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“I refused to take her,” he said, his voice even lower, as if he needed to get the words out but didn’t want them heard. “And I’m not going tofuckinglet him —” He cut himself off. He shook his head, nervous energy making his muscles twitch. “She has the grimoire, Zane. I don’t know how the hell she got it.”
“It’ll be easy enough to get back then.”
“Should be. Might have a little fun toying with her first though.” He smirked. “Speaking of toys...you have a human in the house.”
“Can’t share this one with you,” I said. “She takes a while to warm up to...anything.”
He laughed. “How long have you been after this one?”
“About four years.”
He rolled his eyes. “You’ve always been the patient one.”
“It’s a gift. I just have this insurmountable talent for —” He punched my arm to shut me up. “Fuck, for getting what I want. Asshole.”
“Afreeasshole.” He stretched his arms. “Well, I’ll leave you to your little toy. If she ever warms up to it, we’ll have ourselves a foursome.”
What Leon said changed things: Kent no longer had him, and he no longer had the grimoire. Without the grimoire’s spells, Kent was significantly more vulnerable; a fact Juniper and I could use to our advantage.
“So he can’t use magic anymore,” Juniper mused, pinching her lip between her thumb and forefinger. “Then he’s just a sitting duck without his demon.” Her eyes narrowed as she looked at the laptop screen in front of her. “God, Victoria is so annoying. Every other photo is her in a bikini on a yacht.”
“I’ve seen your Instagram feed, Juni. Half the people you follow are hot women in bikinis.”
She glared at me over the top of her laptop screen. “None of those women tried tokill me.”
“Every lover I’ve had has tried to kill me,” I said. “Keeps things exciting.”
She’d been scouring the Hadleighs’ social media for days. With the worst of her wounds healed, she was eager to get back into the thick of things and make her move against them. But choosing where to strike was risky. Even without the grimoire, Kent was hardly helpless.
We still had a big problem to deal with.
“If we take out Kent first, the Libiri will fall apart,” Juniper said. “They’ll be scrambling. If we can start tracking his movements, we can find —”
“There’s something else we need to deal with first.” And I wasn’t looking forward to it, at all. “Kent Hadleigh still has access to magic, even without his little book.”
“We’ll take care of that first then,” she said simply, setting the laptop aside.
I snickered, shaking my head. “What do you know about witches, Juniper?”
She shrugged. “Broomsticks, pointy hats,double, double, toil and trouble.” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “Are you...are you implying Kent Hadleigh is a witch?”
“He isn’t a witch. His mistress and their daughter are.”
Her eyes slowly widened, realization coming over her. “Heidi and Everly? Arewitches?”
“Think about it,” I said. “Think back to the night you crawled out of the mine. I’ve wracked my brain for years trying to figure out how you got away from Leon. But when you said Heidi touched you, it made sense. She hid you from him. Gave you a chance to get away.”
Juniper frowned, her muscles twitching with tension as she thought back. Those memories took over her whole body when they came. She braced for them as if bracing for pain. “Heidi was in the church. She stood beside Kent while he…” She took a moment. One slow deep breath. “She stood beside Kent while he cut me. She did nothing to stop it. Why would she protect me later?”
I shrugged. “Regret, perhaps. Or a vendetta against Kent. From what Leon has said in the past, Kent never treated her or Everly well. A witch with a vendetta is a dangerous thing. Witches, in general, are very dangerous. No broomsticks, no pointy hats, and no cauldrons. Just very powerful magic. The kind of magic any sane demon wouldn’t fuck with.” I sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, I’m not very sane, and neither are you.”
She grinned. “Damn right. Everly was there that night too. She watched.”
“I can only assume she has power like her mother. And while Heidi may have a vendetta against Kent, there’s no guarantee Everly will go against her father. They’re both risks. They’re both dangerous.”
“Then we take them both out.” Juniper leaned back in her chair. “How powerful are they?”
I rubbed my head, holding back a groan. “Listen. There’s very few things demons will avoid fucking with. The first on the ‘No Fuck List’ is Gods. I’m currently breaking that rule, but in general, every demon knows better than to fuck with a God. The second is Reapers: Hell’s executioners. Reapers are to be avoided at all costs, unless you’ve got a death wish. The third is witches. Witches have the power to discover our true names, and therefore control us by magical means.”
