Page 60 of A Trial By Blood

The panic I’d felt while being dragged in here was now completely gone. Whatever was in that blue smoke was extremely powerful. I looked around. There were…things hanging from the walls and ceiling, things I didn’t want to look at too closely. There were also more jars in here filled with all kinds of stomach-churning items.

“What’s your familiar’s name?” I asked. The raven was all animal, not shifter.

“Dolores.”

The bird shook out her inky feathers. “She’s beautiful.” Agatheena placed a mug in front of me. “So, are you going to hurt me?”

She filled it with tea. “No. How will you repay me if your innards are hanging from my ceiling?” She cackled at the look on my face.

A roar came from outside. Ronan.

“He’s a feisty one. But slamming himself against my ward like that isn’t going to get him anywhere.”

“Will you let him in?”

“No,” she said. “I have no interest in your mate storming in here and throwing a tantrum. I’d have to hurt him, and I don’t think you’d like that.”

“My mate?”

She sipped her tea. “You didn’t know?”

“I was told he was, but I was too scared to believe it in case it wasn’t true.” Okay, that blue smoke hadn’t just calmed me, it’d made me way more comfortable in this cottage of horrors than I should be. So much so, I was telling her all kinds of things, apparently.

She studied me. “He has his work cut out for him, protecting you.”

Her words should scare me, but it seemed physically impossible right then. “Why is that?”

“There’s darkness around you. It’s powerful and relentless.” She sat across from me. “I see two paths ahead of you, and both will bring you and your coven great pain.”

Death, she had to be talking about Death and his demand for me to join him in Limbo. “Is there any way to avoid it? Is there another path?”

She took my hand and closed her eyes. Her eyes moved behind her lids for several seconds. When they opened, they were red demon eyes. “No. Two paths and both suck.”

Again, I should have been freaking out, but nothing. “You asked if my coven had exiled me. Did yours?”

“When I grew older, and it became apparent what my father was, they threw me out. I was stronger than them; they were threatened. I’ve lived alone ever since. I prefer it that way.” She leaned forward. “So, girlie, what do you want to know?”

I slid my phone from my pocket and clicked on the pictures of the stolen demon effigy. “We know this is of demon origin. Do you know what it’s used for?”

“Why do you want to know?” she asked, a strange look in her eyes.

“I told you, it’s part of my task.”

“No other reason?”

I shook my head, the look in her eyes making me feel uneasy.

Her hands shot out, and she grabbed my wrist in a hold that would leave a bruise. Dolores cawed. Agatheena was old, but she had demon strength. There would be no getting away from her if she refused to let me go.

She closed her eyes again, as if she were looking inside me for the truth. Her lids snapped open, and she nodded once. “Good thing you’re not lying to me, child,” she said. Her voice was light, but the threat in her eyes sent ice through my veins. The smoke was obviously wearing off.

Ronan roared again outside.

I wanted out of this cottage—now. “What can you tell me, Agatheena?”

“The piece in your photo could be extremely dangerous in the wrong hands. It’s used to summon Hayseous, a bargaining demon.”

That didn’t seem good, not at all. “What kind of bargain?”