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Sutton stood on the windowsill, my shirt sliced in two.She yanked it off completely, leaving her in only a pair of underwear.My gaze roamed over her bare skin glowing from the streetlights and highlighting the scars all over her beautiful body as she shoved open the waist-high window.

Scowling, she tossed my shirt at me—then, leaning forward, she lifted both hands, thrusting them out as well, and before I could say anything, not that I knew what the fuck to say anyway, she gave me a double-middle-finger salute, slammed the window closed, jumped down, and jerked the curtains closed.

Shutting me out.

I swallowed thickly.Fuck, my female was a warrior, scarred inside and out from the battles she’d fought and survived—and tonight, she’d never looked more fierce.

I realized in that moment, I was panting, the beast rolling and pushing against my flesh to get free, demanding we go and get her, that we take her home to our den and never let her out.

Coming here was a bad idea, but how the fuck could I stay away?And now that I’d seen her again after being parted from her, I wasn’t sure I could leave her again.

My hand was fucking trembling as I quickly typed out another message.

Jagger:Let me in, Sutton.

Going in was a bad idea as well, but every instinct in me roared for it, roared for me to get closer to her, right the fuck now.

I waited, but there was no answer.

Jagger:Open the door.Now.We need to talk.

Still, no reply came.I strode to the door and tried the door handle, and her ward sent a bolt through me, not strong enough to stop me but strong enough to shock some sense into me.

What the fuck was I doing?

An image of Poe touching her, kissing her, slammed through me again, and I snarled.I hadn’t seen it for myself, but my mind was throwing up images and adding some embellishments of its own.Like him stripping my female naked, like him tasting her bare skin—tossing her on the bed and coming down on top of her, of him?—

I gripped the sides of my head and shook it with a growl.

Yeah, it was probably a fucking good thing she wouldn’t let me in.It was hard, but I made myself step back, away from her door, instead of breaking it down, which is what I really wanted to fucking do right then.

Before I approached her again, I needed to get my shit together.

I needed to think about what the hell I was going to do.

And if I truly thought I could leave her a third time, when everything in me demanded I stay.

ChapterTwelve

Sutton

My breath mistedin front of me as I approached the huge multistory building.It was old and terrifying, and the last place I wanted to be, but I was out of options.

I glanced over my shoulder again.Walking around Seventh Circle at night by myself wasn’t the cleverest thing I’d ever done, which was why I’d left Boo at home, but I needed help and taking my car was too risky.For obvious reasons, I couldn’t go to the hounds or my coven.I couldn’t go to anyone who Tarrant or Poe would expect—or could be watching.

If I wanted help, and I did, I needed to go to someone as equally as scary as Tarrant.

People were getting hurt, and I couldn’t take Poe’s revolting attentions much longer.

Evil kept coming into my life, over and over again.I was trapped in a twisted game of pass the parcel, except it was a scalpel being passed from one monster to the next, all desperate for their pound of flesh.I didn’t want to play anymore.

I needed it to stop.

I took in the nearly two-hundred-year-old building.Dark moss had overtaken the stone walls of the massive gothic-style building.I looked up at its arched windows.The place filled me with a horrible awe, every time.It looked like something from medieval England.

Back in the 1800s, it was known as the Sunnydale Insane Asylum.The place had been decommissioned in the early 1980s and was now occupied by demons—and home to the head demon.Rune had been appointed by Lucifer to oversee the demons living in Roxburgh.He’d made this part of the city, now known as Seventh Circle, home.

Rushing through the gate, I jogged past the large shadowy garden, up the main stairs, and stopped outside the wide, heavy doors.Taking a deep breath to steady my nerves, I knocked.