long as the humans remained untouched, they’d remain ignorant to our fighting.
Once I had Sage locked in position, I looked down into her eyes again and repeated my command.
Suddenly, a woman burst forth from the crowd of humans and pulled Sage out of my grip. As she did it, she swiftly slipped something into my pocket. Then she placed herself between Sage and me, guarding us from one another.
I recognized the petite blonde instantly from the drone footage. She was the demon who had mated with Flint.
Azazel’s daughter.
I reached into my pocket, ready to expose whatever she’d put in there. It was a piece of paper. Some sort of note.
She looked at me with tortured red eyes—eyes that begged me to listen to her. Her eyes were more human than any demon eyes I’d ever seen. Sage’s included.
Not yet, she mouthed, remaining in front of Sage so Sage couldn’t see. Later.
It almost seemed like she was trying to help me.
Why would a demon be trying to help me? Especially Azazel’s daughter?
I didn’t know, but for now that paper wasn’t going anywhere.
So I pulled my hand out of my pocket, not taking the paper with it. I’d look at it later. Now, I needed to focus on getting Sage away from these monsters.
“Do you really think we would have been so careless as to allow Sage to come out to meet you without protection from your mind control?” Azazel’s daughter asked.
“You’re wearing wormwood,” I realized, speaking to Sage and not to the demon.
“Wrong.” Sage smiled.
“Then how did you resist the compulsion?” I was a vampire prince and Sage was the beta of the Montgomery pack. My magic trumped hers. She only could have resisted it by wearing wormwood.
“I told you—Azazel’s protecting me,” she said proudly. “His magic is stronger than yours. As is Mara’s.” She motioned to Azazel’s daughter, whose name was apparently Mara.
“We didn’t come here to fight.” Mara held her hands up like she was declaring peace and backed up to stand next to Sage. “We only want to talk.”
“I already tried talking to him,” Sage said. “He doesn’t appreciate what we’re offering. And if I can’t get through to him when I’m imprinted to him, I doubt he’ll change his mind.”
Mara’s gaze flickered between Sage and me when Sage mentioned our imprint bond. The demon looked utterly defeated.
But then she wiped her expression clean, looking every bit as detached as Sage.
“You know him best, so I trust your judgment,” she said. “Let’s return to the compound. We shouldn’t waste any more time here.”
“We’re just going to leave him here?” Sage looked both shocked and appalled.
“What else do you propose we do?” Mara asked. “Kill him?”
The Sage I knew would have been horrified at the thought.
This Sage watched me coolly, as if thoroughly assessing the situation.
“Is that what Azazel would want us to do?” she finally asked.
“You wouldn’t.” I stepped forward to reach for her again, but the disgusted look on her face stopped me in my tracks. “We’re imprinted. That has to mean something for you.”
“I already told you.” Mara studied me with each word she spoke. “My father’s magic is strong. It’s stronger than your power of compulsion, and it’s stronger than your imprint bond with Sage. Her allegiance is to us now. Not with you. The sooner you understand that, the easier this will be.”
Sage just stood there beside her, saying nothing to go against the demon’s words.
I didn’t want to believe it.
But I also wasn’t one to deny what was right in front of my eyes.
“However, given your imprint bond with Sage, I don’t think my father would want you dead,” Mara continued. “At least not yet. Because you’re not going to give up on her. Are you?”
“Never,” I said, since I knew Sage well enough to know she’d been forced or coerced into bonding with Azazel.
“See?” Mara turned to Sage and smiled. “It took some time for Flint to come around as well. And look how that turned out.”
I wanted to point out that I was never going to “come around” to making a blood oath with Azazel.
But I held my tongue.
Because I suspected that in some sort of twisted way, Mara was trying to help me.
Of course, I couldn’t be sure until reading the note. But if Sage thought I was considering her offer, it would be easier to rescue her once I figured out how to break the bond with Azazel.
“This is a lot to take in, in such a short amount of time,” I said, looking at Sage’s empty eyes when I spoke. “I’ll consider your offer. But I need time to mull it over first.”
Sage crossed her arms over her chest, not looking pleased. “Will Azazel be satisfied with that response?” she asked Mara.
“Given that it took Flint a few days to agree to an alliance, I believe so,” Mara replied. “My father understands that your kind struggles with making decisions at the same quick pace we can. You’ll find he’s rather reasonable when it comes to matters like this.”
If Sage was offended by the obvious insult to her species, she didn’t show it.
“Fine,” she said, turning back to me. “If you decide to accept, you know how to reach me. Until then, don’t send me any more letters. Or anything else, for that matter. I have my alliance and my pack now. If you don’t want to join us, you have nothing more to say to me.”
She turned around to leave, Mara following at her side.
Sage didn’t look back at me once. But Mara did. And as strange as it was, the demon appeared to truly sympathize with my present situation.
My heart had been reduced to a dark, empty cave in my chest. What had the world come to, that a demon was behaving more empathetically than the love of my life?
