Her eyes hard and gleaming like chips of ice, Celeste said, “I won’t allow it.”
Whitney whirled to face the banshee, her expression a mask of horror. “You can’t expect Piper to give up her psi-mate.”
“Oh, I can and I do,” said Celeste.
Whitney spluttered. “Having an anchor is vital to every demon. It’s the only way to be sure she’ll never turn rogue. She needs the bond.”
“I won’t allow it.”
“It’s not for you to allow or disallow,” Levi told Celeste, the epitome of calm. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“Nothing to do with me,” the banshee echoed quietly, a note of disbelief in her tone. It was really never a good sign when one of her kind lowered their voice like that.
“This is about me and Piper, no one else,” Levi stated.
Celeste sucked in a breath. “Are you forgetting we were once together?”
Joe raised a calming hand toward his daughter. “Let’s not—”
“Well, are you?” she pushed, glaring at Levi.
“It’s completely irrelevant here,” said the reaper, still remarkably calm.
“Oh, I’m irrelevant? We were together for four months!”
“Six years ago. Not that that matters. It’s in the past, and that past has no bearing on—”
“Don’t you try to dismiss what we had!”
Piper lifted her hands. “Okay, enough. You’re making this whole thing about you, Celeste. It’s not.”
Joe turned to his daughter again. “Honey, there’s no sense in being angry with Piper or Levi for this. No one here is out to hurt you. People can’t choose who their anchors are. This is out of their hands.”
Celeste’s fingers curled like claws. “But they can choose whether or not they form the bond! They’re choosing to do it! I’m not having it, Dad. I’m not.”
Good Lord, the woman was a trial. “It isn’t your decision to make.”
Celeste snarled. “What if it was the other way around? Huh? What if you found out Kelvin is my anchor?”
“Then I’d feel sorry for you.” He was a freaking tool.
“You’d really bond with my ex? A man I slept with? A man I cared for? A man who loved me?”
Levi coughed to hide a snicker. He’d never once implied that he cared for her, let alone professed to love her. She’d complained about it often.
Although he’d known she’d take his and Piper’s announcement badly, the whole ‘I won’t allow it’ had still taken him by surprise. Was she really so used to getting her own way that she thought she could dictate how this situation would go?
There were so many things he wanted to say to Celeste right now. Starting with how utterly self-absorbed and childish she was acting. But Larkin’s warning played on loop in his mind …
Let her be the bad guy in front of others. Let her be seen as unreasonable and selfish. Be the rational and fair one. Defend Piper, but don’t let Celeste draw you into pointless arguments.
So he’d bitten back most of what he’d love to say, knowing that this was the right way to deal with the situation for Piper’s sake. But right now, to be blunt, being tactful sucked.
“None of that is important here, Celeste,” said Piper. “I’m sorry if that hurts you, but it’s not. And the fact that you’d begrudge me an anchor bond, knowing how important it is for me to have one … well, what does that say about you?”
“No one will expect you to be happy for them, Celeste, but at least let it lie,” Joe said to her.
The banshee glared at him. “Let it lie? Are you not getting how fucked up this is?”
“Perhaps Levi and Piper being anchors might be awkward for you at first, but it’s not as if they’re in a relationship,” said Joe.
“It’s close enough to count.” Celeste whirled on Levi. “This isn’t even a little bit weird for you? Finding out that your psi-mate is actually the stepsister of your ex?”
“No,” Levi replied simply.
“Well it should be.”
“I don’t think of Piper in terms of who she is to you,” he went on. “I think of her in terms of who she is to me.”
“Who she is to you? She’s not going to be anyone to you. I won’t fucking have it!”
“Celeste, try to calm down,” Whitney cut in. “Yelling isn’t helping. And you can’t really want Piper to walk away from the very person that will keep her and her demon stable.”
The banshee sneered at Whitney. “Well of course you’d take her side.”
Joe closed his eyes. “There are no sides.”
Celeste planted her hands on her hips. “So you’re not all banding together against me?”
“We’re not against you, we merely don’t feel the same way about this situation as you do,” said Joe.
“Because Piper’s happiness is more important than mine, right?” Her voice broke.
Levi telepathically reached out to Piper. She’s good at manipulating them, isn’t she?
She does it subconsciously at this point, his anchor said. Stay tuned for the ‘You love Piper more than me’ part of the segment.