“Wil would shoot you for a
remark like that,” she said flatly. Wil had probably shot for less, but Casey
had made it her policy not to ask. “Anyone ever tell you that sometimes you
can’t fix people?”
“She could try.” It wouldn’t be the first time she had irritated Willow enough to make the girl draw a gun, but she had, so far, stuck to not shooting family. “Duh? I know I can’t fix you. All I can do is push you to fix yourself.”
“She’s resourceful and she almost always gets what she wants in the end. Even when it takes decades.” It had taken a few centuries, but she would see her son married. He wasn’t sure there was anything she couldn’t get done.
“I don’t molt like a bird either and we both know I don’t trust you anywhere near my wings,” she pointed out, eyes rolling. “Besides, it’s not like I can’t put your mother in a coma for the rest of her life if I wanted to.”
“And I reserve the right to defend him.” she shot back pointedly.
“If you harm my son, I harm you, regardless of whether you are defending yourself. You can’t absolve yourself of the consequences of your actions anymore, Chance. Not from me, at least.”
“If he attacks me of his own free will without my goading, I have the right to self defense. This is the most you are going to get.”
He knew there were plenty of instances where he could deserve to be attacked, but he was willing to go out of his way to not cross paths with the boy. That was more than he was willing to do for anyone else.
“Do you really think I’m foolish enough to allow for your extremely loose interpretation of ‘self-defence’? You will do him no harm, period!”
She’d had a lot of time to process things and prepare for this, despite having given no-one any indication that she was. In breaking her, Chance had altered her in a way perhaps even he hadn’t anticipated, or maybe he’d just uncovered something that had been hidden before.
“If he physically or magically attacks me, I reserve the right to defend myself, Sera.”
He wasn’t going to budge on that. Chance had never been the sort to let someone attack him without reacting and he wasn’t about to start here and now with this. But he would make the statement clearer, leaving little wiggle room for either of them if he had to.
“Alright, aside from any pain and upset he may feel as a result of my agreeing to this, you cannot hurt him physically or mentally, or cause him distress by your own hand or anyone acting on your behalf.”
She was holding fast to her wording, even with the minor amendment, and would not give him any further ground.
“I will not do anything to harm him physically unless in an instance of self defense and I will not harm him emotionally by direct action against him. I cannot promise beyond him in direct proximity because everyone else in the family is free game, despite how it might affect him or anyone close to him.”
He had watched enough to know the boy would surely be attached to Brittia and he damn sure wasn’t agreeing to anything that put her on a safe list by default.
“It also means you can do no harm, mentally or physically, to Kellen, either by your own hand or anyone else’s under your request. You will have no negative influence on his life in any way, even by proxy. Those are the terms I am agreeing to and nothing else.”
Of course, she would check the wording on his part of the bargain also. Even if Chance couldn’t lay a hand upon Kellen himself, leaving out a condition about anyone acting on his behalf would be foolish and shortsighted.
“That might need to be reworded a little because taking you back could cause him mental discourse and I am not giving up what is mine.”
That wording was too much of a loophole in itself over that. He wasn’t about to lose on technicality. Especially not one so small and seemingly insignificant.
“Done.”
It had worked perfectly. Sera knew Chance wouldn’t agree to both, but Jack was far more capable of defending himself against an attack from Chance than Kellen was, so securing his immediate safety had been her priority, even though she knew he wasn’t entirely off the table in the long term.
“So long as Kellen is off limits, I am yours, but there’s one condition. I want it in blood. That way, neither of us can back out without consequences.”
“This means you will not be able to betray me at all, Seraphine. You would be giving your entire freedom for his safety. Do you understand?”
He was already mentally going over his own wording for the deal, trying to cut out any possible loopholes she could hope to use. He didn’t want this coming back to bite him in the ass and he damn sure didn’t trust her enough to let her put the wording in.
“Then I’m not yours, am I?”
She made her tone sound disappointed, her eyes suddenly as empty as his usually were.
“You betrayed me, Chance. I was loyal to you, always, and you took our son from me. You cut off his wings. You owe me.”
“Do you really think you can run those games on me?”
It was impressive, to say the least, but he wasn’t buying what she was selling. Not on this.
“You would have betrayed me if you had kept him. You would have taken him to them. Poisoned him like they did with my daughter. I’ll give you the other one, but Jack is still mine,” he growled, nails digging into her throat a little.
“If you want me to be yours, truly yours, you’ll do this for me. How else am I supposed to trust you again, Chance? You hurt our son. You broke our family. You want all of that back, this is how you get it.”
Her tone was sweet, almost sickeningly charming, a reflection of the way he spoke to her when he wanted her to do as he told her.
She knew it was a risk, but using Chance’s own words against him was the best she had right now, especially when he used those exact words for the exact same purpose.
His hand went back to her throat, fingers grazing over her skin as if he were thinking before they closed around that pale skin. “You do not get to tell me that I cannot go near my own fucking son, Seraphine.”
Had she only marked Kellen off limits, he might have gone for it. But Jack needed to pay for betraying him and that wasn’t going to change. They had had a plan and the boy had gone against him. If he had been mortal enough, Chance would have killed him for that alone.
“You stay away from my sons. Both of them.”
Sera caught the slight shift in his expression, but it was exactly what she’d been counting on. In all the years that he’d been controlling her, he hadn’t noticed her silently learning every lesson he had to teach, consciously or otherwise, and now it would come down to playing him at his own game, at least long enough to keep him distracted from causing too much harm to anyone else.
“Jack is mine too, Seraphine.”
His tone held a warning. He wasn’t willing to let go of any of his children, especially when he had use for them. He had made them the people they were and he damn sure wasn’t going to let go of that over her. And he damn sure wasn’t making promises on a kid he could use as leverage.
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