Hellfire she conjured.
Gabriel sucked in a breath. Squeezed his eyes shut. Opened them.
The hellfire grew brighter at Jacinda’s command.
Gabriel tried to fight the logic, tried to mute the alarm clanging in his head.
But it was no use.
He watched in stunned horror, his heart shattering, his head spinning, his life spiraling.
The woman—the one he was pretty damn sure he’d fallen for—wasn’t just a witch.
She was a fucking demon.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Viansa’s laughter filled the bedroom, crawling across Jaci’s skin like fire ants.
“The Lab Rat has sharpened her teeth!” The bitch sneered at her, taunting her with wild, crazy eyes. Eyes the same shade of blue as Jaci’s. The same as their demon mother’s.
“Stay out of his head!” Jaci ordered. The hellfire in her hands grew hotter brighter. The tips of Viansa’s hair were already singed, her gold dress stained black. But the attack hadn’t hurt her. Nothing could hurt her.
“Don’t tell me you’re carrying a torch for that bloodsucker.” Viansa rolled her eyes, as if the very idea were a major inconvenience to her plans. “Honestly, Jay. Drop the fire. I’m you’re sister, for devil’s sake!”
“Half-sister, and I think I’ll keep it, thanks.”
Another eye-roll. A huff that made her sound fifteen years old instead of fifteen millennia old. “Oh, look! Boyfriend’s awake! That’s… unexpected.”
Jaci didn’t dare take her eyes off the demon. In her peripheral vision, she caught the movement on Gabriel’s bed. Heard the groan of confusion as he came to.
“You actually listened to me?” Jaci asked, wondering what the trick was.
“Hell no. Boyfriend broke free all on his own.”
Jaci gasped. It should’ve been impossible.
As a succubus—an extremely powerful one at that—Viansa could trap people in her thrall, wreaking havoc on their minds while their bodies sat in stasis. Since Viansa was the one who’d bound the Redthorne curse, she had a direct connection to Gabriel through his blood—like a GPS signal she could theoretically follow anywhere. It would also enable her to dig that much deeper into Gabriel’s head.
What Jaci couldn’t figure out was how the fuck she’d finally manifested here, and how Gabriel managed to break the thrall.
As far as she knew, no one had ever done it before.
Viansa knew it too. And though she was doing her best to hide it, it fucking terrified her.
“Anyway,” she said with a dramatic sigh, “I brought a message from Demetria. She really wanted to be here, but she couldn’t. Got a little… tied up.”
Viansa reached into her purse and hauled out something purple, tossing it at Jaci’s feet.
It glistened up at her, sending her stomach into free fall.
A tangle of purple hair torn from a scalp, gruesome and bloodied.
It’s a lie. It has to be a lie. If Meech were dead, I’d know it. For sure I’d know it…
Swallowing her fear, Jaci repeated the mantra in her head, keeping her hellfire hot.
If there was a single bright side to this monumental shitshow, it was that the bitch was now topside, which meant Jaci had a chance of binding her.
