“Save it!” I shouted. “How is taking pieces of everyone’s soul going to save Honeysuckle?”
The demon narrowed his eyes at me. “Because something far worse was supposed to happen.”
I thought about all the changes that had been worrying me. How my friends’ personalities were completely different. And what was going to happen to our town now that Aunt Nora had gained control of it. But my heart ached when I pictured Nana lying in her bed.
“Are you responsible for my grandmother’s state?” I accused. Energy zapped down my arm and crackled around my fingers.
“Charli,” Dash warned, switching roles from the aggressor to the protector.
Nick gave no reaction to my threat. “Yes and no. But before you hex me or whatever you threatened to do before to him,” he pointed at Dash, “please give me a chance to explain.”
“Do it fast, and I better like what I hear.” I drew in a breath to calm myself but kept my magic at the ready just in case.
The demon steeled himself with a deep breath. “I was born a demon. My father belonged to a pretty prominent family whose business was to make and collect on deals. I was his firstborn, so all of his expectations to continue the family’s reputation rested on my shoulders.”
“We didn’t ask for your life story,” Dash complained.
“But you need to hear it if I’m going to have a chance at all for you to believe I am trying to save your town.” Nick pushed off the desk and paced in front of it. “It didn’t take long for my mother to fully guess at my father’s intentions for my life. I was supposed to be taken at an early age and brought to a family estate with other cousins close to my age to be groomed.
“Most demon parents would approve and care more about their status rising than raising their own children themselves. But Mom wasn’t like most demons.”
Despite my doubts about Nick, his story about his family touched a part of me. I stayed quiet to encourage him to keep telling it.
“The night before I was supposed to be taken, Mom begged my father not to do it. Since I was only four, I didn’t understand everything going on, but I knew a fight when I saw one.” He lifted his hand to touch a spot under his left eye. “Her cheek was swollen and there was purple already blooming around the contusion when she woke me up. She told me not to make a noise, so I didn’t. In the dark of the night, she packed me into the back seat of her car and drove us away from our house.”
“She kidnapped you?” Dash asked in a low voice.
“She saved me,” Nick answered. “We changed cars outside of town with one of her friends. My mom wasn’t like other demons in our clan. She socialized with a wider group of women. A couple of them were witches. They helped her get away.
“Aunt Piper and Aunt Wanda. They gave us charms to hide the two of us from our family and would come around once a year to renew the spell. I loved them.”
“They became your real family. The one you chose,” I said.
Nick nodded. “They were. I got to grow up like a normal kid. Well, a normal kid with one foot in the mortal world and one in the supernatural. I made friends, got decent grades, and even had a few girlfriends. A couple of them were witches, too.” He winked at me.
“You say were,” I noticed. “Did something happen to them?”
His face dropped. “They’re both dead. Died in a car accident.”
I couldn’t help the sympathy building in my heart. “Together?”
“They went on some retreat to the mountains, and while they were driving, their car tire slipped off the road. The wreckage was so bad that it took them a while to identify the bodies.” Nick pressed a hand over his heart. “Mom was devastated when she found out. We both were.”
An awkward silence filled the small space of the room. Unwilling to sit where we’d found Fenwen, I pulled over a chair and sat in it. Dash leaned against the doorframe, blocking the exit.
Nick perched on the arm of the small couch. “It wasn’t until much later…when it was too late, actually…that I figured out it hadn’t been just an accident. They were murdered.”
My eyes flashed to his. “Did you figure out who did it?”
“Not the specific person, but I knew the why. Mom freaked out after they were gone, and she begged me to move with her, saying we needed to stay off the radar. I asked her why we needed to run. Since I was an adult, I figured there wasn’t anything my father or his family could do anymore.” Nick snorted. “My arrogance would ruin both of us.”
“They found you,” I guessed.
“Mm-hmm. My father had never given up on searching for me. He didn’t care about my mother other than wanting to punish her for taking me. Without my aunts and their charms to hide us, it didn’t take long for dear old dad to show up.” Nick closed his eyes. “He wasn’t the monster I’d pictured since I was little. He was polite to Mom. Even nice. At first.”
The demon’s shoulders slumped. “I allowed him into our lives. Met with my father in secret, knowing that Mom would disapprove. But I was curious about him. I wanted to try and figure out what made him so bad that my mother would take me away.”
“The little boy in you wanted to get to know his dad,” I said.
“Yes, all of my actions were that of a child. He fed me stories about all the riches I’d been missing out on, the lifestyle, everything we didn’t have but could possess. Everything my mother had taken me away from.” Nick’s eyes blazed with fury. “And then he showed me the
