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“ A h, ah, ah,” the feminine voice trilled when I shifted on my feet. “Turn slowly. Keep your hands loose at your sides.”

Pivoting on a busted ankle wasn’t easy or smooth. My demon helped, offering support for my weight as I lurched around to face our enemy. He also slid the sliver of bone into the waist of my shorts at the small of my back. Pulse racing a frantic staccato, I lifted my chin to face my father’s killer, though, refusing to give away any hint or clue. “Beatrice Hocking,” I said on a long drawl, as though fear hadn’t shriveled my testicles and wild tension hadn’t tied me into knots.

“David Mace.” Griffith’s second-in-command flashed a malicious smile. Her gun leveled at my chest. “Son of Teddy, a formidable druid and fierce opponent. You?” She tsked. “You grew up to become quite the pain in my ass.”

Despite my years masquerading as a mundane, I was wholly magical. I didn’t know diddley squat about guns, had never shot one. Relying on a firearm to defend myself hadn’t occurred to me. I’d never examined one, but whatever type Bea’s was, I cherished zero doubts that the barrel targeting my chest would disintegrate my aorta and any internal organs in the bullet’s path should she shoot. “You’re welcome.” I tipped my head in acknowledgment. “Happy to be of service.”

“More service to me than you guess.” She chortled, the aim of her gun lifting.

Just not enough.

Bea was haughty, brimming over with vindictiveness but also pride. Her overconfidence in her control of the situation—holding a demon, a druid, a lousy fire mage, a child oracle, and a hellhound at bay with a gun—made her actions messy, her thinking sloppy.

She could be distracted. I didn’t dare leap on her, though, not yet.

“Your father’s brain and his heart fetched a pretty price at auction years ago,” she said, the gun wavering yet again. She really couldn’t hold the damn thing steady. “You’re as powerful as he was, in your way.” She pinched her features into a provoking pout. “The winning bid on your brain and heart will almost compensate me for my inconvenience. You, on the other hand—” She swung the gun at Finnegan, who halted his awkward pivot, fingers digging into the handle of his crutches until his knuckles shone white. “—are worth nothing to me, bastard son of John Griffith or not.”

“Not financially. I’m nobody special, never have been.” Belying his death grip on his crutches, my roommate flashed her a cocky grin. “But why kill me quickly when an excruciating and prolonged death would torment dear old Dad most?”

“He’s my half-brother. Did you know? Of course you didn’t. The mighty John Griffith would never recognize the bastard castoffs of his lawless father. He never even formally acknowledged the Gandry thug as his brother. You? He can’t wait to claim as a son, but his own sister?” She sniffed her contempt. “No matter. His prissy rejection of the criminal brilliance in our DNA just made infiltrating his beloved guild for labor to hunt and harvest magical beings for me that much sweeter.” Bea snickered, the vile sound creeping me out and knotting my stomach. “Pity you are true-blue Team Griffith. Torturing you before I kill you will destroy that man. But I like how you think.”

She preened, but she also returned her aim to me.

Her stare, however, fixed on Jae. “My bone, demon. Hand it over or I’ll forget how much money his heart is worth and blow the silly manchild into gruesome chunks.”

Jae’s eyes narrowed, his lips curling with sinister intent.

“You aren’t gonna win,” Henry said, Peaches glaring foul temper at Bea beside him. The kid’s control of the hellhound was extraordinary and impressive. I could only surmise Peaches hadn’t leaped on Bea and eaten her in greedy gulps because the head of the trafficking ring hadn’t directly threatened Henry yet. My bet was, if Bea moved against the youngest Dyer, Peaches wouldn’t sit, docile as a lamb, at Henry’s side, no matter the kid’s commands. Puppy or not, that hellhound would shred Bea.

Finnegan and I were both injured. Mobile, but awkward and slow. Physically, we were no threat to her and magically…Well. I would always be less effective inside buildings surrounded by concrete and glass. But I had other magical resources. So did Finnegan.

We also had a hellhound and a demon ready to spring to the fight.

If we could distract her. Just a few moments.

I really, really didn’t want to get shot.

“You’re gonna die,” Henry said, taunting the woman.

