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Another set of teeth yanked Moe toward the portal. I grabbed his feet with a strand of my magic, but the teeth had already yanked his upper half through the portal. I wrapped all my magic around his legs and pulled. The portal demon didn’t let go, and we were in a tug-of-war with poor Moe as the rope. If I kept fighting, he’d be torn in two. He might die on the other side of the portal, but he might not.
With a feeling like my heart was being ripped out, I let him go.
“Moe, Ellie!” Jag roared and dove headfirst through the portal.
Heroic dumbass, I thought, and then followed him.
Just as I was about to cross the threshold, Ram leaped in front of me. One arm was raised, encased in purple magic as one of those teeth monsters gnawed on it, undeterred by his counterattack.
I raised my hands to push him out of the way, but he twirled a finger and suddenly, I couldn’t move. He had fucking cast an immobilizing spell on me, the piece of shit. He met my gaze.
“I’ll keep them safe. On my life, I promise you, Alyssa. My Sa-Sa.”
He hadn’t called me that in seven years. Though I had always hated the pet name, this time, hearing it felt like being punched in the chest.
“You’ll find a way to fix this. I know you will,” Ram added with a smile. He inclined his head and flicked a finger.
I flew backward out of the shed just as Ram let his defenses drop. His scream echoed in my head as the teeth clamped on his arm.
I landed on the grass hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. The immobilizing spell now gone, I jumped up and ran for the shed. No wind slammed into me, and the smell of rot had vanished, as though it had never existed. Maybe Ram had fixed the portal. He always had a trick up his sleeve.
I dashed into the shed.
The portal was gone, and so were Ram, Jag, Elliot, and Moe.
Our supplies, which Moe had so carefully organized, were strewn around the floor. The basket was overturned, and the handle was broken. Strange the things that stick in your mind during a disaster.
I ran for the magic circle to reopen the portal, but I found only ash and the smashed remnants of my cell phone. I swept aside the debris, looking for the papers with the spell.
“It has to be here. It has to be.”
On my hands and knees, I searched the shed, through the ash, under Moe’s care packets, and in the basket. The library book had been bitten in half, not that I could read it even if it was complete.
“Where is it? Where is it?”
I needed that paper or my phone or Ram’s. Both held photos of the spell, and both were gone along with the circle. I remembered parts of it, but not enough to recreate the entire spell, and I couldn’t cast an incomplete portal spell without Ram.
With a scream, I sat back in the dusting of ash and broken cell phone parts. I had to accept what I already knew.
As he was pulled into some hellish world, Ram had burned the circle to close the portal behind him. My phone had been smashed in the chaos, and his was still in his pocket.
He had saved me, and he might have saved Jag, Elliot, and Moe, since he could fight off demons when they couldn’t. And the thing was, he didn’t have to. He could have simply fled or let the flying teeth kill us. He had sacrificed himself to help men he didn’t even like and was probably jealous of.
He had changed.
But now that he was gone, I had no way to open a portal to rescue him, my men, or my friends.
Chapter 32
“AlyssaBeaver,comeoutwith your hands up and your magic sheathed,” a gruff cop shouted through a bullhorn.
I sighed and logged out of the library computer. When people stopped entering the library, I knew someone had tattled on me and the cops were on the way. Patrons had left, and no one else entered to replace them. Now it was just me at a computer and the librarian hiding under her desk.
“You have ten seconds before we come in there,” the cop added.
“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered. I cast an invisibility spell and flipped my magic inside out like a sock, so my aura wouldn’t be noticed by any witches.
With my head throbbing and my mouth dry, I picked up my papers and headed downstairs to the magical section in the basement. The library door slammed open behind me, and boots pounded on the floor, but I ignored them.
