Chapter 24

Cole

Barataria Preserve, Marrero, Louisiana

A s a well-respected attorney barred in three states and admitted to practice before several federal circuits, Cole was used to opposing counsels doing their level best to undermine him before the court. It was practically second nature for him to be constantly wary of unexpected attacks—physical or verbal—from any direction. So while the unexpected question from the witch in front of him didn’t take him aback, the vitriol she spewed about his witchling, still curled in his arms and shaking, did. And the cruelty of her words triggered every protective instinct in his body. As Hayden often joke—usually to Cole’s never-ending irritation— #lawyermodeactivated. “You forfeit the right to call anybody your anything when you casually call them a murderer over actions committed when they were a toddler who couldn't form the necessary criminal intent ,” he bit out coldly.

Chloe rebounded as if he had slapped her, and even Cassandra looked uncomfortable with his assessment.

Hesteia shook her head, though, glaring coolly at Cole. “Cassandra saw her association with that woman’s death,” she argued. “What does that make her if not a murderer?”

Evie shook harder in his arms, and he tucked her head into his chest, dropping his chin to nuzzle her hair. “It’s okay, Angel,” he murmured, rubbing his hand down her arm. The sleeve of the shirt she wore—his shirt, he thought viciously, possessively—was ripped from her earlier trek through the forest, and the torn fabric scratched harshly along his palm. “Don’t pay them any mind.” He pitched his voice low; his reassurance and gentle words were for her ears only. Not for these judgmental assholes. “You hear me?” His rage made his accent thicker than it had been in years. Her head nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly against his chest.

He pressed a kiss to her hair before lifting his head, the anger he felt flooding on to his face, quirking his lips into a rage-filled scowl. “If you love her as you claim to, you know that people grow and develop. You know that nobody is the same person they were in adolescence, and that's doubly true for when they were a fucking toddler.” Ignoring Chloe as she sputtered denials he continued, “If you want to accuse me of something, go ahead and do it. But don’t disguise it as an indictment of Evie for actions she doesn’t remember and can’t be held responsible for because, as we all acknowledge, she was a goddamn infant when they happened.” Evie’s fist clenched a bit on his shirt, but he didn’t know whether it was in thanks for defending her or horror at what these women thought of her.

“Fine.” Hesteia’s voice rang out. “You want us to accuse you of something instead of attacking Evie? You want us to accuse you, a known invader of our peaceful home, of something? Very well.” The flames wavered around her face, drawn by her impassioned outburst. “What interest do you have in Evie? Why are you not surprised by Cassandra’s prophecy?” He blinked at her, and the witch’s lips turned up in a victorious smile. “Are those questions clear enough for you?”

Cole’s chest clenched. All excellent questions. But all had answers that Evie deserved to hear from him first. There was no way this conversation should be had for the first time in front of Evie’s family, particularly when they had a vested interest in arguing against everything he had to say. He needed to get her out of here, so they could have that discussion together first. Alone. “I’m interested in Evie for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is that our magic resonates in a way that none of you have seen before. Which also happens to answer your other question. My magical source is death. Evie is the only other person I’ve ever found who shares that source in any way.” Disturbed murmurs rose from around the fire. From below, Evie’s head tilted in an almost feline way that indicated just how closely she was listening to the conversation. “Any other interest that I have in her is between us. Strictly speaking, y’all have no right to unpack and pick at any part of our relationship.” Jesus Christ . He was more upset than he thought if he was casually dropping “y’all”—a word he had been convinced he had purged from his vocabulary—in conversation.

“Death magic?” Thea asked, twining her fingers with Hesteia's as her eyes grew wide. “We thought that was a myth. Our lore doesn’t speak of anyone but the old gods having death magic.”

Fuck . Cole swallowed. They were starting to get far too close to the reality of it all, truths that were best shared privately with Evie first. “Well, Evie has it. It would explain how she was able to raise an attack against her mother when the woman was planning on abandoning her to the elements.” It would also explain why a three-headed dog with burning red eyes, which he strongly suspected was Cerberus, had been protecting her at the forest’s edge until he felt she was safe, but that was neither here nor there.

For the first time in several minutes, Evie spoke up. “Why did you take me in if you… ” She lost the sentence to her trembling voice. “If you knew that I had murdered that woman. Why would you bring me home with you?” Silence reigned around the fire. “You could have endangered everyone. Why would you risk the coven that way?”

Chloe exchanged a loaded glance with Cassandra that Evie’s tear-swollen eyes tracked. “What?” Evie demanded, sitting straighter in Cole’s lap. “What aren’t you telling me, Chloe?”

Chloe wasn't the one who responded, though.

“You were a little girl. We couldn’t leave you to the bayou. You would have been eaten by animals or starved or died of sepsis, to name just a few ways you could have perished.” Hesteia spread her hands, palms up. “So we lobbied the Witches’ Council to allow us to take you in. After many tied votes, we finally received a unanimous vote by a narrow margin. They agreed to let us bring you in if we agreed to certain… requirements.” For the first time during the evening, Hesteia’s tone was tentative, her words carefully chosen. After all his years as a litigator, Cole recognized the tells when a person was trying to protect themselves or someone else: the hesitation, the stilted style of speech, the lack of assurance. He saw all of those signals in Hesteia, and he knew, in his gut, that she was dancing around even more unpleasant realities. “They wanted… to see what you remembered and ensure that the covens had someone to protect us. Someone who could… do what needed to be done if the need arose.”