“Shut your mouth, freak.” Bea swung the weapon on the kid, ignoring the sudden growl of Peaches at her peril. “I’ve got less reason to let you keep breathing.” When Peaches pushed to all four feet to stand and, at a hand signal from Henry, didn’t advance on Bea, she smiled. “I like your dog, though.”

For all her history of murder and dismembering magical beings to sell, Bea presented little physical threat. A few inches above five feet, I could take her in a fistfight. Hell, Henry could bring her down and the kid was as thin as a rail, in the clumsy glory of his early teens.

But that gun.

Magic couldn’t outrun a bullet.

Struggling to find the answer to the standoff before she did, I glanced around, my attention finally snared by Finnegan, whose stare darted…not at Bea.

Behind her?

“Well. I’ve waited ten years to activate that array. Sacrificed my twin brother trying to do it, not that Clark’s bones worked.” She sighed. “Alas, both my dear brothers have been a bitter disappointment.” Bea straightened her spine. “Not anymore, though. Thanks to you, I’ll complete the array’s magic and claim this nexus as mine. I’ll take that bone fragment now,” Bea said to Jae.

“What bone fragment?” my demon answered in a menacing purr that lifted the hair at my nape in fierce alarm.

She whipped her aim back to my chest. “I will kill him.”

The problem was, nothing was behind Bea. She’d sneaked up on us and if the shadows moving on the main floor of the museum were any sign, she hadn’t come without backup. Our best and maybe only chance was stretching this out in hopes Skip, Griffith, or another ally realized something had gone awry and our presence in the battle at the gardens was missed. That, or I figured out a way to distract Bea long enough to disarm her.

Next to me, Finnegan bleated. Like a goat.

Hand to God.

Swiveling his head in my direction, he followed that up with a shaky wolf’s “Aroo!”

My jaw dropped. What the hell?

“Stop that.” Bea glared daggers at the young fire mage. “The bone,” she shouted at Jae.

Ignoring her, Finnegan blew out a frustrated breath and tried again, this time with a lame lion’s roar. He huffed out pure aggravation when I just gawped at him. “You can do it,” he said, mouth thin. “So can I.”

That’s when I remembered Skip’s offhand remarks about my ex-roomie when we’d first arrived at the nexus. That Finnegan’s powers were weak, but ranged wide. He could summon all manner of power. Skip had said he wouldn’t leave him alone in a room full of dead things.

Like an entire museum’s worth of taxidermically preserved predators?

My eyes widened, the roar of my pulse in my ears deafening.

Bea fired a warning shot, the bullet streaking too close to my head, and I jolted.

“Hand it over,” I told my demon, as though I wasn’t digging deep into my power, the magic I’d hidden from everyone.

Finnegan closed his eyes, concentrating too.

“Give me the bone!” Bea demanded, spittle flying from her mouth.

Shrieks split the quiet of the museum floor behind her. More shadows flitted amid a discordant thump of hooves. A ferocious growl drowned out even Peaches’ steady snarl. The cry of a falcon roiled my gut.

“Miz Hocking, lookout!”

A bear filled the doorway, an honest to God grizzly, it’s muzzle yet stuffed with a prop fish that had also been taxidermically preserved. It flopped from the bear’s snout as the animal raised a thick paw, tipped with razored claws at Bea. Who finally swung the barrel of the gun from me to shoot at the dead bear.

Our moment of distraction had arrived.

Cackling, Finnegan darted forward on his crutches, my demon hard on his heels, and only then did I yank my horrified attention from funneling my magic to hobble to Bea, too, reaching to the small of my spine for my only weapon inside the plant life desert of a museum—the betrayer’s bone. Well, the only tool at my disposal besides the dead things Finnegan and I, in tandem, had fought to rouse to our defense.

I fumbled the shard of bone, steadied my grip, and while my father’s killer swerved to aim the lethal gun at me again, I stabbed the betrayer’s bone into the bitch’s unprotected chest. The length glanced off her sternum, to the left, then slid with a hot splash of her blood over my fist. It speared between her ribs. I yelled out, stabbing the makeshift bone blade deeper. The tip broke off.

But not before the point of the betrayer’s bone sank into her heart.

