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On the ride back, she leaned against the door with his sweatshirt as a pillow. She closed her eyes a few times, but she didn’t sleep. Wide awake. She’d been up for twenty-two hours, but she was still going strong.

She climbed out of the car, one limb at a time. Mindlessly, he joined his hand with hers and laced his fingers between hers. It was still a date, sort of.

At the foot of her stairs, she turned to him. Instead of looking up to talk to him like she usually did, she crashed her forehead into his chest and huffed a long breath. “This is not how I wanted this date to go.”

He chuckled and kissed the top of her head. “Raincheck?”

Without turning away, she took a step up and linked her arms over his shoulders. She leaned in to kiss him.

He hissed at the pressure over his healing wound. Fuck, that was deep.

“Oh, sorry, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he hissed, slipping out of her reach before she found the bandage, or the wound under it. In a few hours, it wouldn’t even hurt. “Just sore. I got a workout in while you were gone.”

He stopped. Fuck. It hadn’t clicked at first. She had some serious weights in her room. Why would she have fifty-pound dumbbells?

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Vann tossed to his other side and stuffed the pillow under his head. Sleep refused to set in. As if his eyes were taped open.

He chucked the pillow and sat up.

The sheets seemed to anticipate his escape and twined tighter around his feet.

Inhale, exhale, let it go.

He lumbered toward yesterday’s discarded denim and slipped them on, alternating one foot and then the other. He tucked everyone in and safe from the zipper, and walked across the cool wood floor to the slider.

Air. Fresh air would fix whatever was tangling his brain to stay awake. The world slept soundly, the waves snoring as the night passed in peace.

Too peaceful.

Something… fuck. Something was off.

In bare feet, he stepped into the chill night air.

A shriek pierced the air. Shattering delight and horror.

Instantly on alert, Vann took off through the house.

He tore down the hall. Without slowing, he pivoted and grabbed a sword from its display on the wall. His fingers curled around the solid hilt; the weight of the weapon empowering his attack.

The night was eerily still as he sprinted outside. Only that single scream.

Wyverns sounded more like a large bird; this was more humanoid. Almost like a banshee, but the scream was intense, invasive into his skull.

Like someone from the demon realm.

Sword up, he scanned the darkness.

Movement above.

The curtain in Eryn’s room flapped outside, the window wide open, no screen. When he’d left her, it had been closed. Eryn was always cold. No way she would have left the window open like that.

On the move, he sprinted across the driveway and up the steps.

The deadbolt was latched. He slammed the heel of his hand into the door.