“Let’s bargain.” He grinned.
Oh, boy. She was about to make a deal with the devil. That hadn’t worked out well for a great many humans. Still, some fiddle player in Georgia had made good, so why not her? “Make me your best offer.”
“I give you my blood oath that no harm will come to tonight’s little summoning party, and you give me my powers.” His eyes glittered.
They were closer than she’d dared hope. “The deal is worthless to me without saving my missing witches.”
“If the amulet leads me to Ashe, I will rescue your witches,” he said. “And I will spare all in the summoning party but the idiot.”
“The idiot?” He could be talking about her.
He sneered. “I think you call him Christen.”
Tempting, so tempting, but deep down she was a nice person. “The entire party or no deal.”
“All right.” He growled. “The entire party. But once you do the tracking spell, I leave you. I work alone, and a human would only slow me down.”
She raised a brow at him. “I could be very useful in finding the amulets.”
“You would also be in the way,” he countered. “I will be dealing with demons who wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, or worse, do to you what you suspect they are doing to your missing witches.” He crossed his arms. “I go alone, or no deal. That is my nonnegotiable.”
In any good barter, everyone won a bit, and everyone lost a bit, so she nodded. “If I agree to that, how do I know you won’t leave my witches there once you’ve disposed of Ashe?”
“Because I will swear to bring them back.” The smile he gave her was downright vulpine. “And that’s a major concession for me, because I don’t like witches.”
Although she’d always seen more of a partnership, this deal might actually work better for her. She could stay here and keep the remaining coven members safe. “If you include that in the blood oath, we have a deal.”
Triumph flared in his gaze. “Get your athame.”
The blood oath took nearly no time with Lucifer cutting his palm, and Bianca cutting hers, then mashing them together and him repeating exactly what she said. There was a brief spark and tingle, and it was done.
She’d done it! Bianca wanted to dance a jig and open another bottle of wine, but she kept that buried deep and took the amulet off his neck.
Lucifer stood and stretched his back muscles.
He was a lot taller standing up, and she took a self-preserving step back. “Unbind my powers,” he snapped.
A niggle of concern wormed its way through her. By rights, removing the amulet should have done that. Not to panic. It could be because he’d been wearing it for a while. Bianca reached for her magic and aimed it at the amulet.
And hit a void.
A complete nothing.
Her magic swirled around aimlessly, and then returned to her.
She tried again, using more power and harnessing the boost of the full moon.
Nothing.
It might be time to panic. “Um…Lucifer?”
Chapter Eight
Lucifer stared at Bianca. He had to have heard her wrong. There was no possible way she’d said what he thought she’d said. “I beg your pardon?”
“The…er…amulet.” Her already pale face went even whiter. A faint collection of freckles stood out over the bridge of her nose. “There’s something wrong with the amulet.”
“And?” A full-blown tempest was building inside him. He’d better be misunderstanding the ramifications of her statement, or the storms would rip free and take everything with it. “Release my power.”
Swallowing, she squared her shoulders and met his gaze. “I can’t.”
“No.” His voice took on a disconcertingly hysterical edge. “You can. I am positive that you can. Do it now.”
She took a big step away from him. “The amulet is not responding.”
“Release my power,” he bellowed. The wine glasses shattered.
“I can’t,” she whispered and bent to pick up broken glass. Then she added, “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry.” The wave of his temper broke over him. Wind whipped her hair around her head. Bested by a mere fucking human. The sofa flipped over, and the coffee table crashed into the wall and shattered. Of course a miserable earth crawler had fucked this up. This is why they should never have been given summoning magic—any magic. “I don’t have time for this.” His voice ricocheted around the cozy cabin. Glass shattered in the windows.
“Hey.” Her finger shook at the broken windows. Leaves and dust from outside whirled into the cabin. “You need to fix that.”
The gall of her nearly ended her life. “I need my power!”
“Breaking my house isn’t going to get it back,” she yelled at him. “Calm down and stop breaking shit. And anyway, you have enough power to wreck stuff.”
He glared.
She smiled back, keeping it perky. She’d stood up to him. Weirdly enough, the anomaly of that did calm him down.
“Now.” She picked up a cushion and dusted it. “We can figure this out.” She stared from her cushion to the upturned sofa and sighed. “I’ll call a coven meeting. Like I said, we create these amulets, and someone must know how to fix this, or the grimoire has to have information that will help.”
Needing to work off some frustration, he righted the sofa for her.
She stared at it.
He pushed it back into place. “If you bring that Weasel-adjacent shit stain anywhere near me, I will end him.”
Pointing at the broken coffee table, she said, “Blood vow.”
“You broke it,” he thundered. And then knit the broken table back together. Then the windows.
“Not yet, I haven’t. I’ll call Patty.” Bianca edged past him, stopped and motioned the mess of glass and wine. “If you could just…”
“Haglette.” He growled. She had zero sense of self preservation, zero.