Bea sucked in a gasp. Her eyes focused on me while her blood gurgled from the wound, slicking my fingers. Hot, wet, her blood slicked my grip on the fatter end of the bone I still grasped as if my life depended on it. Which it did. I shoved it forward again, knocking into the piece that had sliced her aorta.

“You,” she said, staggering under my weight as I used my body to fall into her, knock her down.

Praise the gods, when she fell, she finally dropped the gun.

“Yeah.” I nodded, after we’d landed on the floor, me atop her and holding her down as she bled out. “Me.”

She inhaled another shaky breath and, eyes still staring in blank astonishment, I felt her soul leave the physical shell of her body. Her blood wetted my shirt and the skin of my chest beneath. I watched the lights wink out in her blank gaze. Her death rattle as her final breath escaped her lungs was an aria to me. I didn’t just watch her die. I felt it.

Shaking, my hands slippery on what remained of the bone fragment, I shoved the jagged piece into her one more time. For Teddy. For Clark and all the magical beings she’d stolen life from. For her betrayal of Griffith and her corruption of the Towpath, which could and should have been a sanctuary to rejected kids like Finnegan who had nowhere else to go. To weirdos and rejects like me.

I killed her and suffered no regrets.

She needed killing. I shuddered in relief at my demon’s soothing presence in my head.

“Not him. Stop,” Finnegan said to my left and the hulking shadow of the grizzly towering over me and Bea’s corpse abruptly halted.

When I glanced away from Bea’s death mask, the bear’s claws hovered inches above the crown of my head. I’d raised the dead. Finnegan and I both had. Neither one of us was especially strong in that power, but working as a team, we’d managed the distraction we’d needed. Well, to be honest, that was mostly Finnegan. Though I knew I had the power of necromancy within me, I’d never raised the dead before. It was harder than I’d thought. I’d focused on birds as my easiest target and the falcon had answered. The grizzly had risen to Finnegan’s call, not mine. As such, only my ex-roomie, the betraying spy, could’ve stopped the bear from mauling me.

He hadn’t just stopped the undead grizzly. He’d supported me. Jae, too. Without his help, I wouldn’t have succeeded over Bea. Finnegan had spied on me for Griffith, yes, but he’d proven himself to be my friend and ally, too. “Thanks,” I said, my voice shaking.

“You suck at necromancy,” was all Finnegan said. He clapped me on my sore shoulder. “C’mon. Before the exhibits tear apart whoever she brought for reinforcements and steal the rest of our fun.”

“Naw, Peaches will handle those guys,” Henry said and waved at the hellhound, who sprung toward the door. “Jae needs the bone,” the kid said and smiled. “Now, we end it for real.”

The riotous noise, screams, and magical explosions at the botanical garden had died down by the time Finnegan, Jae, Henry, Peaches, and I limped to the side street where my ex-roomie had parked his sedan. My shoulder throbbed and my ankle couldn’t support my weight anymore. Finnegan had yet to recover from the damage he’d taken when my house had erupted into flames around him. Peaches and Henry seemed all right, dirty, a few scratches, but something had pockmarked Jae’s armor along his left side. Returning to the nexus the way we’d fled it was out of the question. We needed a ride.

Squeezing all five of us into a tiny Ford, though? The hellhound alone sucked up the entire back seat. Puppy or not, Peaches wasn’t small. How we wedged Henry in with her was a mystery. Good thing the kid was skinny. Finnegan took the driver’s seat, which left Jae, and me in his lap, on the passenger side.

At least we had transportation.

Inside the city limits, Frostburg appeared to have emerged from the war fought at and around the nexus unscathed. Mundanes gathered in bunches along the main drag as Finnegan steered by, but craters obliterated the road to the Visitors Center once we turned right after leaving downtown. I grunted, knocking my head into the roof of the cab. With Henry and the hellhound jammed into the back seat, Peaches’ panted breaths scorched my nape.

Finnegan drove his Fiesta off-road when the damaged entrance to the gardens grew impassable, but we reached what was left of the Visitors Center.

“Bea must have recruited a lot of fire mages,” Finnegan said, his face pinched as he parked his car amid the shells of vehicles dotting the parking lot where this part of the fight had begun. Not all the cars had been destroyed, though. I recognized Ma’s white delivery van with nary a speck or smudge next to Griffith’s F150 by the outdoor amphitheater where I’d lit the bonfire to heal Jae that first day.