“Excuse me?” Evie sprang to her feet, nearly knocking Cole to the ground. “Are you saying that the Council agreed to allow me to stay so I could be your resident executioner? Am I hearing you correctly, Hesteia?”

At Hesteia’s stern look, Cole rose quickly behind her. Whatever Evie had in mind, he was on board. If she wanted to leave, he would hold her hand as they walked away. If she wanted to dismantle her coven members with her death magic, he would pour his own into her and watch them scatter into ash on the wind. Whatever she wanted—whatever she needed—he would give it to her.

“We would never say that!” Chloe choked out. At Evie’s mutinous snarl in her direction, she curled back into Cassandra’s arms, crying softly.

“Is that why you've put me through memory reversions every year since I was pubescent?” Her voice was pitched low, vibrating in rage but controlled.

Even still, Cole went cold with fury. Memory reversions were a useful but deadly magical tool to bring forth a person’s lost memories of their current and past lives. When used on a person whose memories of this and their previous lives were positive, it could reveal beautiful possibilities for their emotional and mental growth. But when used against a witch like Evie—a witch who was responsible for her own mother’s death, who had at least one previous incarnation soaked in blood, death, and grief—it practically invited madness. It was a miracle Evie hadn’t succumbed to a murderous rage in the absolute best case, a catatonic state in the worst. A growl echoed around the clearing. It took Cole several minutes to realize it was coming from him.

The witches clocked it long before he did, and he felt them begin drawing upon their magic to stall him.

Joke’s on you, fuckers , the dark voice in his head whispered. I can tear your world down around you and barely break a sweat.

“As soon as I started seeing,” she fluttered her hand in his direction, “Cole. As soon as I started hearing him. Having the nightmares. You forced me into reversions, no matter how much I begged and pleaded with you not to. Was it just so I could remember and become the Council’s perfect little murder tool? Their failsafe in case something went wrong?” As her voice rose, the hanging vines started to sway as if called to her rage. “And you agreed to do the reversions every year just so you could bring me back to the coven with you, even though you knew how much pain those spells caused me each time we did them?”

At her pause, Cole jumped in. Evie hadn’t mentioned the danger aspect of a memory reversion. Did she know just how much risk they had exposed her to with their continued use of dangerous magic? “Did you know?” he asked Hesteia.

“Know what?” Although her voice was level, Cole’s ability to detect bullshit was finely tuned. And this lady was still hiding something.

“Did you know the dangers associated with memory reversions on someone with a bloody past?” He felt rather than saw Evie’s back stiffen. Recognized the exact moment the words seeped into her consciousness. “Did you know you could have driven her to madness? Made her a shell of herself? Memory reversions are only intended for those whose lives have been peaceful. Were you aware of that?”

Silence followed his question. No one spoke until Chloe stammered, “N-n-no?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?” he demanded. This was the Cole Aidoneus that other attorneys hated to respect. This was the Cole Aidoneus he needed to be for his little witch right now. All of his life, his education, his experience, all of it was leading to this exact moment when he had to defend his goddess. This had nothing to do with who Kore had been to Aidoneus millennia before; it had fucking everything to do with the effervescent girl who had haunted his dreams, who had been his steadfast companion his entire life. He had been in love with her since he was twelve, craved his devastatingly beautiful dream woman since he was old enough to feel sexual desire, and, in the 24 hours since he met her in person at the construction site, had felt more… everything, every emotion under the sun, from lust to joy to rage to possession, then he had ever felt before her. And these witches in front of him could have destroyed her with their reckless magical experimentation, annihilated his opportunity to ever meet her outside of his dreams. “Did you know that you could have magically lobotomized Evie with your memory reversions?” To a one, the witches gaped at him, each of their jaws dropping. “Yes or fucking no. It’s a simple question.”

The sound of crickets chirping was the only sound in the clearing.

“So either you knew and did it anyways because the Council told you to,” he continued. “Which is despicable and, I would argue, abusive. Or you had no idea and used magic that you didn’t understand because the Council told you to, which makes you reckless, both with Evie’s life and the coven’s safety. So which is it?” At their downturned faces, he scowled. “You know, I don’t really need an answer, but I’m fairly certain Evie deserves one.”

Mere steps away from him, Evie was practically vibrating in fury. The blue hue of death magic tinged her eyes, but it seemed like she was maintaining a thin line of control. “Yes. Evie does deserve an answer,” she said in a dark tone that simultaneously spiked a bolt of arousal through him and scared the shit out of him. Around them, the trees were practically quivering, their limbs and the moss dangling from them thrashing to get to her. The vines wrapped around their trunks edge to the ground, slithering snake-like to get as close to her as possible. “Tell me. Now.”

The witches weren’t stupid, but they were definitely alarmed. Hesteia eventually responded for all of them. “The Council… we knew. And we took… a calculated risk.”

At her words, the world around them exploded.