Page 39 of Blood Oath
“I’d sooner cut off my dragon’s wings than upset Maven. We should be more concerned about Crypt crossing her lines about physical touch before we even know why she has them there. Who’s to say he won’t manipulate her dreams to make her do shit that she’ll wake up horrified about?”
As if on cue, the Nightmare Prince appears beside us. Everett flinches back as the room chills, and I swear viciously—this is precisely why I need to break my curse. Usually, my magic would be far more potent, and I would have known he was within my magic wards, even in Limbo.
“Fucking creep,” Bael balls his hands into fists.
The incubus casually boosts himself up to sit on a large decorative antique console table, which I’m fairly sure is older than his immortal father. He yawns.
“You didn’t expect me to miss our little pow-wow, did you? If it concerns Maven, it concerns me.”
“Yeah, right,” Everett scoffs, adjusting his tie. “Not a single thing has ever concerned you. You’re incapable of feeling anything remotely like an emotion, which is exactly why you’re a well-documented psychopath.”
“That has been my lot in life,” Crypt agrees breezily. “It’s been quite boring. Until now. Our little keeper is far from boring. Just look what she’s done already, bringing us together to speak like civilized monsters in the dark of the night. One would almost think our past slights were all water under the bridge,” he smirks at me.
Past slights.
An insultingly mild term for what he did to my family.
“Whatever you say, freak. Moving on to final bets,” Bael folds his arms, glancing between us. “Frost, I still want that land. And from Silas, I’ll take a custom spell of my choosing whenever I ask for it. Crypt, I’d want you to make a godsdamned blood oath to stay the fuck out of my head for the rest of my life.”
Blood oaths are utterly powerful—said to transcend lifetimes and even the five planes of existence. Virtually unbreakable, it would ensure even a deviant like Crypt would have to abide by the magical contract.
“There you go, flattering yourself again,” Crypt muses. “There’s nothing interesting in your subconscious anyway. Silas’s is far more entertaining.”
My fists clench. I’m perfectly aware that he’s just needling me. He’s never been in my subconscious. But everyone present knows that his just suggesting the idea is going to have me paranoid out of my mind for weeks.
Everett leans against the wall, tucking his hands in his pockets. “I haven’t decided what prizes I’ll claim, but expect them to take a toll.”
I nod. “I still want the scales. And from the Frost estate, I’ll want free rein to browse your family’s ledgers and past records.”
Everett scowls at this, which doesn’t surprise me. Thanks to the Decimus family, the Frosts have been exposed for many illegal activities over the years.
I turn my glare to Crypt. If my nerves were chalkboard, he’d be the jagged nails scraping across every square inch of it.
He grins. “Go on. We all know I have nothing of value.”
“If I win, I get to enter your subconscious.”
Baelfire whistles low. For once, the arrogant amusement on the Nightmare Prince’s face drops away. The other two look between us, as curious as I am if this will drive Crypt to showcase his least enjoyable character trait—unpredictability. It’s impossible to tell when he’ll snap, going from zero to a hundred in the blink of an eye, but we’ve all seen it at one time or another.
Which is why I want to see inside his head. For incubi, letting someone else into their subconscious is incredibly rare, usually only done with a spouse or their chosen muse. Someone they trust completely.
But if I can figure out what makes him tick, perhaps I won’t end up losing my temper and killing him after we’re all bonded and capable of telepathic communication. Particularly powerful quintets can experience one another’s thoughts, feelings, desires, and so on. Unless I find a new way to deal with Crypt in his subconscious, I’ll end up killing him if I have to share any amount of headspace with him.
I’d like to spare Maven that unpleasantry.
Instead of responding to the severity of my wager, Crypt looks out the window of this moonlit hallway as he pulls out a cigarette and a lighter, the brief flash of flame fading before he takes a long drag and exhales a puff of smoke. The sickly sweet scent of it tells me it isn’t a regular cigarette—and I frown when I can’t identify what it is he’s smoking. I know every type of tobacco, herb, and plant under the sun, so what could it be?
“Odd that Maven arrived so late in the semester, isn’t it?”
Quite the topic change.
“Maven is an atypical caster,” I explain, having read her sparse file of student records earlier. “She manifested magic from a fully human bloodline less than a month ago.”
Everett’s pale gaze flickers to me. “You’re saying Maven came from a human family?”
“Yes. Why?”
He shuffles uncomfortably. “It’s nothing.”