“Park near the shed,” I said, jabbing my thumb at the staff-only work areas lining the parking lot. “I’m limping. You’re on crutches. Our best option is taking one of the ATVs to the array.”

“If any are left.” Finnegan jolted the car over the curb to get us as close to the building I pointed to as he could.

The ground rocked and trembled when I climbed off Jae’s lap and free of the car moments later. Fires glowed orange and devastating yellows to the north, from the Grove, but the wind remained a gentle breeze rifling my hair.

“Bea’s air mages are dead or they ran,” I told Finnegan over the roof of the vehicle when he exited it.

“All of her people retreated or we would be dead already.” Finnegan sniffed his disgust. “Griffith’s water mages are probably dousing fires before the whole mountain burns,” Finnegan said. “That’s where we’ll find him.”

Following me out of the car, Jae stretched. “Array first.”

“Help me,” I said.

My demon supported my wobbling gate on one side while aiding Finnegan on his other, but we reached the employee entrance to the garage. “I don’t have my employee badge.” I blinked at the security system, flummoxed. “I can’t unlock it.”

Jae maneuvered me to lean against the siding. Finnegan followed suit, and Jae reached for the doorknob. With a heaving groan, metal screeched, and the door popped loose from the hinges.

I wrinkled my nose. “You know I’ll have to pay for that.”

Finnegan snickered. “Dude. Your job is on fire .”

I shoved my fingers through the hair at my temple, no doubt smearing in Bea’s blood, ash, and dirt, but… “Fair point.” I waved at the garage. “Carry on.”

My demon helped me inside, where I hit the light switch. Sets of keys dangled on hooks from the corkboard by the door. I snagged one and lifted the pen attached to the sign-out clipboard to print my name and the code for the ATV from the key fob.

“Seriously?” Finnegan chortled.

“Megan hasn’t fired me yet.”

“Fair point,” he echoed back at me.

My ankle aching in fierce protest, I hobbled to the ATV specified on the keyring and when I eased it from the garage, Henry waited atop Peaches, who pranced restlessly. Finnegan had climbed behind me on the seat, his arms wrapped like a vise around me. Jae would run alongside the hellhound. “Be on the lookout for stragglers,” I yelled over the roaring engine and we took off.

My heart hurt at the damage done to the garden and then broke when I steered the ATV past the first body. I would’ve stopped if I thought I could help—I recognized the guy from my first official guild meeting at the Towpath, though I couldn’t remember his name, if I’d ever known it. Fire mage, perhaps? But he was missing his legs from his hips down, his eyes glassy and blank.

What hadn’t been blown to bits was shielded by body armor.

One of Bea’s then. The magicals she’d recruited into her trafficking ring would’ve flooded the nexus, prepared for and equipped to win the fight. Griffith’s team had run to help us. No armor. They wouldn’t have had time to prepare.

I drove the ATV on, toward the Grove.

The sawhorses that had served as temporary barriers to keep tourists out were still set up where the garden’s trail branched, the Grove to the left and the path down to the pond area on the right. Since the ground still smoked, the natural grasses and wildflowers only powdery ash, I broke the strict rules of ATV use in the garden to swerve around the blockage, bile creeping up my throat when I spotted somebody’s arm, the fingers bloodied but still clutching a police baton.

We started seeing survivors within moments. The redhead I’d discovered focusing power to grow flowers on the top floor of the Towpath. Something had burned off most of her ponytail, but she’d survived. Face blank with shock and smudged with grime, she blinked as we drove by her. Then, a pair of healers working on someone crumpled in the dirt. Whoever it had groaned so. Also alive. For now.

Most everyone had gathered where the dryad sacred circle had been, the exact spot I’d first met my demon. While his spilled blood had ruined their circle, the dryads had fed their magic into that ground for generations, so a hint of their power lingered. Were we humans drawn to it? Possibly. I eased the ATV between two oaks a volley had shattered about ten feet from the ground and killed the engine.

