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“What would you know?” Liam asked. “You were never the one who accompanied you guys to parties and had the girls look at you like you were the odd one out. Scrawny, ugly.”

My temper flared. “That’s bullshit,” I said. I stepped forward, but Travis held me back.

Liam never missed anything. His stare found where Travis and I connected. His eyebrows flew in the air. “Ah, so I see we’ve finally managed to get Travis, too. Come on, Norah, you can’t really think you would’ve kept stringing me along now that you have him. You would’ve dropped me.”

I pushed Travis off and ran forward. I took Liam’s hands. They flared so hot they burned, but I kept them there, anyway. “You know that’s not true.” I looked him deep in his dark eyes. “You know me, Liam. We have a connection separate from them. I want to help you. I want to take the familiar off, so you can go back to who you were. Who we were.”

Liam laughed in my face and tore his hands away from mine. “I don’t want to go back.”

“This is all very touching,” Dupre said. He flicked his gaze toward the second floor of the room where other chairs sat looking over the railing. “But I don’t have time for this. You can join me, Liam, if you want, but I’m going to need you to take Norah, too. I still have a promise to uphold.”

I turned toward him. “Go fuck yourself. Liam would never join you.”

Liam scratched his chin, his head dropping to the side as he regarded Dupre. “What’s in it for me?”

My eyes bugged out of my head. I turned toward Liam, who openly looked at Dupre curiously. He really wanted to know.

“Liam,” Travis said, his voice hard. “What the hell is wrong with you? This isn’t you.” He swallowed, no doubt seeing Jax in front of him. We were in the same building, probably in this very same room. The seating, the pentagram. It was the witch equivalent to a courtroom. “Did you…” He stopped, taking a deep breath before he started again. “Did you hurt those witches, Liam? Did you drain them?”

Liam blinked, and my heart soared when he was repulsed by the idea. Thank God. He hadn’t gone as bad as we thought he had. Or at least didn’t let ourselves believe he had.

“No,” Dupre said. “That was all me. I just followed Liam around after I sensed the familiar one day. He led me to a bunch of witches, so I just went right back after him, soaking up all the witches’ magic.” An evil grin crossed his face. “I’m more powerful than you now, with or without the familiar.”

He shot his hands forward. A tangle of white magic exploded from them. I tried to block it, but Liam’s fire stunt had me weakened. The tangle of white fell over me. I tripped to the ground. The magic secured my wrists and feet and then dragged me toward Dupre.

I slid over the hard ground, coming to rest right next to his feet. Dupre smiled down triumphantly. “I knew I’d get you sooner or later.” He peeked up into the balcony again. “Jay will be so happy.”

A gust of wind knocked Dupre into the wall behind us. I looked up to find Travis’s hands glowing red as he used his magic to control Dupre. I twisted and turned, but I couldn’t get out of the magical restraints.

Liam diverted Travis’s magic until it was pushing on me. I slid back into the concrete wall, hitting my head off it. For a second, I couldn’t breathe with all the air rushing at me, but Travis immediately stopped the spell, and I gulped in a few breaths.

“I want to listen to him,” Liam said, flicking his hand out at Travis. He sent Travis flying into the air, landing hard on the ground. Randy bent over to help him to his feet, and Gabe rushed toward them, the paper with the familiar spell on it in his hand.

With the two not paying attention, the guys pulled together. They closed their eyes, trying to get the restraints off me, but all it ended up doing was taking some of my magic, and nothing happened. I pushed and pulled against the white magic-like ropes, but they wouldn’t budge.

“The more you struggle, the worse it is for you,” Dupre said, smiling. “Jay came up with the spell himself.”

“Well, good for fucking Jay.”

Out of breath, and my body frazzled, I leaned against the wall and stayed still. Liam’s gaze flicked toward me, and I held onto it. “This isn’t you,” I told him. A piece of the magical ties splintered my view of him. “Liam, you’re the best person I know. Yes, you’re smart, but that’s not all you are. You know I find you attractive. You can’t fake an attraction like that, and you certainly can’t fake sex like that either.”You and me, I mouthed, a little smile forming on my lips. It was impossible not to take happiness in all the moments we shared. He was sweet and caring. This person in front of me was not him. We needed that familiar off him. “Guys,” I called out, looking at Randy, Travis, and Gabe.

They looked at me and nodded. I didn’t know what the spell was, but I could certainly lend them any magic they needed.

“Now,” I said.

I closed my eyes and felt what magic I had in me flow through my veins and skirt over the top of my skin. I built it up and built it up into my fingers before reaching out toward the group, releasing what I had toward them, hopefully giving the familiar spell a fighting chance. I needed my Liam back.

“I don’t think so,” Dupre said, realizing what we were doing.

He sent a blast of magic at Liam’s chest and Liam flew backward into the opposite wall, hitting it with a sickening crunch. The magic flared and then went out in my fingertips. I looked around. The guys ran toward Liam, and here I was, still encased in this magical web.

Liam pushed himself to his feet, completely ignoring the guys. His eyes reddened as he gathered his magic in his hands again. I cried out, feeling the tug on all of us.

“Look what you’re doing to her!” Randy shouted.

Liam looked to me, his expression almost complacent. He stared at me for a long time, but ultimately, the familiar won. He shot a fire ball at Dupre, which he fended off, sending it into a wall where another black, singed mark now decorated the place.

I hissed in a breath. I could feel myself growing cold, and knew I was getting pale, and worse, losing all my magic. My face was probably sunken in by now, but to top all of that off, I didn’t care. The life that was inside me was being taken away. I had no idea my magic was that attached to everything inside me. It wasn’t just a piece of me, it was me.