Page 46 of Demon Heart: The Complete Series

I came back together beneath a strange night sky filled with blue stars. An alive me, not a dead one.

I patted myself down, checking my chest through the hole in my sweater. The skin healed before my eyes, leaving the old surgery scar behind.

“What’s going on?”

Hands on me. Strong hands.

“Are you okay?” Xavier asked, turning me to face him.

The panic in his voice… Was that for me?

Realization sank in. “She shot me. The queen shot me.”

“And you’re alive.” He crushed me in a hug.

He really did worry about me.

Wow.

The second wave of realization struck, my eyes roaming the skies, the rolling meadows of weird blue grass, trees shedding yellow blossoms caught in a cold breeze.

“Where are we?” I said, shivering as the cold got to my bones. “It’s freezing.”

He released me, scanning the surroundings. “No…” He backed off. “No.”

“What’s wrong?”

Cue realization part three.

Firstly, Tanith’s still body, succumbed to the effects of Sneaky End, lay close by. Moments after spotting her, she faded away.

Secondly, two shirtless men appeared from behind the closest blossom tree. Shirtless, laughing, pawing at each other. One slender with bronze skin, long black curls trailing down his back. The other sporting platinum blond hair and?—

Sharp shock smacked me like a rubber hose. “Xavier?”

“This cannot be,” the fully naked Xavier beside me said.

The dark-haired man’s demon eyes shifted between white and violet. He glanced between the two Xavier’s, his forehead creasing.

“Xavier?” he said, his tone a soft melody.

“I remember this place,” my Xavier whispered.

Sneaking up on me was the fourth part of this realization suite.

“I remember this time,” my Xavier added.

No. This was impossible.

Time.

No.

“Oh my God…”

We’d gone back in time. I’d taken us back to?—

“Ismael,” my Xavier breathed. “Ismael.”

Back to a once upon a time in the demon realm.

My brain short-circuited under a barrage of questions. “This isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”

Oh, but it was.

It really was.