Once they were out of sight, I reached into my pocket, took out the note, and unfolded it. The loopy, flawless handwriting was unfamiliar, and a far cry from Sage’s messy scrawl.
I glanced to the bottom to see who it was from.
Mara.
Curious, I sat back down on the bench to read it.
Thomas,
You have no reason to trust me. But I hope you’ll listen anyway. And I don’t have much time alone to write this, so I need to keep it brief.
A few months after returning to Earth, I met Flint and imprinted on him. It was supposed to be impossible for a shifter to imprint outside of the species, although I’ve since learned of Sage’s imprinting on you and of Noah’s imprinting on a human.
When my father—the greater demon Azazel—learned of this imprint, he said he would only allow Flint and I to mate if the Montgomery pack aligned with him through a blood binding ceremony.
Flint and the Montgomery pack, including Sage, went through with the ceremony. Afterward, as my father promised, he allowed Flint and I to mate.
I knew something had changed with Flint immediately following the blood binding ceremony. But it was only after the mating was complete that I realized he was no longer the man I loved.
My father’s magic is strong. It supersedes the magic that ties Flint and I together.
Flint is devoted to my father now—not to me.
The mating changed me as well, but not in a way I ever expected. I feel things I didn’t before. I care about things I didn’t before. Which is why I brought Sage to meet with you today. I wanted you to see the effect of the blood binding yourself.
Sage is no longer the woman you imprinted on. Her soul is lost to you. It belongs to my father now.
However, I promise she’s safe with us. Of that, you have my word.
Don’t make the same mistake I did. Leave her now, while you still have the chance.
Maybe you’ll find love again someday. But if you mate with Sage, you’ll end up
like me—cursed to forever love someone who’s unable to love you back. And I wouldn’t wish that upon my greatest enemy.
Don’t reach out again. If you do, I assure you won’t be dealt with kindly.
Sincerely,
Mara
I re-read the letter a few times, unsure what to make of it. I didn’t want to believe it could true.
I also couldn’t deny what I’d just seen in front of my eyes.
Sage was no longer the person she once was.
But I wouldn’t give up on her.
Mara clearly didn’t know me. If she did, she’d know I’d never give up on anyone I loved.
However, I couldn’t help Sage on my own.
Which meant it was time to come clean to the others about everything I’d been up to these past two days, so we could work together to figure out how to break that blood binding spell ourselves.
31
Noah
I sat through breakfast, stunned as I listened to what Thomas had been up to these past two days.
I wasn’t surprised he’d contacted Sage and met up with her. I probably would have done the same thing in his shoes. And if he’d succeeded in bringing her back here safely, I would have been grateful.
But he hadn’t succeeded. And it was because of the same reason I’d suspected when I’d decided it made the most sense to save Raven first.
Sage had been changed in a way we didn’t understand, and she wasn’t going to leave her pack willingly. The only way to save her was to break the blood bond. And it was going to take us longer to figure out how to do that than it would take us to rescue Raven.
As tempting as it was to rub in the fact that I was right, I didn’t. Because I couldn’t imagine what Thomas was going through. I hated being away from Raven, but at least I knew where she was. At least I knew she was still Raven.
Thomas finished reading Mara’s note aloud, and then looked around the table for our reactions.
“This has to be a trick.” Bella was the first to react. “Demons don’t care about anyone outside of their species. I don’t even think they care about most others in their species. They don’t have consciences.”
“She’s right,” Cassandra added. “A demon wouldn’t help you. Mara must be lying.”
Thomas’s eyes widened with hope. “Which means Sage is still in there,” he said.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but it needed to be said. Everyone turned to me, and I continued, “We both know Sage. If she didn’t mean what she was saying, she would have dropped a hint. Something only the two of you would understand. But you said she didn’t do or say anything to show she was going along with this against her will.”
“No.” Thomas’s expression hardened again. “She didn’t.”
“And Mara said she changed after mating with Flint.”
“You heard the letter.” He motioned to where it now lay on the table. “She said she feels things and cares about things she didn’t before.”
An idea started forming in my head—a crazy one, but one that also made a strange amount of sense. “You said demons don’t have consciences,” I said, focusing on Bella and the other witches at the table. “But we all have consciences.”
“Of course we do.” Bella motioned to all of us right there. “But demons don’t. They’re the only creatures in the world without consciences. They were locked into Hell because of how dangerous that makes them. Angels are their exact opposite. Their consciences are so strong that they can’t bear to be on Earth. It literally hurts their soul to be around the pain and suffering that exists here, which is why they stay in Heaven.”
“Interesting.” I immediately thought about Annika—how she’d remained in Avalon since becoming the Earth Angel—but quickly refocused to the topic at hand. “And Mara said she changed after mating. It sounds like she somehow gained a conscience.”
“That’s not possible.” Amber’s eyes narrowed. “Demons are empty, evil creatures. It’s why they belong on Hell and not on Earth.”
