“Balance. Give and take, he always said. A one-sided deal, no matter how tempting at the time, always comes back to bite you in the end.” She shook her head, a familiar ache forming in the pit of her stomach. “Unfortunately for my father, it came back to bite him anyway.”
Jaci set aside her half-eaten empanada, opting for more liquid courage instead. This was the part she’d been dreading. The part where all the landmines lie buried, waiting for her to step on them and blow herself to bits.
“My father was a good man,” she said. “A good mage. His only fault was falling for the charms of a beautiful demon.”
“That makes two of us,” Gabriel grumbled, but when Jaci looked up to meet his eyes, he quickly waved away the words. “Please. Continue.”
“He summoned my mother often, not realizing how powerful she truly was. Each time she came to him, she made him feel stronger, more in tune with his magic, like he could do literally anything. In turn, she was siphoning his power too. His judgment. She couldn’t manifest outside of the summoning circle, but eventually, after several summonings, she finally convinced my father to follow her back home.”
“To hell,” Gabriel clarified, and Jaci nodded. “How is that possible for a living being?”
“The dead don’t have a monopoly on traveling to hell. The living can go too, but most don’t. It’s too dangerous, and nearly impossible to find your way back out.”
“Your father went anyway, though? Even knowing the risks?”
“He believed he was in love.” She sipped her drink, waiting for it to chase off the prickly heat that’d crept over her skin. “The moment he stepped through the hell gate, he knew he’d made a terrible mistake. But by then it was too late.”
She told him the rest of her father’s story—the details he was willing to share, anyway. How her mother—with help from her precious Viansa—drugged him, tortured him, and forced him to impregnate her before an audience of original demons.
“Originals have their own magic,” she explained. “During the ritual, they raised their communal power, allowing my mother to channel all of their combined dark energy into this one act, this one perfect outcome.” A hot tear slid down Jaci’s cheek, and she let it fall, too ashamed to even brush it away. “But it turns out I wasn’t so perfect after all.”
Gabriel let out a slow, steady breath. Before she even realized what was happening, he reached across the table, covering her hand with his, holding her tight.
He didn’t say a word. Just held her hand, his thumb skating over her knuckles, his eyes losing some of their frost.
Bolstered by the unexpected show of support, Jaci continued.
“I was supposed to be the first of a new breed. My mother and sister believed they could somehow merge the dark, destructive powers of hell with the creative magic of a powerful human mage, creating a demon even stronger and more useful than the half-human hybrids the succubi made. One that could not only travel between realms, but could practicetruemagic, channeling power from both realms, bending the very fabric of reality to her will. To my mother and sister’s will.”
“You said you were bred to destroy vampires,” he said. “How does that come into play?”
“Up here, in the so-called human realm, vampires control the supernatural world—your family in particular. Your brother might feel like he’s barely got a grip, but the truth is, vampire control runs much deeper than politics, and is a much older and more formidable power than the reign of a single royal bloodline. Your very existence keeps the supernatural world spinning.”
“I don’t understand. Witches created vampires. It’s the only reason we exist.”
“Yes, they did create you. And shifters. But now, without you, the whole thing falls apart.”
“Why?”
“Witches created you. And witch magic keeps you from turning into the grays. But vampire blood magic also fuels the witches and mages themselves, who in turn control the hell portals, balancing the flow of demonic essences and other non-human entities into this realm. It’s a complex, symbiotic, and highly evolved system with vampires being the most integral part. Eliminate you, and the rest of the dominoes quickly fall, clearing the way for demons to rule the world. Or enslave it. Or burn it down—whatever they want. So, with a combination of hellfire and magic—the darkest magic you can imagine—even just a handful of hybrids like me, working in concert and in secret, could take down your entire race. It would take a long time, but yes, it could absolutely be done, and that’s precisely what my family envisioned.”
“Yet youhaven’ttaken us down,” he said, releasing her hand and leaning back in his chair, a bit of the frost returning to his eyes. “Why?”
“I told you, I wasn’t the perfect specimen they’d hoped for. Not for lack of trying—all I ever wanted to do was please them. I jumped through every hoop, sat through every experiment…” Jaci fought off a shiver, her old ghosts never far. “All the things I told you about this morning are true, Gabriel. It was torture. Absolute torture. And in the end, I showed no sign of the dark demonic powers I was supposed to manifest. No indication I could do anything more than cast a bit of hellfire and craft a few spells.”
“Are there others?” he asked, and she knew by the way he watched her—the distrust in his eyes, the wariness around the edges—he wasn’t asking about original demons like her mother and sister.
He was asking abouther.
“Not that I’m aware of.” Jaci sipped her drink. “When I turned out to be such an epic disappointment, I’m pretty sure they put that experiment on the shelf and moved on.”
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t working on others. Something even more dangerous and deadly.”
Jaci shrugged. “Hell is full of experiments. My mother is just one demon, my sister another, both bent on global human and supernatural domination, just like all the rest. Half the time they’re teaming up, the other half they’re trying to kill each other, because that’s how original demons roll. So yeah, you asked if there’s something even more dangerous? Bet on it, Prince. It could literally be anything.”
Gabriel ran his thumb along his lower lip, calling her attention to his sexy-as-sin mouth. Holy hell, what that mouth had done to her…
Thankfully, before she could fall headlong into another fantasy, he lowered his hand and said, “Tell me about the night they released you. You said your father made some sort of bargain?”
