Page 17 of Demon's Bluff
“You did.” Elyse smiled, but I could tell this hadn’t been a unanimous decision. Yaz and Orion were clearly unhappy. “Which is why we are offering it to you today regardless if the curse you used on Brad Welroe is deemed illicit or not.” Her gaze dropped to the bag on my lap. “Once a coven member, you will enjoy a far greater leeway in what is deemed acceptable.”
Scott snorted, and I gave up trying to get the pin off, my thoughts going to Brice. I had a lot of leeway right now, apparently. “Why did I bring it if you don’t want to see it?” I said, touching the book through my bag, and Adan flicked his blond hair from his eyes.
“Oh, we still want to see it,” he said.
“And any other demon tomes you have,” Yaz added as she set her plate aside.
“As time permits, of course,” Elyse said when I frowned. “Suffice to say that your team inclusion doesn’t hinge on the legality of the curse you put upon Brad Welroe anymore.” Her head tilted. “Just your willingness to show us your library.”
My library?Not even if a second Turn was coming. “And my subrosa position?” I said as the thin trail of dust coming from the top of the bookcase brightened to a dull silver.Jenks, keep your tiny little white butt up there,I thought as I made the subtle finger gesture for “hold.”
Elyse took a sip of her cider. “You’d have to let that go, of course,” she said, and I bristled, wondering if the DC vamps were subsidizing this sudden generosity. “We have already agreed that you can remain permanently stationed here in these very offices, but Cincinnatiwillresume a more traditional power structure.”
I’d be both under their thumb and out of San Francisco and their business. Interesting.
Elyse shifted, clearly not trusting my bland reaction. “You’d be the coven’s plumber.”
Scott smirked, the old guy saluting me with his cider before downing it like a shot of whiskey. It was probably his position, and he would clearly be glad to let it go as there was travel involved. Since being coven was a lifetime appointment and everyone here but Scott was younger than me, it would be nearly a hundred years before I could give it to someone else. Providing they didn’t die early, which, actually, they had a pretty good chance of doing.
“Mmmm, yeah,” I said as I tried to work the pin off again. “As before, I truly appreciate the opportunity, but due to time constraints and previous commitments, I will have to continue to decline your gracious offer.” Grimacing, I tugged at the pin. She’d spelled it on, and it wasn’t budging.
They were all fidgeting—that is, except for Scott, who slammed his empty glass onto the table, startling the crow. “Rachel,” he said, and Elyseshot him a look to shut up. “It was a mistake trying to curse the demons into being unable to cross into reality at will. The coven is in real danger of falling apart.”
“It is not,” Elyse said, cheeks reddening.
“Scott,” Orion warned, and the wizened guy’s expression flickered with an old anger.
“I may be temporary, but I was a member before you were even born,” he said. “And if none of you have the guts to say it, I will. The coven made a mistake.” Scott turned to me in the awkward silence. “And it’s not hard to see why. None of them were ready for the responsibility apart from maybe Orion and Elyse, and if they won’t say it, I will. Please. We need you.”
My lips parted in surprise. I would’ve said they had asked him to play Good Cop to their Bad Cop, but Elyse was staring at him as if she was about to drop live coals from her fingertips. The tension in the room had risen, and the unfocused energy they were dumping into the air was threatening to bust my topknot apart. From his perch, the crow flapped his wings, agitated and feeling it, too.
“You want my help?” I said as I gave up trying to take that pin off. “What if it came with an opinion you don’t like?”
“Decisions are made by vote.” Elyse glared at Scott. “That won’t change.”
“Well, I don’t work by committee,” I said, and Scott gestured as if I had confirmed something he already knew. “Seems to me you want what I can give you but on your terms. Kind of one-sided, isn’t it?”
“Keeping you out of Alcatraz is not one-sided,” Orion said. I had this all figured out, though, and was ready to walk out the door.
“Alcatraz is not the certainty you think it is.” I took my plate of cheese and crackers in hand and reclined deeper into the chair to show them how unworried I was—even as my stomach knotted.I had polished my boots for this?“Scott is right. You made a mistake trying to curse the demons into exile, giving them the fuel to curse you out of the ever-after instead.” I took a bite of cracker, fuming. “Do you have any idea what it cost to get them back in reality? The benefits to all of you of that? The crap I’m going to have to put up with from them if I join your little club?”
“Little club?” Orion’s face flushed, stark against his black mane.
“Benefits?” Elyse practically barked, and her crow cawed. “For who? Not us.”
I brushed the crumbs from my front, embarrassed. “It’s not all about you, Elyse, or the witches, or even the demons. It’s not anusandthemworld anymore. It’s one. Big. Us. And a large chunk ofuswas hurting.” I set my plate aside, done. Done with it all. “You seriously think you can bully me into signing a contract with you after what you pulled? Frankly, you all deserve to be excluded from the ever-after until you grow up.”
Scott stifled a guffaw, and I wondered if I had gone too far as the pleasantry fell away from the rest to leave only a hard anger—and a little fear.
“You’d let the demons do what they want,” Yaz said bitterly.
I leaned forward to take a sip of good, tart Cincinnati cider. “The demons aren’t doing what they want. They are playing by our rules.”
Elyse huffed. “Only because they want to.”
“Only because she’s making them,” Orion added.
I bobbed my head. “And that is different from everyone else, how? No. Your collective problem is the same as Vivian’s. You have been told for so long that you are the alpha to omega that you don’t know how to handle it when you aren’t. You have no ability to trust that someone will do what’s right because that’s how weallget our lattes and Friday nights out.” I felt a faint flush creep up my neck. “And I will not be your reluctant muscle that you stuff in a closet halfway across the continent until you want something. Elyse, it’s been lovely, but I will see you in June as we agreed.”