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EVE

I saw the world through bloodshot eyes as I was lifted from the floor.

Sam wasn’t gentle. Not that I could feel much of it. The connection between my body and brain had snapped, leaving my limbs leaden and useless.

My head lolled back and cracked against stone as he dropped me on the plinth.

The magic tugged at my consciousness once. Twice. Not enough to scare me—but enough to anchor me. A flicker of warmth. A reminder of why I was fighting. Of what I was about to lose.

Hands grabbed at my ankles. Cold metal snapped tight, locking me in place. The chains clanked sharply over blurred commands, echoing through the crypt.

I turned my head—light from the gateway flickered against a blade now lying beside me. Razor-edged, curved slightly at the tip. Long as my forearm.

A sound escaped my bloody lips—half breath, half warning. I summoned everything I had left to wrench my arm from Sam’s grip, but his claws sank deeper as the first cuff clamped down.

He reached for my other wrist.

Panic surged like bile. I couldn’t let him do this. I couldn’t lie here, shackled and waiting to die.

They were going to tie me down like some fucked-up demonic sacrifice.

On Halloween.

I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t choking on dread.

But it was happening—and with it came a jolt of adrenaline.

I ripped my hand out of Sam’s grip. I thrashed, uselessly, wildly. The movement caught him off guard, just long enough.

I struck.

My nails tore across his face, drawing blood. He reeled back.

I lunged for the blade and swung.

The flat side of the blade connected with a charging daema. The curved tip slashed through skin.

There was no time to think about right or wrong.

It was survival.

Me or them.

It didn’t matter if that made me a monster. Right now, I needed to be one.

The daema staggered, blood streaking its chest. It hissed, retreating.

I swung again. My arm trembled, but the blade met something soft—something vital.

Light flared at the doorway, but I didn’t look.

Sam was still coming for the weapon.

“Eve!”

Orion’s voice echoed through the chamber like thunder. It rattled the walls. Lit me up from the inside.

He’d found me.

I turned, just in time to see his ghost. He flickered—there and then not.

His expression was horror, pure and raw.

Then he was gone, hurled backward by an invisible force.

He vanished through the wall like smoke.

I screamed.

Desperation clawed up my throat as I spun back around, swinging blindly.

He was here. He was coming. I just had to hold on.

The blade met something. I didn’t stop to see what I’d hit. I couldn’t.

I yanked against the cuffs digging into my ankles, heat radiating from my skin as my grip on reality began to slip.

The knife struck deep—hot blood sprayed across my arm. Something snarled, wet and animalistic, but I didn’t pause.

Couldn’t.

If I stopped now, I would die.

Tremors rocked through the earth, shaking the crypt with each aftershock.

Ragnar.

Dust rained from the cracked ceiling as thunder boomed overhead—audible even this deep underground. Now that I was listening, I could hear it all: the sharp cracks of stone splitting, the high-pitched shrieks, and that single commanding voice cutting through it all like a blade.

Atlas.

They were here.

Tearing the world apart to reach me.

Static built in the air, charged with magic that prickled along my skin just before another boom split the silence. But they were still too far—too many enemies stood between us.

One of them was going to get hurt, and it would be all my fault.

Hope warred with fear. My strength was slipping fast. My right arm shook with every swing of the blade, but I kept slashing.

Pain scorched across my scalp—claws tangled in my hair, yanking me back toward the altar.

Sam loomed over me, his face a reflection of the boy I once knew.

This was the same man who once held my hand while I got stitches in the ER. Who made jokes to distract me from the pain. Who smiled like I was the best part of his day.

But that man had never existed.

His clothes were drenched in my blood. His twisted scar was carved deeper by the snarl splitting his mouth.

I lashed out again, one last, desperate strike. The knife came up toward his face, but he saw it coming. His hand clamped around my wrist with brutal force.

One slam. Pain lit up my bones.

Two. Stars burst behind my eyes.

Three. My fingers spasmed. The blade slipped free and hit the floor with a hollow clang.

“You think them being here changes anything?” Sam spat, yanking my arm toward the top of the altar.

White-hot pain erupted as something cracked—loud, wrong—and I screamed. My whole body seized from the shock. My wrist was locked in the final cuff before my lungs could suck in air.

The metal bit into my skin, cold and unyielding. My tears blurred, then sizzled on my overheated flesh. Another explosion shook the crypt. Part of me hoped the ceiling would cave in and crush us both. That had to be kinder than what Sam had planned.

He barked orders to the remaining daema while I stared up at the ceiling, watching thin cracks lace with frost.

Xander.

My chest pulled tight.

Sam leaned over me again, blade in hand.

“I’ll make sure to leave them a piece of you to bury.”

I didn’t blink. Didn’t speak.

I just watched the ice spread across the stone. Let it harden my resolve.

The weapon lifted above me, its edge catching the faint glow of the portal light.

I braced myself.

When it came, the pain wasn’t what I expected.

It was sharper. Colder.

My heart stuttered.

And then the world exploded.

Magic tore through me like a scream made flesh—violent, blinding, absolute.