People instantly began talking, tossing questions at the Prime.
“Quiet,” Jolene ordered, her voice a whip; everyone hushed. “Raini can wield it, just as any of us could pick up a knife and stab someone. Just as any of us could run someone over with a car or shoot someone in the head. It doesn’t mean we will do those things. Would you expect to be treated with suspicion merely because of something you have the ability to do?”
“It’s not the same,” one demon claimed, earning themselves a snarl from Raini’s entity.
Jolene gave the man a haughty look. “How so?”
“Psychic hellfire is lethal.”
“So are the abilities of many people within this lair,” Jolene pointed out.
“But she could destroy our anchor bonds!” one woman yelled, who also happened to be the mate of Raini’s ex.
“Very true,” allowed Jolene. “But has she ever done so? Is there a single person here who can claim that Raini has destroyed their anchor bond or otherwise harmed them in any way with psychic hellfire?”
Some glanced at each other, shuffled from foot to foot, or averted their gazes.
“You lied to us!” Demi’s friend, Risa, shouted at Jolene. “All of us.”
The imp beside her frowned. “You have to see why she said nothing, Risa. Look around you. Look at how people have reacted.”
“It still isn’t right,” Risa stated. “You could’ve told us about her ability, Jolene; you didn’t.”
“Raini was five years old when it first surfaced,” said Jolene. “Five. An innocent child who’d done no more than send out the heat of it toward the TV in her living room. Her parents felt the power of it, knew what it was, and naturally panicked. What would you have done if you had learned she’d had the ability back then, Risa? You would have wanted her gone, yes?”
“For the right reasons,” said Risa.
Oh, because there was totally a right reason to banish a child who’d done nothing to anyone. Raini could only shake her head.
“I see.” Jolene lifted her chin. “You have a daughter, Risa. She’s only three years old. She could just as easily develop that ability one day. What would you do if that happened? Tell the entire lair? Live as strays? Or would you ask for the chance to help her suppress the ability? As I said, simply because someone can do something doesn’t mean they will.”
Risa’s mouth bopped open and closed for a moment. Finally, she looked at the floor. Raini’s demon made a haughty sound.
Jolene swept her gaze over the crowd. “I’ll ask the same of anyone here who has a child. Would you have done any differently than what Evangeline and Lachlan did? If any of you can honestly tell me you would’ve done, raise your hand now.”
Not a single soul did.
Richie, Jolene’s son, sighed. “Nobody here would have acted differently, and they know it. Just as the divas know they’re being entirely too damn dramatic right now.”
“It’s not dramatic to be upset that this was kept from us,” a friend of Evangeline insisted, which was no doubt why Raini sensed more than saw her mother stiffen. “Jolene should have told us—simple.”
“Why is that, Mandy?” asked Jolene.
“Because we would have known to be more careful around Raini,” Mandy replied.
“Stopped your children from playing with her, you mean,” Richie’s mate, Meredith, guessed. “Seriously, Mandy, do you truly believe that Jolene would have allowed Raini to mingle with other children if she wasn’t certain—for Raini’s sake and theirs—that she’d be no danger to them?”
Mandy’s shoulders lowered. She turned back to Jolene. “She really suppressed the ability?”
“Yes,” Jolene confirmed. “But when she became an adult, I helped her instead learn to control it as well as suppress it, just as I’ve done for every other person in this lair who had to suppress a deadly ability when a child. It is common practice.”
“Everyone here knows that, so I don’t know why some of them are getting so high and mighty about this,” claimed Penelope, Khloë and Ciaran’s mother. “It isn’t right. Raini hasn’t done a damn thing wrong.”
“Yet,” sniped Risa. “I still say we should have been told about this.”
Evangeline hmphed. “None of you really care that you didn’t know of it beforehand. For all of you, this is about Doyle, not Raini. But that’s the point. She isn’t Doyle.”
“But she could be if she lost her anchor,” an elderly woman piped up. “They’re bonded now. If that bond broke—”
“If, if, if.” Jolene flicked her hand. “There are plenty of people here who would be extremely dangerous if they ever turned rogue—you know who you are. And the only way I will eject Raini from this lair is if every one of you other dangerous demons are prepared to leave as well.” Jolene folded her arms and raised an expectant brow, but nobody announced an intention to leave.