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“What conditions are those?” Nico growled, and the guy flinched back.
“I—I haven’t seen for myself. But before my friends went missing, they said the vamps were being kept chained in total darkness.”
“Idiots,” I hissed. “Look around. It’s broad daylight right now and—”
“And here we are, enjoying the summer sun on our way back to hell,” Jax finished, poking me in the back.
No one else knew that I’d been turned yet. The Wildes coven had been careful to keep that out of their report. We intended not to let anyone know until we had to, just in case. I’d already been kicked out of the DHA, but they would still protect me as a member of the witch community — unless they knew the truth.
“We’re taught what myths are wrong at the academy,” the young guy said. “So I don’t know why they’d keep them in total darkness.”
“Of course.” The shorter guy waved the newbie off. “My point is, my friends have gone missing, and that’s another reason we’re happy to quadruple the watch. We’re all out here watching each other’s backs. No one goes missing without someone seeing how.”
I nodded as if I understood, but I really didn’t. A long time ago, Demetri had mentioned something to me about demon hunters going missing, but I’d assumed it was for the usual reasons — a surprise demonic incursion. Not that they’d asked the wrong questions. This was indeed suspicious, but I had enough on my plate without hunting down some mysterious conspiracy.
“We all have our part to play,” I nodded to the guy, recognizing his efforts. “If you’ll let us through, we’ll do ours.”
He stepped back and motioned toward the rungs leading to the infernal side of the wall. “Be my guest.”
“What’s going on?” someone farther away asked as Hudson began his descent.
“We’re going to close the portal if we can,” he answered before disappearing from view.
Jax was next. “Not that we want to put anyone out of a job, but if we can close the portal, it’ll save countless lives.”
The nearby demon hunters murmured at that. I’d never really thought about it before. The infernal threshold had been such a permanent fixture in all of our lives… if it suddenly disappeared, everything would change.
Nico went next, and as usual, said nothing. But his dark gaze swept all the demon hunters standing around us at the top of the wall, as if daring them to get in our way. Then he began his descent.
“Let them go,” one of the more distant demon hunters called, her voice full of desperation. “They have a shot at ending this.”
“Move, Kev,” another demon hunter said, pushing back a guy with a shaved head as he came toward me.
“Fine, let them cross,” Kev said with a leer. “I can’t guarantee we’ll let your demonic coven-mates come back out, though.”
I sighed and grabbed the rungs. “How many times do I have to tell you — vampires aren’t demons! Didn’t you see the Lughnasa ceremony?”
“I did.” Kev’s smirk disappearing as he stood on the parapet, towering over me as I began my descent. “Funny, I don’t think anyone noticed how dark your own aura is. Your coven ceremony didn’t prove a thing.”
I let out a frustrated growl and decided to ignore him as I started climbing down.
Other witches wearing aura charms like mine were bound to notice sooner or later. Vampire auras were always at least slightly darker than witch auras, even for vampires like me and Hudson, who’d never drained anyone dry. From a distance, our auras could be easily confused for mere witch auras, but up close? Unmistakable.
Word would likely spread, and that would bring up questions aboutwhenI’d been turned. If they believed — as Kev clearly did — that I’d been turned before Lughnasa, that invalidated everything we’d tried to prove.
“Good luck, demons!” Kev called down cheerily. “Do us all a favor and stay in the infernal realm where you belong!”
“What was that about?” Hudson asked as we walked away from the wall and toward the massive tear in time in space.
“That asshole thinks I was already a vamp when we did our ceremony,” I grumbled. “Word’s going to get around…”
“All the more reason for us to close the portal and prove—”
I grabbed Hudson’s bandoleer and pulled him in for a kiss, cutting him off. I devoured his mouth with mine, and he immediately melted into my embrace, wrapping his arms around me to kiss me back with every bit of passion we’d always had for each other.
We were about to cross the threshold again. If we killed Ty, we might be trapped in the infernal realm as the threshold disappeared from our world. None of us knew what might happen. This might be our last kiss, and if so, I was going to enjoy every second of it.
Hudson kissed me back, but his body felt firm, his stance relaxed. His lips moved against mine with practiced calm, and somehow, that steadied me. We were going to make it back out, his kiss promised. We would share this again.
