Page 1

Prologue

Travis

Promises madewhen you were younger seem so much bigger.

Back in the days when the summers never ended, and the days were just as long. When the world seemed like an infinite place, and the stars were almost touchable. When I was five, I thought I could be anything, do anything. So, I made promises. To myself, to my friends. Nothing seemed finite, so why not wish for the world, or promise the world for that matter?

Jax had been my best friend since Kindergarten. We were the only kids in the class who realized we were different. Not only that, but we were something special. Together? We were something magical.

No pun intended.

It seemed stupid now, but when I was a kid and I made that blood oath on a July afternoon that Jax and I would be brothers instead of friends, I meant it. I meant it with everything I had in me, and that oath may be the most important thing to me. More important than the Order, and on par with my feelings for Norah.

Jax and I were more than friends. We were partners in crime. Best mates, Gabe might say. I really didn’t have a word that truly summed up what we were to one another. So, did I jump in front of him and let him get away? I did.

And I would do it again.

I caught the rest of my coven staring at me every once in a while. I knew what they wanted to ask, but I also knew they wouldn’t ask it. Not yet anyway. We were back to the point where they felt I was made of glass and I was about ready to explode. I was well past that point though. I deserved everything I had coming to me. Being marked. Jax’s fury. Even the backlash that was sure to come when Jax resurfaced again.

The Order superiors had told me that whatever Jax did next was on me.

I would take that. Because I fully believed thatIwas the reason why he’d become this thing. Nothing would change my mind about that. Not Norah, not the rest of the guys. They would never be able to convince me otherwise because they didn’t know the two little boys lying stomach-down in the dirt across from their army men. One-by-one, they threw rock missiles over to destroy the bad guys. They didn’t know the two kids who practiced magic together even when they knew they weren’t supposed to.

They just didn’t know.

Whatever happened from here, I had hope I could turn it around. For that little kid inside of me and that little kid inside of Jax, I had to hope he wasn’t lost. He could be as mad as he wanted at me. I deserved it. But to me, Jax would never be too far gone.

I stared at the phone, then sat back to rub my neck. I knew what I had to do, but I just didn’t want to do it. Jennie barely liked me anyway. I’d let my sister down in all this too, but I didn’t want to continue to do that. She deserved to know what was going on. I picked up the cell phone, my stomach twisting in knots. Hopefully, she’d moved so far beyond Jax that the news he’d returned and had summoned a demon to get his powers back wouldn’t knock her off course. Hopefully she’d just say, “Oh. Good to know.” Best-case scenario, it wouldn’t faze her a bit. Worst-case scenario? I’d have to make another trip to Adams, Virginia, and I really didn’t want to do that.

“Fuck it,” I murmured. I pressed Jennie’s name and brought the phone to my ear. It rang a couple times and I could almost see her on the other end staring down at the screen and wondering if she should answer. I was sure she’d have some sort of smartass remark because that’s how us Shaws were. “Pick up, pick up,” I whispered.

The line clicked. “The prodigal son returns…”

“Hey,” I said, almost choking on the word.

There was a pause. The wheels were no doubt turning in her head, wondering if she should get caught up in my shit. “What is it, Travis?”

I rubbed my temple with my free hand and leaned my head back to stare at the ceiling. “It’s Jax, Jen. He’s back.”

1

Gabe interlaced his fingers with mine. I looked over at him, staring into those captivating and carefree blue eyes. He’d been like the flame to my moth this past week. He felt everything as much as everyone else, but he handled it in a way that I admired. In a way that relaxed even my anxious soul. When I was with him, I could almost—almost—close my eyes and pretend that we were just some college couple walking around town, or a couple out sightseeing for the first time.

He reached over and brushed his finger over my nose. “You’re so cute when you look serious.”

I swallowed. I was with Gabe. The last thing I wanted was to be serious right now. I could reserve serious for when we were back at the Order headquarters by the wharf.

“I can’t believe you’ve been in Salem for this long and we haven’t done any of this stuff yet,” he said, trying to change the subject.

I smiled back at him, holding my tongue on what I really wanted to say. He didn’t need reminding about the stuff we’d actually been spending our time on. A cursed sorority house. Witches getting their power drained. A demonic familiar attaching itself to Liam. A warped djinn. Now, Jax, ex-coven member turned demon-friendly witch. It was just like Gabe to think that we could do all that and still let me live the tourist life too. I didn’t want to tell him that since I’d come from New Orleans and been there, done that, every tourist trap was the same to me.

He pulled me to a stop in front of Old Burying Point Cemetery. It was ancient. The stones inside looked like gnarly teeth sticking out of rotted gums. Most of the stones were so worn you couldn’t even read the names of the deceased. Like us, there were other people milling around to take in the sights. Some just walked through to get to another site, but most looked down at the various tombstones, pointing down at the dates or the names or some other random point of interest.

I had to admit, this cemetery was far different from St. Louis Cemetery #1 in New Orleans. Our ancient burial places held crypts that looked like stone monuments to the dead. It was interesting to see the differences between the north and the south.

Gabe gestured toward the perimeter of the cemetery after I read one of the stones at our feet. “On the other side of that iron gate is the Salem Witch Trials monument,” Gabe said, his hand squeezing mine. He kept doing that as if he thought I needed a reminder to stay in the present, and I guessed I did.

I looked past the black iron gate to a rectangular grassy area surrounded by a stone wall. “Can you take me?”