“More water in the gulch. I don’t want those embers reigniting.” Griffith’s command rang out above the moans of the wounded and the snap and crackle of fires that hadn’t been extinguished yet. Bea hadn’t been as successful at killing her half-brother as she’d been at murdering her fraternal twin, Clark.

“Davey!” Ma yelled and slammed into me with a tight, desperate hug as soon as I swung my uninjured leg over the ATV to stand. “What happened?” She loosened her grip to frown at my injured foot. “I came as fast as I could.”

I frowned down at her. “Why?”

“I’m no sterling example of motherhood, but you’re still my son.” She scowled. “Shut up. Just let me look at you.” She gasped at my hand. “Is that blood?” she shrieked, then glared murderous fury at Jae as he sidled next to us, hardly winded from the short run from the parking lot. “You were supposed to protect him.”

“The blood isn’t his,” my demon said, nonchalant.

“Is she dead?” Megan asked, stumbling to greet us.

My relief almost fell me where I stood, despite Ma’s grip on me. “What are you doing here?” But I dragged my boss into a group hug with Rosie, careful of the sling at Megan’s left shoulder holding her wounded arm to her chest.

“I was working in the greenhouse when Bea Hocking and her merry band of murderers staged their intrusion into the nexus from my botanical garden. Damned if I’d let that bitch just roll over us,” Megan said, looping an arm around my waist to give me a fond squeeze. “She’s dead now, though. Right?”

“Issa,” Jae said, answering for me when emotion clogged my throat at what could have happened. Megan—who wasn’t even magical—slaughtered. My mother, too. “He killed the usurper.”

Ma’s eyes glimmered. “Oh, Davey,” she said, voice quavering. “Are you okay?”

No, I wasn’t. I really wasn’t, but the trauma of all I’d done hadn’t cracked through the defensive shock that had kept me going so far. Today’s work wasn’t finished until we completed the array, so I hung onto my numbness with stubborn urgency. Since I would fail if I continued meeting the horrified compassion in Ma’s stare, I tore my gaze away, my attention flittering around us. Andrew Dyer and his sisters surrounding Henry, still seated on Peaches. A dryad peeked from the trunk of an oak that wasn’t burning. Fellow guildies worked together to put out the fires that had raged during the battle.

Destruction and suffering surrounded us. Slumped my shoulders. “She killed Dad,” I told Ma, my words wooden. Detached.

“And Clark,” Finnegan said as Griffith jogged to us, too. Upon reaching my ex-roomie, the guild boss draped a steadying and protective arm over the son he couldn’t acknowledge as his. “So many dead, magicals and mundanes alike,” Finnegan continued, clutching Griffith’s fingers. “The dragon’s mate. Who knows how many beings she hunted and murdered over the years? Bea Hocking needed killing.” His stare focused on me. “I’m glad you were the one to end her, that it was you.”

Griffith blew out a shaky laugh. “I’m not,” he said, regret shining in his eyes. “If I could have taken that burden from you, I would have.”

“Well. She was your sister, half or not. Crazy, evil, whatever she was, Bea was kin to you and since you appointed her your second-in-command in the Towpath, she must have earned your trust, no small feat. Her betrayal will torment you plenty. I’m glad I was the one to kill her, save you that hurt.”

“Speaking of family betrayals,” Griffith said, wagging a smartphone at me, “the Maces are heading back to Chicago. The bunch surrounding the Towpath have cleared out.”

Rubbing my sore ankle, I grimaced. “They probably just don’t want the public embarrassment of being associated with Bea and her trafficking ring.”

“They probably realized they’re too late. Like the demons who’ve suddenly given up their hunt, they knew they only had a chance at killing you when you were newly binding, still weak.” The guild boss shrugged. “You and your demon are stronger now. More powerful. They won’t pick a fight they can’t win.”

When my sweeping glance hadn’t found him, I asked Griffith, “Where’s Skip?”

“In the nexus.” Megan snorted. “He held off three of Bea’s mages to guard some magical nonsense up there, and he refuses to let healers evacuate him.” She lifted her palm when I stiffened. “He’ll be okay. He’ll recover, but we need to get you up the hill, toward the ridgeline, so your friend will let us take care of him.”

“Jae?”

