Page 5

Allie

Bad. This is very, very bad.

It’s the only thought my scrambled brain can hold onto as the world crashes down around me.

Joan’s hand goes clammy in mine, and I can sense the almost-palpable worry coming from my mother, but I can’t look anywhere but at the demon in front of me.

Eren—KingEren Ashblood—is a towering, muscled male with deeply tan skin, thick dark hair, wickedly curled horns that spiral back from his temples over the top of his head, and midnight black wings spreading out from his wide back. He shifts slightly, and I get the faintest glimpse of a tail.

Goddess help me.

Eren is also half-clothed. He’s wearing nothing more than a pair of pants made of some kind of black leather. That’s it. He’s not even wearingshoes, for pete’s sake. I can’t stop my eyes from darting over his wide, bare chest, over abs that would make an Abercrombie model rethink how many sit-ups they need to do each day, and to the sculpted vee pointing straight down into those leather pants.

It’s his face, though, that’s got me more screwed up than anything.

What right does a demon have to be this handsome?

High cheekbones, a prominent brow and sharp jawline. Ruby-colored eyes lit from the inside out with molten fire. And lips that simply can’t be as soft and full as they look.

The tips of my fingers ache and I fight back the urge to reach up and find out.

Just like it did when the Veil first pulsed red, the same warm, racing energy rises in my blood. It’s like a living thing, this magick. It ebbs and flows with the beating of my heart, following the paths of my veins from the center of my chest outwards, like taking a draw of smooth whiskey and feeling its burn.

Eren is staring down at me, eyes focused and keen, like he could mark every bit of that heat blooming under my skin.

He’s frowning, and I realize I may be expected to say something. There’s a protocol for this, I know, though I’ve never learned it.

I’ve never had a reason to.

Now, I look at Eren, shame and stress burning high on my cheeks. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

I reach up and nervously tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and pause when I see my hand out of the corner of my eye. I’m glowing. As if this night could be any weirder.

It’s my mother who speaks next. “The Goddess has selected,” she says, projecting her voice out to the rest of the coven. “You may go.”

Faces reflect a range of emotions back at me as the women leave. Pity, disappointment, worry, even a pang of envy here and there.

I watch them all drift slowly into the night. My coven—my sisters, for all intents and purposes. While I can’t say there’s ever been anything simple or easy about my place among them, a deep sorrow fills my chest as I watch them go.

Is this really happening? With each passing moment, it sinks further and further into my mind that it’s real, that life as I know it is shifting and settling into some new configuration of fate, and that there’s nothing I can do to stop it. When I catch a brief glimpse of some of the chosen few, it hits me even harder. All of them were prepared for this. Any of them would face this moment with courage, but hell if I’m able to do the same. Maybe if I’d had a little time, or had any reason at all to expect it would be me… but no, even then I think I’d still be a trembling puddle of nerves, completely unprepared for this.

Joan is the last to leave me, having held my hand the entire time. Our eyes meet, and the devastation in her expression makes my knees buckle.

“Allie…” she says, voice choked with tears. “How did this…what are you…why?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper in reply.

Seeing the fear in my face, she masks some of her own emotion in the way we always do for each other. Since we were young, it’s been this way. Two mediocre witches together against the world.

“I love you, Allie. You’ll get through this. You’re stronger than you know.”

I pull her into my arms, hugging her tightly. “Love you too, Jo.”

A sudden stab of anger hits me. The women singled out for their gifts at least had time to prepare. Hugging Joan and wondering how I’m ever going to let her go, I wish bitterly that I’d gotten the same chance to consider the possibility, to have the time for a few more goodbyes.

When we part, my anger is echoed in her eyes, which are bright with tears.

“I’ll find out if there’s anything that can be done,” she says with a quiet fierceness.