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All sorts of warning bells had been going off in my head for the last few hours.

“I don’t have to go,” she muttered, “stop pressuring me.”

I chewed my lip, sensing what she wasn’t telling me: she was coming down with a fever.

Demons might be incredible athletes, nearly invincible warriors, and lightning-fast healers, but they had one weakness.

Disease.

The reason was simple. Humans had a larger population, and a larger population bred more pathogens—bubonic plague, cholera, Influenza, HIV, malaria, smallpox, Ebola, SARS, West Nile virus, avian flu, swine flu. The list went on.

The human immune system had been honed by eons of killer pandemics.

Demons barely had an immune system.

It was like the Old World colliding with the New World all over again, except the Infernari were the Native Americans.

That was why they never stayed topside for very long.

Only a half demon like Grandmaddox could truly make Earth her home—she had inherited human immunity.

For full demons, blood magic could keep them healthy for a while—a few weeks, a few months.

But when their time was up, they had to go home.

Which, of course, Lana had been trying to do when I captured her.

Instead, I had kept her on Earth, in this breeding ground of pathogens, for five days longer than she should have been. Because I had destroyed her portal.

And I hadn’t let her cull enough blood to heal herself.

For five days.

I had kept a girl without an immune system trapped on a diseased planet, and now I was taking her into the heart of the Mexican jungle.

For a demon, that was as close to a death sentence as it came.

Shit.

I reached up and squeezed the back of my neck, mulling it over. She broke into another fit of shivers next to me, and this time, her teeth chattered despite her full-body efforts to suppress it. She curled herself tighter, cradling her left arm against her body, as if it hurt her to move it.

I watched her, something restless stirring just beneath my sternum. Slumped against the window, she was taking too-fast breaths, as if unable to get enough air. Her face had paled and taken on a sickly sheen of sweat, and her hair hung lank around her face.

I pulled off the freeway, unease threading through me.

Once the car was parked, I reached over. “Hold still.” I pressed the base of my palm to her forehead.

Fuck, I couldn’t tell... 104°... 110°... whatever it was, her skin felt blazing hot—

She flinched and shrank against the window.

She definitely had a fever.

But with what bug?

She touched her arm through her sweater sleeve, and winced.

This time, I noticed.