My demon stalked to the three of us and disentangled me from Megan and my mother both. “Your machine won’t go far in the underbrush,” he said over Ma’s strident objections and shot a swift, disapproving glare at the ATV. “I’ll carry you.”

“You can’t. Davey, let someone else do it,” Rosie said, still reaching for me. “You’re hurt!”

“No one else is capable.”

Surprise bloomed in my chest when I pivoted to see the dragon, Obie, leaning against a tree trunk. He smirked at me. “Only the human and his demon can finish this magic.”

“You came. And stayed?” I gaped at Obie.

“She murdered my mate, and her continued existence risked my dragonets.” The dragon snorted. “Of course I did my part. Males are the weaker sex of my species, but we are not defenseless.” He tipped his head in a respectful nod. “Neither are you, human.” He focused his striking eyes, swirling with the essence of his water dragon power, over my shoulder on Finnegan. “Not all humans are ignorant, self-absorbed, and dangerous opportunists. I’d forgotten.”

Griffith shifted on his feet, blocking Finnegan from the dragon’s view.

Weird.

“Sunset is in a few minutes,” the guild boss said to me.

Ma crossed her arms over her chest and glowered at Griffith. “Naturally, you’d push him. I don’t know why Teddy insisted on you as David’s godfather. You’ll always choose what’s best for the Towpath over my son.”

“What best for him is waiting at the heartwood of the nexus.” Griffith scowled at her. “I’ve always prized David’s happiness above everything else, including the Towpath. Always. How could you still doubt that?”

“Teddy left what’s in that nexus for me to do. For us. I want to finish what he started. Need to,” I said, hugging my demon close. “Are you sure you can fly?”

He didn’t answer me, simply unfurled his wings and, crouching low, his arms tight around me, he leaped through the oaks and into the air. We crashed through the leaves, which filtered the sound of my mother calling my name, but we soared free.

A little unsteadily. Jae hadn’t complained, but I’d noticed the rips and tears marring the membrane of his wings and cuts and bruises earned during our flight through the battle to the museum. I was injured, but so was Jae. We rode the air currents toward the heartwood, anyway. Nothing mattered more than setting the totems we’d fought and bled to obtain, more than activating the last layer of the array to complete this magic. Not to him. Not to me, either. I felt the throbbing ache to finish this like a hungry void inside me. I’d die to fill that lonely emptiness. If fixing the terrible and persistent sense of wrongness required my life, I’d give it.

“Do not be so eager to die, my human,” Jae said on a grumble once we’d thudded back to the earth at the heartwood. He lifted his palm to cup my jaw. “I have grown fond of your stupidity.”

I snorted a shaky laugh. “I kind of like you, too.”

He lifted on his toes to brush a kiss over my forehead.

“Finally! Goddess above, do you have any idea how hard keeping these vipers at bay has been?” Skip rose on his elbows a few yards from the array we’d set in the roots of the heartwood tree. He shot a withering glance at a trio of healers surrounding him, two of which ignored him and worked diligently, blue magic glowing from their hands hovering above his left leg.

With his brow leaning against mine, Jae rolled his head to stare at my familiar. “You survived,” he said. “Good.”

I focused on the third healer, who scowled at Skip. “Is he going to be all right?”

“Imps are astonishingly resilient.” The healer wrinkled his nose. “But he lost a lot of blood. Whatever you need to do, I suggest you do it quickly, or even the intervention of his patron goddess won’t matter.”

My lips curving, I brushed a hasty kiss over Jae’s surprised mouth. “Let’s do this. You have the claw?”

He nodded, his red eyes glinting with affection…and satisfaction. “We need the book.”

Legs crossed, Jae sat in the center of the array we’d set, laying out the totems we’d collected in front of him while I limped to Skip, who yanked at the zipper of the backpack to unearth Teddy’s grimoire. My ankle sang, my teeth gritted against the piercing pain, but I hobbled to retrieve Dad’s book and made it back to my demon without dumping to the ground. Rather than bracketing my hips with his bent legs, this time I plopped into my demon’s lap.

He grunted. “The bone?”

