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After several agonizing minutes, Asher dropped to the ground outside the vehicle. He slung his arms over his knees as he panted.

I crouched down next to him, his cool breath tickling the side of my cheek as I probed his wound.

It ran the span of a palm, and it looked deep and angry. My hands shook with the need to lay them on the gash and heal it.

Won’t work, I reminded myself. That restless energy wouldn’t leave me. And now I felt as helpless as Asher had been only minutes ago. I had no ability to heal him.

I sat on my haunches and looked on hopelessly.

“I’m fine, Lana,” he said.

That didn’t reassure me.

He huffed out a pained laugh and shook his head. “Well, now we know one thing for sure.”

I waited for him to continue.

“Someone made good use of my fucking blood.”

Asher

Several hours anda shit ton of disappointments later, we continued in a rusted, beat-up rented Kia Picanto. Driving over potholes, my head thumped against the low ceiling, forcing me to scrunch forward. On any incline whatsoever—or even in a gentle breeze—the gutless three-cylinder, sixty-horsepower engine revved up like an angry fruit fly pissing around your ear.

The gash in my leg throbbed like a bitch, so I drove with teeth gritted, hunched over like Cruella Deville.

A weaponless Jame Asher with a bad leg driving up in a golf cart, just the thing to strike fear into every demon’s heart.

This day could suck it.

“You just had to wear it around your neck,” I muttered darkly. “Couldn’t have hidden it in your pocket, or in a purse, or in your shoe... no, you had to flaunt it around so every bloodthirsty demon could be like, ‘Oh, look, there’s Jame Asher’s blood... let’s get some of that andcurse him.’”

“That was wretched of Aecora to steal it,” Lana said sadly, touching the empty spot around her neck. “But at least it wasn’t enough to kill you.”

“No, but there’s still the blood Grandmaddox stole, which she’s clearly saving—and I have a feeling whatever she curses me with will be worse than death.” I shifted my leg, cringing as the scab reopened. I needed stitches.

I sensed Lana watching my pathetic movements out of the corner of my eye.

“I want to try to heal you,” she blurted out.

“You can’t. I’m not in your network,” I said, then added, “although I’m touched.”

“I know, but I want to try. I think I know a way.” She sat crosslegged on her seat and faced me. “I could tap into my healing power, as if I was going to heal Infernari, but then we could both cut ourselves and push our wounds together, so we have our own blood connection... and then I could direct my healing power into you.” She described this scenario as if she would enjoy it very much.

“Like a blood mixing, blood brother kind of thing, I get it.” I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’ll heal on my own. I’m not cursing anybody. And put on your seatbelt.”

I’d buckled her into my Hummer this morning while she was mostly out of it, and that had probably saved her life.

“You’ll heal much faster if I do it,” she said. “Right now you’re healing as fast as a stone.”

“Adding insult to injury—nice,” I said dryly. “Seatbelt, now.” I snapped my fingers, then flipped on the radio. It blared staticky music.

She continued to study me, biting her lip.Wondering just how mad I would be if she did it anyway.

I tried another station. More static.

The seatbelt buckle clinked uselessly behind her head.

Exhaling loudly, I reached across her and dragged the strap across her chest down to the buckle, clicking it in place. “There, so when I crash again because you’re acting like a five-year-old, you don’t go skidding two hundred feet on your face.”