those I loved had been answered, and I didn't know how to feel about it.
I watched Pierce's grace as he came back and sat across from me, perched on the edge of the chair with the coffee table between us. Exhaling, he put his elbows on his knees and looked at his hand, burnt and sore. I could smell the garden on him. It mixed with his redwood-witch smell, strong for just having done high magic - black magic.
"Is everyone okay?" I asked, guilty for thinking only of myself. "Bis? Jenks's kids?"
Pierce tossed the hair from his eyes. "Three of Jenks's kids were savaged but will mend. Jenks is death on as a strategist."
I put my feet on the floor and heaved to a stand, tired. "I should see if I can help," I said, even as I dreaded going back out there.
Pierce rose with me. "They're fine," he said, taking my fingers with his unburnt hand to give his words more strength. "It's you I'm powerful worried about."
The concern in his eyes caused my eyes to well. Damn it, I wasn't going to cry - even if I'd almost wiped out an entire clan of people. Pierce reached out, and I drew back. I needed something, but not that. I didn't deserve the comfort of another person. And not him. It would be too easy, and it might not be real.
Pierce's hand dropped, his expression becoming even more concerned as he saw my fear. "Talk to me," he said simply.
That... I could do, and I looked at him miserably as the band around my chest tightened. He was probably the only person who might understand. "I don't know anything anymore," I whispered. "I almost killed them. Pierce, what am I doing7. I am exactly what they call me. A black witch. Maybe I should just go with it. Go hide in the ever-after with Al. Leave my friends... " The tears started to well again. Leaving was not what I wanted.
Smiling faintly, he sat down, pulling me down with his mere presence. He didn't say a thing as I sat across from him and pulled my knees to my chin, but just that he was listening without judgment was enough to make me cry. I knew Jenks had killed before to protect his family. Ceri was a bloodthirsty savage despite her elegant charm and beauty - and always had been. Ivy was Ivy. I wasn't going to pretend that Pierce wasn't capable of killing someone. It was the thought of me killing someone I couldn't handle.
"I didn't want to be like this," I said softly.
"It was a decision," he said, safe and nonconfrontational.
"A decision to kill someone," I said bitterly. "With magic." That's all the curse did. There was no pretending that it was to heat bathwater or start the grill. It was able to break through an aura to burn someone alive - black magic no matter how you looked at it.
"You saved Jenks and his family," he offered. "Would you rather they be dead?"
I pulled back, not liking what I was feeling. "There had to have been a better way," I said dryly, my gaze going past him to the burnt pool table.
"Perhaps," he said slowly. "I swan I wouldVe killed them straight out to keep Jenks from making a die of it and you safe. I still think allowing them to live is a mistake. It remains to see if you are strong enough to see it through. And how."
"It wasn't a mistake," I said, affronted, and he sighed, burnt hand held loosely in the other as he looked down at them. Okay, maybe it was a mistake, but f d make it again in a heartbeat. Or maybe find another way to begin with. There just wasn't an answer that I liked, and exhausted in mind and body, I said, "They're right." Pierce's eyes met mine, and I added, "Vivian. Brooke. Everyone. I'm a demon. I deserve what they're trying to do to me." I raised a hand and let it fall, staring at it on my lap and wondering if I could smell burnt amber on it. "I'm filthy."
Pierce only smiled as if I was endearing, making me want to smack him. "You're not," he said, softening my anger. "Surviving the decision of letting such ornery people live will be its own punishment. Don't look to add to it."
"I don't want to be this person," I said, frowning when I heard Ivy come in