“Sorry. Forgot.” I dug into my pocket, withdrawing the bloodied nub that had broken off when I’d stabbed the bone into Bea. I handed that to him, as well as the dragon scale, which I’d kept as close to my body as possible, protected from damage or harm during the battle. “If you have the hellhound claw, then we just need—”

He lifted a hand and tugged a chunk of his hair free from just above his temple.

“—a sliver of heartwood,” I said, stomach flipping as he placed the tuft of his hair next to the other totems the last layer demanded.

“The tree wants to grow, to thrive,” my demon said and reached forward, the tip of his claw tapping one root that had encircled the array we’d built. As thick as my arm, that root woke and shifted, slithering like a snake in the damp earth. I shuddered, the power in the heartwood both a warm comfort and an intense trill of magic raising goosebumps on my skin. When the roots slowed to a halt, presenting Jae with a fat bulge, he extended a claw and carefully, tenderly, he picked a slender splinter of new wood free.

“We must set the blessing gift from the heartwood first,” Jae said and winked at me. “But before that, we unseal the book.”

So much of me hurt, not just my throbbing and ruined ankle, but the ache in my sore shoulder, the various scratches and blooming bruises. What was another prick at the center of my palm? My demon pierced it, bringing forth only a small bead of my blood, but that was enough. When he clasped his fingers in mine, his own palm seeping from the cut he’d made in it, our blood mixed. With his free hand, he placed the book in my lap, sliding a claw under the cover to open it to the magicked barb locking Teddy’s words and his magic from us.

One last time, I positioned my thumb over the pointed end of the metal and sliced the skin. I sucked in a breath, because it still stung, but I swiped the red streaming from the wound over the barb. “Turn the page,” my demon said into the shell of my ear.

I flipped by several. Jae need not prompt me to open Teddy’s grimoire to the drawing and scribbled incantations for the final layer of the array. I knew, just as I now understood that the gibberish that had unscrambled when our blood bond unlocked the grimoire had never been intended for me. “What do you need me to do?” I asked.

“Hold the book,” Jae said and kissed the side of my neck. “Follow my lead.”

With the splinter of the tree’s root clasped in his fingers, Jae reached forward. He placed the sliver of wood at the top of the array, above the circle of offerings we’d set earlier. He didn’t speak. He chanted, the words guttural and unintelligible to me—exactly what my father had printed next to the sketch he’d drawn in his grimoire.

The last layer of the array was demonic in origin. I’d never been meant to translate or understand it, only support the one who could, me and my imp familiar feeding as much of our power as we could.

When he’d finished the opening verse, Jae placed the hellhound claw he slipped from its protective spot beneath his chest plate. Then, the tangled and sweaty tuft of his hair. Each totem required another smattering of Jae’s native daemonica First Blood tongue, his chanting rhythmic and beguiling to me. I shivered. Traces of mounting power whispered over my skin, heating my blood and echoing like a faint heartbeat inside my head.

By the time he anchored the dragon scale outside the offering circle, I trembled in his arms. Not from fear, not anymore. I shook with excitement. Eagerness. The sense of rightness, of justice long denied, stirred to life. It rang inside me like the joyful peals of church bells. As solidly linked as we were now, I felt Jae’s satisfaction as readily as my own, shared his relief and his euphoria. Fingers knotting with mine, he guided our clasped hands to the dragon scale and when he chanted the words, his words, the language of his tribe and his people, I fed a spark of my magic, strengthened by Skip, to Jae. United, we filled the scale with triumphant power.

Only the bone of the betrayer remained.

I focused on the blood-slick fragment. The shard of bone had been one of Jae’s ancestors. Centuries ago, another First Blood demon had portaled to earth, fled for his life, but that demon had been nothing like my Jae, who had sought only survival. That ages-old demon had run to escape his crimes, which were so severe Jae’s tribe had sealed the nexus. They’d shut away that demon from his home, denying him a door to return.

That demon had ranted, infuriated by his defeat.

He bound a human to stay alive. No demon could last outside a nexus without a human to steady their power and the western Maryland nexus had been shut off. Jae’s forebear must have frantically searched for a human—any human—with a scrap of magic in the raw, untouched forests of pre-colonial America. Then, with his life secured, he’d schemed. He’d worked and plotted.

Together with his bound human, that demon had created the complex magic of an array.

This array.

