I was still trying to figure out how Nova had strung all those words together. How my name ended up in the same sentence as the Devil’s mate.
“Dad’s not going to survive until the end, is he?” Joy asked, tears pooling in her eyes.
The cramps in my stomach felt more like a sickly churning.
“He’s as old as time. He’s not going anywhere,” my oldest sister, Maureen, added. But the way she looked at Dad seemed fearful.
“Your father didn’t want to worry anyone. And he’d be upset if he saw you getting scared now.” Mom said to Maureen, wiping her eyes. “We knew things were going to get bad. The worst is here.”
“I’ll stay with our parents and keep them safe,” I announced, grabbing Mom’s shoulder, anchoring her, as Payne carried Dad for us. I gritted my teeth and said, “Just capture Harvest for good this time. That’ll be one less monster we have to stop at the end.”
Chapter Two
Kara
Mom and I sat beside the bed as Dad slept. I paid close attention to the rise and fall of his chest. Fading wasn’t dying. Dad was about to disappear—as if he’d never existed—but I still waited for the moment his breathing stopped instead.
Mom laid her head down on the bed with her hand on his chest.
“You can rest,” I told her. “I can watch over him.”
She sat up, rubbing her face as I munched on my snack.
“How hungry are you? You need food, don’t you?”
My hunger pangs were insistent. The Slim Jims kept my curse calm, but there was a pressure niggling beneath the surface of my skin. Plus, I had a headache.
“If you can materialize something for me, that would be great,” I admitted.
“It’s getting harder to materialize food from the human world. I’ll make something while you stay with your father,” Mom said, standing.
“I can do it—”
“Nonsense.” Mom smiled. “More than anything, I could use the normalcy.” Her expression cracked, and worry pinched her brows. “You haven’t brought it up.”
She must have been referring to the bomb Nova dropped on us earlier about the Devil.
“What do you want me to say?” I asked.
“It’s going to be okay.” The words sounded like a lie.
I opened another Slim Jim. “Could it be true?”
Instead of lying again, she whispered, “Anything is possible.”
Mom walked around the bed and hugged me. “Let’s not think about the Devil. No matter what the curse made him to you, he can’t be your mate. He only wants one thing, and it’s the same thing Harvest wants.”
I swallowed disappointment. I had accepted, even anticipated, finally having a mate like my siblings. The idea of someone out there meant for me had once been lovely. Exciting. Thinking about being loved, cared for, and maybe having a bunch of kids running around the house always felt like a dream to me. How could my marked mate be the creature who cursed us? Who hated my family?
Hades, what would the Devil think if he knew?
In my daydreams, I used to imagine planting a huge kiss on my lover’s lips when I finally met him. But now, I realized those hopes would remain exactly that—hopes. Dreams, not reality.
Instead, I’d make it my mission to see how far I could throw him when he tried to walk through that portal into the human world. If I didn’t get my happy ending, then he sure as hell wouldn’t get his.
He could rot in Hell.
But… there was no way, right? A person’s fate could be cruel—but this?
