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“Stop moving,” she ordered.

“Don’t,” I sputtered, trying to push her away.

Don’t give me that chance. Don’t tempt me.

“Shh.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her hair shimmered a deep blue and floated up around her. Watching her brought calm to my own body. When she opened her eyes, they flickered crimson.

She had just accessed her healing power, which meant she’d culled blood. She would always cull blood. That’s what demons did.

And now, as her eyes glowed red and she looked so beautiful and wicked, I knew she’d opened her blood connection to the Infernari. All thousand of them.

I stilled, and time seemed to slow to a halt.

The moment was upon me.

With Fidel’s dagger, she cut a slash in her palm and pressed it over my neck, mixing our blood. A buzzing, golden warmth poured into me. Her spirit.

Under her palm, the skin tightened and stopped throbbing, the blood tapered off, the wound healed. Our temporary blood connection ebbed away, leaving my flesh feeling strangely lonely.

I saw her sag with relief. “It worked,” she whispered, breathless, and now another tear of hers leaked out. She cupped my face, and while demons wrestled and rolled past us, she leaned down to kiss me, her hair falling around us in an aqua-colored tent.

But it was too late. For us. For peace. For escape—for any type of happy ending.

Redemption had been robbed from me.

“I’m sorry, Lana,” I whispered into her mouth, savoring the taste of her lips one last time. “I’m so, so sorry...”

She pulled away a little. “For what?” she breathed, her brows pinching together.

“For this.” In one swift motion, I clamped onto her like a vice, whipped her onto her back, and pinned her to the ground. Her eyes widened, no longer a pretty shade of blue-violet, but lava red. Staring into those eyes, I no longer saw my Lana. I saw the blood of all demons, to which she was now connected. My nostrils flared.

Panting, I dug into my boot and pulled out the syringe.

It was filled with venom from the Inland Taipan, the most poisonous snake in the world. A dose potent enough to kill two thousand humans. The toxin so deadly it paralyzed the victim instantly and, if left untreated, led to death within forty-five minutes. Against the demons’ weaker immune systems, it would be more than enough to kill every last one of them.

This was what I’d spent the morning acquiring while Lana slept in.

I stabbed the syringe into her heart and emptied the barrel.

The look in her crimson eyes... it shamed me. Itbrokeme.

Nothing,nothing, could have prepared me for the absolute devastation, the betrayal, in Lana’s eyes, in the eyes of the woman I’d fallen for.

Her body jerked, and she sucked in a sharp breath, her back arching. A tear slipped out.

At this very moment, her heart would be pumping the venom through her veins, and with her connection wide open, it would pass down her connection and into the veins of the last thousand Infernari.

Around the cavern, the warring demons faltered, sensing something wrong. They glanced around, they helped up their fallen brothers, they apologized and hugged.

Then, one by one, they fell to the ground, convulsing.

“Why?” was all Lana could mouth, her body twitching now.

“Because you,” I said, pulling out the syringe, “are a demon.” I had to drag the words out between ragged breaths. “And I... am a human.”

I didn’t mean to shed a tear of my own. Now wasn’t the time for remorse. But I felt it. God, how I felt it.

“Asher...” Whatever she intended to say, it died on her parted lips.