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Chapter One

ARABELLA

T o have found her mate and lost him in the same instant was as unfathomable as time itself.

Arabella stormed out of the library and down the castle halls—shadows in her fists, fury in her heart, and her memories returned to her.

My mate did this for me .

Somehow, Elias had found a way to get her memories back.

The shadows rumbled, stirring and ascending from the deep. They rolled like lapping waves at her feet—appearing as twisting, thorned vines when they emerged far enough to take on a corporeal state. She breathed in, feeling power surge in her veins.

Something in her had awakened. And there was no putting it back to sleep.

She was no longer just an enchantress.

Now, she was something more.

The clicks of several pairs of boots on the stone floor echoed behind her. Waves of power filled the hallway as she strode around a bend and down the stairs toward the main entryway and the castle’s front doors.

Even without looking, she knew who followed her by the feel of their magic.

The three enchantresses had magic as bright and golden as the late summer sunshine, while Breckett bore a darker energy, like a mist along a blackened forest floor far beyond civilization.

Breckett was an erox, a type of demon who looked like men and sustained their immortal life by feeding off the sexual pleasures of mortals. Her mate was such a demon.

Her demon .

Of all the creatures existing in the mortal or fae realms—humans, vampires, shape shifters, witches, sorcerers, enchantresses, the fae courts, and more—somehow, she’d fallen for a demon.

The very being she’d vowed to protect the human race from.

“Wait, Arabella,” a female voice called from behind her. “Where are you going?”

It was Jessamine, one of the most powerful warriors among the enchantresses. But even the sound of worry in her friend’s voice didn’t slow her pace.

Arabella had already packed her bags.

They had been planning to leave Elias’ castle to return to Shadowbank, their home and a remote human village. That was before Arabella had been struck with some strange magic and her memories had returned to her.

In a desperate bargain with the Witch of the Woods, she’d given up her memories in exchange for an amplifier, a rare magical artifact that stored a limited amount of energy within it. That power could amplify a magic wielder’s ability—and do the impossible, such as repair or build a magical ward.

Her bargain with the witch had been to protect Elias’ castle from a sorcerer’s amassing army of erox, ogres, gargoyles, and other dark creatures by strengthening the magical ward around it.

But his castle wasn’t the only place with a ward that desperately needed to be reinforced—or recreated.

Shadowbank was vulnerable to the demon-infested forest just beyond its stone walls and weakening ward.

As Arabella walked through the castle, she wove her hair into her customary long braid and tightened the empty sheaths along her waist and arms.

First, she needed to find her swords, and then she’d find Elias.

He’d only been gone for a day. To return her memories, he’d given himself to that sorcerer, Magnus. But now, he was in danger. She could sense it.

Something tugged at her chest, pulling her toward the dark forest that stretched on for countless miles beyond the castle.

It was a sensation unlike anything she’d ever felt—like a chord had wrapped around her heart and was tethered somewhere beyond the horizon.

A sharp, fathomless fear echoed down it, snaking up her chest before embedding into her thoughts.

There was endless pain, too. It was like a deep chasm had yawned open and threatened to pull her into its depths and engulf her.

Elias needed her.

The forest demon she’d been taught to fear during her upbringing in Shadowbank.

The Devourer.

My mate.

“I’m going to find him.” Arabella didn’t look back at Jessamine or the others as she strode into the castle’s entryway and headed for the large oak doors. The walls and floors were made entirely of stone, and the lanterns along the walls had gone dark.

There was no reason to linger for a moment longer.

Arabella was dressed in the black leathers all enchantresses wore, which were imbued with protective magic. She also wore a head chain with the teardrop gemstone that hung down to the center of her forehead.

“Do you know where he is?” Jessamine pressed.

“Yes.”

Somehow, Arabella knew that the tugging in her chest would lead her to him.

Before she could reach for the cast-iron door handle and make for the stables beyond it, pain shot down the bond.

She staggered forward, clutching her stomach.

It felt like a blade had been submerged in fire and then sheathed in her gut. Agony exploded in her mind, consuming every sense. She cried out, tears streaming down her cheeks. Grasping at her stomach, she was surprised when her fingers came back bloodless.

Blinking, she stared at her hand and swallowed back bile.

