The first demon tore through the sealed door like it was made of paper.He readied his stance.So did I.Together, we faced the door.Our doom.
The demon darkened the doorway.Then the fighting began.
At first, I moved on instinct alone—barely keeping my footing, swinging wide and wild.But the sword shifted in my grip.Adjusted my stance.Nudged my balance.Knowledge flowed not into my mind, but into my muscles.
I stopped thinking.
Stopped doubting.
I moved.
The blade sang as it cut through shadow and flesh alike, bright and sure.Shapes fell—shrieked—dissolved into black smoke at my feet.Each strike felt right, as if I were restoring something that had been broken rather than destroying it.
When the last creature collapsed, I staggered, breath ragged, every nerve alight and humming.
“You’re incredible,” Owen said hoarsely as he dispatched his final opponent.
“Your dad’s going to kill us,” I managed faintly.
Owen huffed a laugh—one quick, disbelieving breath.
And then the grimoire on the table thumped like it had a heartbeat.
The floor shuddered.Not from the fight.From the building itself—like the shop had taken a breath it didn’t want.
Cold swept the room without warning.Not a draft.Not air moving.Cold with intention.
The fluorescent lights snapped off one by one, plunging the shop into darkness until only the streetlamp outside cast a sickly glow through the storeroom windows.
He stood in the doorway.He didn’t step inside.He didn’t need to.
The same man from the woods.He’d found me again.Up close, I saw him more clearly.
And he was terrifyingly beautiful.
Tall and broad-shouldered, built like violence wrapped in silk.Thick black hair brushed his shoulders, threaded with faint silver, and his eyes—God—his eyes were the color of a storm-tossed sea, blue-green shot through with gold.Ancient.Appraising.Hungry.
His presence reached me first—pressure sliding along my skin, coiling tight in my chest.Not heat.Not magic the way Owen’s was.
Something older.Darker.Power that didn’t ask permission.
“There you are.”
His voice—dark, deep, melodic—slid over my skin and straight into my bones.
My knees buckled.I sank to the floor, the sword dangling uselessly from my hand as something in me answered him in the worst way—like a part of my body recognized a command before my mind could refuse it.
The ache hit first.
A sudden, violent loneliness that didn’t belong to me.Like someone had poured grief straight into my bloodstream and smiled while I drowned in it.
That same thought pounded through me.Go to him.Let him take away the ache of loneliness.Let him take that pain away.
“Piper!”
Owen tried to reach me.He took a step—
—and stopped.
