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She still had nightmares about the events of Kalendae and the imperator; about climbing into the back of his limousine outside of her school, coming face to face with the man who ruled all of Terra. Those cold gray eyes; that scarred mouth. He’d threatened her, made her swear not to speak of the happenings of Kalendae; made her illustrate that her magic was, in fact, gone. He’d pieced together what had happened after discovering that his precious Well replica had been destroyed, nothing left of it but a pit in the tunnel floor.

Calanthe had gotten into the limousine shortly after they’d started talking. Loren had felt sick looking at her. The vampire did not remember their fight on the Control Tower, for time had been turned back to before then, manipulated and pulled apart like taffy to fulfill her wish. But Loren remembered.

When Darien met her stare, he was all business, every hint of play on his face gone. “Let’s not worry about that until we get a proper translator.”

“Hey,” Dominic protested, wings flaring out with a snap. “I am a proper translator.”

“You just said you’re rusty, you goon.”

“I am, but I swear I know how to speak Ilevyn. Her name is Blue, and she’s on the run from people who are looking for a colored bird.”

Darien raised a brow. “Blue?”

The girl perked up at the sound of her name. She seemed reluctant to look at the Devil in the doorway, but she did anyway.

Dominic gestured between the two of them. “Blue, Darien. Darien, Blue. There—introductions are done.”

Darien pushed away from the doorjamb and drifted back into the entrance hall, his dragging footsteps suggesting he was exhausted. “I’ll contact Arthur and see if he can help us out.”

“I got this, Darien, you don’t need to bother Arthur,” Dominic called. “He’s been through enough.” Silence. “Dare?” He shook his head, muttering, “Darien, goddamn you.”

Darien’s voice floated from the kitchen. “Not listening.”

Feigning a yawn, Loren unfurled to her feet, eager to be alone with Darien. “I’m off to bed. Fill the others in?”

Dominic winked. “You got it.”

“It’s been fun.”

“Yeah, it’s not every day you get to meet a girl named Blue.” He lightly bumped Blue’s shoulder with a fist, the playful gesture earning him a shy smile and a duck of her head.

“She’s not as afraid of you as I thought she’d be,” Loren said.

“I tend to have that effect on people once they get to know me. We might be Darkslayers, but we’re still people.”

Loren smiled. “I figured that out a while ago. Night, Dom.”

—

Loren stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror and adjusted her hair for what was probably the hundredth time since she’d come into Darien’s suite. He was still downstairs with the others, but she knew it wouldn’t be long before he made his way up here. The thought set her nerves on fire, and the butterflies in her stomach began their familiar, dizzying dance that made her head feel like a spinning top.

Did he even like red? She adjusted the straps of her lacy lingerie, eyes raking down her body with critical assessment. Was the garter too much? And what about the fishnet stockings?

She shook her thoughts away and fixed her hair again to give it more lift at the crown of her head. She was being ridiculous, she knew. The last thing Darien would be worrying about when he walked in and found her kneeling on his bedroom floor was what color she was wearing.

A deep voice drifted down the hallway, and she froze at the sound of it. She held her breath and listened, staring at the black double-sink countertop, the icy chips of mirror embedded in the quartz sparkling in the bathroom light. She couldn’t make out any words, but she would recognize that voice anywhere. She would know it in sleep, in death—and she would certainly know it when it was only several feet away now, so close that her surprise was about to be foiled.

A curse floated from her tongue as she flew across the spacious bathroom, past the huge stone shower with the glass doors and the soaker tub beside it, bare feet slapping on heated tiles. She nearly fell on her ass as the plush rug near the bathtub slid around under her feet, but she steadied herself against the wall and yanked the door open—

It jerked to a stop halfway and slammed into her shin.

She hissed, hopping on one foot. As soon as the pain went away, she lowered her foot to the floor and eyed the obstacle.

The rug had bunched up like an accordion under the door, and it threatened to trip her again as she pulled on the door handle.

It was jammed under there. She pushed the door shut and tried it again. Again and again and again, she pulled. The door rattled, and the stubborn rug bunched up repeatedly, not budging so much as an inch, not even when she bent over to yank on it. She couldn’t get out, and…and she could hear the bedroom door swinging open, the buckles on Darien’s boots jingling as he walked into the empty, lamplit space, the space where she was supposed to already be kneeling—

“Great,” Loren huffed. So much for the surprise that was meant to distract him from all the crazy things that had happened today.