Another hard yank on that dark thread in my chest.Another swell of desperate longing—not for him, but for what he offered.An end to the emptiness.Someone who understood.A place to belong.I tightened my grip on Owen’s hand until my knuckles ached.
“There is another,” the man said.Slowly, he turned his head, gaze cutting toward the brush where we hid.“Come out, little one.You don’t have to carry it all alone.”
I flinched.I turned my face into Owen’s neck and pressed my forehead there.
“Don’t let him take me,” I whispered.
“I told you to get her out of here,” Tani snapped.“Now it may be too late.”
“Who is he?”Owen demanded, never taking his eyes off the clearing.
“A demon,” Tani said.“A powerful one.The breach gave him form.And he wants her.”
“I need to go to him.He understands.”
The words spilled out of me before I could stop them, muffled against Owen’s skin but full of raw, aching truth—and it wasn’t my truth at all.It was his.It was the spell.
I inhaled the sharp tang of Owen’s cologne, clung to the memory of his thumb brushing chocolate from my lip.His mouth on mine in the basement.Anything that wasn’t that demon’s voice promising impossible things.
“It’s the spell talking,” Tani said.“He’s using whatever power he’s got to twist the grief that’s already there.The loneliness.The gate’s too open.He won’t stop until he has her.”
Owen wrapped his arm tight around me.“He can’t have her.”
“Then move,” Tani snapped.
Owen surged to his feet, hauling me up with him.We barely took two steps before the demon moved—too fast, a blur of black.
He was suddenly there.
Smiling.Teeth sharp as knives.
“There you are,” he crooned.“My lost little darling.”
He reached for me.
Tani exploded into full size between us, a curved dagger flashing in her hand.She slashed, catching him across the upper arm.
He roared, a sound made of rusted metal and nightmares.Rage flared in his eyes, hot and molten.
Images slammed into my mind.Not my own—his.Tani broken on the ground, wings torn, blood on her lips.Then Owen sprawled in the dirt, ribs crushed, throat bruised where those clawed hands had squeezed—
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I gasped.
“Yes,” the demon said silkily.“You shouldn’t have done that, little fairy.”
His voice wrapped around me like a shroud.My knees buckled.If Owen hadn’t still been holding me, I would have crawled straight to the demon’s feet and begged him to take away the ache.
The others were advancing, leaving the tree, moving in a slow, predatory circle.
“Owen, you going to stand there all day or do something?”Tani snapped.
Somewhere to the left, I heard the creak of a bow.I forced my head around in time to see Tani nock an arrow and let it fly.It hit one of the men square in the chest.He dropped.As if a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Another arrow.Another body.
The demon’s snarl deepened.His outline began to glow faintly, as though lit from within by coals.
Owen shoved me behind him and stepped forward, hands curling into fists.
