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By the time I strain the drink into a martini glass and garnish it with the three pomegranate seeds dictated in the spell book, I’m buzzing with adrenaline and magic. It is magic, I’m nearly one hundred percent certain of it. But as I bring the glass to Sultan’s lips and he downs the concoction in three greedy gulps, I keep my fingers crossed behind my back.
“Thank you,” he exhales, his breath coming easier almost immediately.
I step back, watching the red of his cheeks fade to a healthier looking pink. This is it, the moment of truth. If the potion was correct, it should begin to work within thirty seconds or less.
It’s time to put it to the test.
“You’re welcome,” I say, crossing my fingers even tighter before I add, “Now, why don’t you tell me what you were really after that night in the bar, because I’m pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with me.”
“No, but you were a nice surprise,” Sultan says. “One the demons helping the Shadowbanes would have been grateful to receive if I’d managed to deliver.”
As soon as the word “demons” leaves his mouth, my stomach drops through the floor.
That fearful, hypervigilant part of me was right.
This shit with Manny isn’t over. He’s still after my baby.
“Oh no.” Sultan’s eyes fly wide, and his jaw drops. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he squeaks. “My tongue! My tongue!”
“Your tongue is fine, you miserable waste of fangs and flesh,” Darcy growls, rage vibrating in voice. But then, he adores Amy, too. I know he’d do anything to protect her, even rip this monster’s tongue out with his bare hands.
“Casey’s spell will protect you from the other enchantment for the next few hours,” Blaire informs him coldly. “That should be plenty of time to get the answers we need.”
She jumps into grilling the man right away, while Darcy records every word for the high council and the rest of the clan. Sultan’s betrayal was already item number one on the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting, but now…
Now, I doubt they’ll have time to talk about anything else, except maybe how best to seal off the enchanted space attached to his apartment, where Sultan and his demon lover, Chad, bathed in the blood of half human-half demon teenaged slaves to keep their skin smooth and their libidos in peak condition. Chad lured the poor kids from the barracks in the demon realm with promises of freedom in the human world, only to murder them in Sultan’s sick playroom and toss their bodies down the golden toilet to a pack of hellhounds he was training to join the battle for control of Nightfall when the time came.
“That could have been Amy someday,” I whisper to Blaire as Darcy pushes forward with more questions. “If we hadn’t stopped Manny, Amy would have been one of those half-human slaves.”
“Never.” Blaire squeezes my hand tight. “We would never have allowed that to happen. Amy is our family, Casey, and no one is ever going to take her away from us. We’ll burn down the world first.”
I nod, but my stomach is still full of acid, and I can’t stop trembling as Sultan spills the rest of his secrets.
In just forty-five minutes, Darcy has wrung all the turd burglar’s carefully guarded secrets from his puffy lips, including—
The 411 on the Shadowbane’s plan to invade Nightfall sometime in the next week.
News of the Shadowbane’s alliance with renegade demons who have offered their help taking Nightfall in exchange for the Shadowbane clan’s assistance ousting the current demon leadership once the town is won.
Confirmation that Janet, the woman who nearly killed Blaire right after my sisters moved to Nightfall, was working with the Shadowbanes. She was behind the plot to drug and kidnap Blaire and Darcy, who the Shadowbanes planned to use as leverage to force the surrender of the Blackmore clan.
The names of three other vampire traitors, all of whom still live on the property and will have to be taken into custody ASAP.
A bit of utterly repellent TMI involving Sultan’s obsession with Chad, who he allowed to do weird things to him with a spiked dildo made of frozen peanut butter and chocolate-covered raisins that I will never be able to scrub from my brain. It has, in fact, probably ruined peanut butter and chocolate for me forever—and also raisins, but raisins are a prune-adjacent abomination, so I’m not too broken up about that.
Still, Amy does enjoy a box of grape zombies now and then. There are raisins lurking in the cupboard down at the house, and her trick-or-treat bag is packed with chocolate.
I’m making a mental note to hide her candy under the guise of insisting we have to eat the cherry cake first before it goes bad, and then hope she forgets about the chocolate, when Sultan spits out one final garbage kernel of information.
“And your sister, the half-Wyvern one,” he says, blinking as sweat rolls from his forehead into his evil little eyeballs. “She’s in on it somehow. I’m not sure how much she knows or what she’s promised, but she’s a traitor, too. You witches aren’t as virtuous and perfect as you think you are, ladies. Every family has a skeleton or two in their closet. Even yours.”
“You’re a liar,” I snap, surging to my feet. “Annie is the best of us. She would never betray this family. She’d die first.”
“He isn’t talking about Annie,” Blaire says softly. I turn to see a haunted expression on her too-pale face. “He’s talking about Sophie.”
“That’s right,” Sultan says, openly gloating now, his smug mouth twisted in an ugly grin. “Sweet little Sophie the librarian. No one suspects the lady who runs book clubs and does crafts with the kiddies. I’m sure the Shadowbanes knew that when they recruited her. They aren’t stupid and they aren’t going to stop. You may thwart their plan this time, but they’ll come up with an even better one. They aren’t concerned with playing nice with weaker species. They know Nightfall was meant for vampires and their human slaves and won’t stop until they take out the rest of the trash. Starting with the witches who think they’re powerful enough to take what’s ours.”
“How have we ever tried to take what’s yours?” Blaire shoots back. “We just want to live here in peace, you fucking racist, speciest dickhead.”