For what purpose?

Revenge. I realized that with as much certainty as I felt Jae’s thighs bunching under my ass, with the same confidence I knew at his calming presence inside my head.

That demon had wanted vengeance against the tribe that had banished him.

But something had changed.

Because the array was not wholly demonic. The complicated magic melding layer after layer into a powerful whole represented a mix of each of its creators, both human and demon. The magical Jae’s ancestor had bound had joined with that ancient demon in every way, not just physically or magically. That human had opened his heart and loved the betrayer.

The realization of what magic the array brought forth filled me in a soothing rush. “I know what it does,” I said, awe filling me. I turned my head to smile, dazed, at Jae. “And I’m not afraid.”

“Not so stupid for once.” Jae grinned.

I laughed. “Finish it.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You are sure?”

I nodded, happiness vibrating inside me along with my excitement.

In the center of the array, where we sat, my demon set the fragment of bone in the dirt. “Hold the book steady,” he said.

I lifted it higher, awkward because blood magic required we mash our wounded palms together, but I somehow tipped the book up so my demon could chant the concluding verse as we both concentrated, streaming our joined magic into the humble nub of bone.

Every item of the array glowed a sudden, blinding purple.

Power flared out, streaking over the forest floor, washing over Skip and the healers, who shouted in startled surprise. Magic blew like a gusting wind through the trees, over the mountains and sinking into the valleys.

Around us, the air glimmered with pinpoints of light. Wild magic sparked. The heartwood tree groaned, the trunk growing and pushing outward. The surrounding roots writhed like snakes and crept higher and higher around us. A bird’s sharp cry shattered the quiet, but no call, coo, or twitter I’d ever heard. The click of buzzing insects mounted and a scent similar to jasmine but also incorporated with a hint of something else…maybe gardenia…wafted into my nostrils.

Above us, the sky cracked with a burst of light exploding like a newborn star.

Heart thudding, the very essence of magic stuffing me full of dizzy wonder, I turned to blink at my demon mate. “We unsealed the nexus.”

“This place sleeps no more.” Jae sighed, a glad smile curving his lips as he squeezed me in his embrace. “The door between our realms has opened.”

I tipped my head back and laughed, drunk with the power pouring through the air and the soil. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you would have feared I meant to use this door to return home,” he said, eyes glowing fiery red, his own muscles trembling. “I do not want you to be afraid. Ever.” He lifted his mouth to brush a kiss over my lips. “I especially do not wish you to worry that I would abandon you.”

“Now who’s being stupid?”

“Issa.” Jae snorted a laugh. “Very stupid.”

“You won’t leave me.” I smiled against his mouth. “Even now that the nexus is active.”

“I won’t.” He shook his head. “I promise.”

My heartbeat stuttered. My eyes widened. I jerked my head back to gape at him, shock arrowing through me, both devastating and enervating at once. “What?”

“I will not be parted from you, David Mace.” Jae chuckled at my astonishment, his mouth curving to a wide bow. “I give my oath freely and with a welcoming heart to fulfill the binding magic.”

Roaring filled my ears. My senses spun. “But why now?”

“You would not have trusted such a promise before. Life has not been kind to you.” His gaze swept the re-energized nexus. “But now you see. The door is open. I can step through it when I please.” He shifted his stare to me, his eyes adoring. “I do not. My home is here. I choose you. Until the day we breathe our last, I will always choose you.”

Emotion clogged my throat. “You think I’m stupid.”

“You are,” Jae said, cackling. “So stupid. As stupid as I am.” He growled. “I like you, too.”

“You do, huh,” I said, happiness lighting me up so intensely, I felt like our newly joined magic must be incandescent. “You and me?”

Jae kissed me, sly tongue darting inside to taste and savor my flavor. “You and me.”

I licked my lips, tingling from his mouth, and understood, to my core, that he was what all the pain and suffering had been for. Here was my prize—Jae. Lover, partner, and friend combined into one package. He wouldn’t leave me. I’d never be alone again, and, finally, I had someone to love in return. To hell with the world if it objected to my loving a demon or Jae loving me, too.

I sighed, leaning to rest my forehead against his, so I stared into his red eyes. “Okay.”

THE END