What are they doing to you?

Magnus had Elias. And he was hurting him.

The hairs along her arms stood on end as though lightning were about to strike.

Heart racing, she ignored the hands on her shoulders and the worried looks of her friends. She had to move. Now.

I need to learn how to control what I feel down the bond, she thought. And soon .

When her memories returned and the mating bond had snapped back into place a few minutes ago, she felt Elias’ emotions with such clarity.

In an instant, her mind was no longer her own.

Her fate had become entwined with a demon.

It was already a struggle to tease out what she was feeling from Elias’ experiences, especially as his pain and fear mingled and crashed down on her.

There wasn’t time to sort that out now.

A hand caught her wrist, forcing her to stop as she reached for the door handle again.

“Stop,” Jessamine said, her voice unyielding.

It was a tone that Arabella knew all too well.

It brooked no argument. “If your memories are back, then you’ll also recall there’s a fucking army beyond the ward.

As powerful as you are, even you can’t single-handedly face down an army of dark creatures. None of us can.”

Gritting her teeth, Arabella turned on a heel and faced Jessamine.

There was an unparalleled fierceness in Jessamine’s gaze. She was short in stature and as fearless as the dragons of legend. Like Arabella, she wore enchantress leathers with countless knives sheathed throughout her armor. But her blonde hair was loose, hanging in long waves.

Beside her stood Cora and Brynne, two other enchantresses from Shadowbank and some of Arabella’s dearest friends. They’d come with Jessamine to Elias’ castle to try to help Arabella regain her memories.

Now, the three enchantresses all had varying expressions of concern on their faces.

For the first time, Arabella wondered if the worry wasn’t for Elias’ safety but instead what she might do with her new shadow magic.

Breckett stood very still behind them, his face devoid of expression.

She didn’t bother to wipe her tears away as she looked at them.

“You can feel him somehow. Can’t you?” Jessamine said, her eyes fixed on Arabella’s face—and the devastation that was likely as plain as the dawn. In a quieter voice, as though speaking to herself, she said, “What are they doing to him?”

Arabella’s gaze turned to Breckett. The demon was tall with light brown skin and eyes as dark as night.

Like all erox, he possessed an unearthly beauty and magnetism that had her heart pattering at his nearness.

Her body would desire any erox she was near, but the pull wasn’t anything like what she’d experienced with Elias.

What she felt with her mate was electric—as though they were ocean currents flowing toward each other, drawn ever closer and set to collide.

Breckett’s short black hair was in complete disarray as though he’d been running his hand through it repeatedly. There were purple smudges beneath his eyes, and for a moment, she wondered if he’d been crying.

She looked directly at him, and he returned her gaze with equal ferocity.

“Magnus,” she said at last, voicing the name of the sorcerer who’d captured her not long ago—the sorcerer who would have allowed his erox to feed on her until she died if Elias and Breckett hadn’t saved her. “That’s who Elias is afraid of. Isn’t it?”

In the time she’d spent with Elias, she’d gleaned one thing with utter certainty.

There was someone who terrified him more than the inner demon that threatened to consume his humanity.

If erox didn’t feed enough, their memories would fade until they were nothing but a mindless demon, intent on feeding upon anyone they came across. And they could never again return to the males they once were—lost to an eternity of gluttonous hunger.

It was a fate Elias had feared fiercely.

But even more than the prospect of losing himself, he’d lived in fear of someone finding him. It had made him desperate to reinforce the ward around his castle and remain in hiding.

Elias had never been able to name Magnus as the source of the fear piercing his brown gaze. But the fear that rippled down the bond now… It was deeper than anything she’d experienced. He was terrified to his core of whatever was happening—or would soon happen—to him.

“Yes,” Breckett answered simply. “Magnus is our maker and the first erox.”

She blinked. “Your what?”

Only erox could create other erox, and they needed a magical blade called a syphen to do it. But Magnus was a sorcerer. While his abilities far exceeded Elias’ dark magic and likely even rivaled or surpassed the fae… How was it possible for a sorcerer to create an erox?

Breckett’s eyes grew distant. “Magnus experimented with vampire, demon, and fae blood centuries ago and found a way to create a demon that feeds on sexual desires.”

Realization dawned.