“But a demon has never mated with a shifter before,” I said. “And when shifters mate, we give a piece of our soul to our mate and they give a piece of theirs in return.” It was why we mated for life. It was impossible to fall in love with another person after having a piece of your mate’s soul fused into yours.
“So Mara carries a piece of Flint’s soul,” Cassandra realized. “But she’s a demon. Piece of Flint’s soul or not, the core of who she is can’t be changed.”
“That’s not entirely true,” I said, and the attention in the room once more flickered to me. “You all know about dyads. Right?”
“Dyads are shifters who can shift into more than one animal form,” Thomas answered swiftly.
“Yes.” I nodded. “When shifters are born, we can only shift into one animal form. Wolf, coyote, mountain lion, tiger… whatever the apex predator usually is of the local area. Normally, we imprint with shifters who share that same animal form. But sometimes, we’ll imprint with a shifter who has a different animal form. When two shifters with different animal forms mate, they’re then able to shift into two forms—their original form, and the form of their mate. The mating changes who they are, both outwardly and inwardly.”
“But Mara can’t shift into a wolf,” Bella pointed out.
“Maybe she can.” I shrugged. “We don’t know what she can do. This is the first time a non-shifter has mated with a shifter.”
“That we know of,” Thomas added.
“This is insane.” Amber rubbed her index finger against one of her temples, as if just the thought of this was stressing her out. “This is a demon we’re talking about. They’re psychopaths. It’s why they were locked in Hell. It’s why we want to kill the ones on Earth now.”
“Well, from what Mara wrote in the letter, she either gained a conscience from mating with Flint or she’s lying,” Thomas said. “But the most important thing for us to focus on is learning more about the demon binding so we can fix what happened to Sage.”
“We’ve already looked through every book in our library,” Bella said. “Like I’ve told you, the only witches who know how to reverse what happened to Sage are the ones in the family that created the spell. It would have to be an old dark magic family. Those families tend to be reclusive. We can’t exactly call them up and ask them to spill their deepest family secrets.”
I blinked a few times, feeling like an idiot.
Because she was right that she’d already told us this.
Right afterward, Raven had communicated with me through the imprint bond to give me her coordinates. I’d been so excited about locating Raven again that I hadn’t thought about the conversation since.
Now that we were discussing it again, it was ridiculously obvious.
Because the answer had been in front of my face since the night we’d spied on Flint and Mara’s mating ceremony.
32
Noah
“Azazel and the Montgomery pack have to be working closely with this ancient, dark witch family to have gone through the blood binding ceremony,” I said. “So it would make sense for one of those witches to be at the mating ceremony too. And there was one woman there without red eyes who isn’t part of the pack…” I dropped what I was eating and rushed to the office.
Everyone else followed at my heels.
“Bring up the footage from Flint and Mara’s mating ceremony,” I told Thomas. “A part that shows the faces of everyone there.”
The recording showed up on the big screen television in seconds. He paused on a spot that showed a view of all the attendees.
I stepped forward and pointed at a woman with long, jet-black hair wearing a white dress that hung to the floor. “That’s her,” I said.
Thomas zoomed in on the woman. The image was pixelated, but her pale, sallow features now filled the screen.
“Do any of you recognize her?” I asked the witches.
“Like I said, the ancient famili
es are reclusive,” Bella said. “They don’t live in the middle of Beverly Hills like we do.”
“You’re not an old family?” I’d always assumed they were because they were so powerful.
“No.” Amber shook her head, her eyes bugged out in horror. “We have as much power as they do, but we were bred overtime to be this way. The ancient families remain so powerful because… well, they keep their breeding in the family.”
“Gross.” I crinkled my nose in disgust. “So you have no idea which family this woman might be from?”
“We’ve never seen her before.” Bella tilted her head, studying the image. “But she has the look of a Foster witch, doesn’t she?” The question was directed to the other witches in the room—not to Thomas or me. “She looks like the pictures of them I’ve seen in books.”
“Hair black as tar and skin white as snow.” Amber’s lips formed into an O of surprise as she traced her index finger along the woman’s features on the screen. Then she dropped her hand down to her side and turned back to face us, her eyes serious. “But the Foster witches were all killed during the Great War. They created the spell to lock Geneva into the ring, but they were killed in battle by Nephilim before they could perform the spell themselves.”
“A spell so strong it required their Final Spells to work.” Bella crossed her arms and smirked. “Convenient.”
“What are you saying?” Amber asked.
“What if they weren’t actually killed in the Great War?” she replied. “What if they created the spell, and then faked their deaths so another witch circle could sacrifice themselves to stop Geneva?”
“That’s twisted,” Cassandra said.
“The Foster witches were notorious for being twisted,” Bella said.
I didn’t comment on that, since I was already a few steps ahead after hearing them mention Geneva. “Could the Foster witches have also created a cavern that kills most people who enter?” I asked. “And could they have placed weapons in that cavern? Weapons connected to the souls of demons?”
The Angel Trials- The Complete Series Page 58
