[English] THE WITCH WITH NO NAME

The Witch With No Name
The Witch With No Name Page 10



But I knew she heard the lie as well as I did.

“I’m sorry,” Ivy slurred, and a lump filled my throat. “I know you wanted things to be different.”

I stared ahead, trying not to blink. They weren’t going to make it here in time. Forcing a smile, I adjusted her blood-stained coat. “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“I’m scared.”

I eased closer, not liking the chill she had. “I’m not going anywhere.” Damn it, I didn’t have anything to help her. Nothing. She was going to die, and all I could do was hold her hand. The tears slipped down, cold in the chill wind. I didn’t bother to wipe them away. Sensing the end, the surface demon with the staff moved, easing down from his rock to hunch just outside the barrier. He looked like an Aborigine, wise, gaunt, and cautious where his kin were simply thin and hungry.

“Promise me you won’t be my scion. I want Nina to do it.”

Surprised, I stilled my hand against her hair. I’d thought she’d been sleeping. “Nina?” My voice had been bitter, and I couldn’t help but wonder if some of this was Nina’s fault. The young woman liked risks, was clever, and was in love with Ivy—and so addicted to the sensations that her master vampire could pull through her that she’d do just about anything to escape him even as she crawled back for more. If Ivy was an undead, she could claim Nina as her scion. At least that way, someone Nina loved would be abusing her instead of a half-mad, dying undead. Felix was insane from the sun already, and his children would soon be orphaned, vulnerable in the extreme unless another undead claimed them. No one would contest it.

“I can’t do that to you,” she said, and heartache filled me when I realized she was crying. “I don’t want you to spend the rest of your life trying to keep me from walking into the sun. If you can’t end my second life, then promise me that you’ll walk away. That you won’t try to help me. Understand that I’m lost.”

Throat tight, I held her close. “I promise,” I lied. The wind gusted and died, making the surface demon’s tattered clothes shift. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

“I’m feeling better,” she said, her breath becoming shallower. “Really.”

“That’s good,” I said, my hand moving against an unbloodied part of her hair. My throat was tight. She’d tried so hard to be the person she wanted to be. She’d given me friendship, kept me from pain, sacrificed her goals to keep me alive. And I couldn’t stop this. I couldn’t give her anything back. I could only hold her hand.

Maybe it’s enough, I thought miserably. The smallest things meant the world to her.

But then the head surface demon jerked straight. In a breath, he turned and vanished, rocks clinking to mark his passage. Another was an instant behind him. Tense, I pulled myself up, tasting the gritty night wind. Something had scared them off.

“Bis?” I whispered, the sound of my voice echoing back off the flat, rocky earth. But the sun was still up.

“I should have known,” a bitterly proud and slightly accented voice said. “How did you do it? Elf magic?”

My pulse thudded. Breath held, I sent my eyes searching. A soft glow blossomed, and I found him. Just outside my circle and between me and the ruins of Cincinnati, Al stood in a soft puddle of light. His velvet frock coat was elegant, and his stance sure. The glow leaking from the archaic lantern hardly made it past his silver-buckled shoes, but I knew it was all that could get through the thick layer of smut on his soul—and I knew it bothered him, for once he’d been able to light an amphitheater to bright noon.

“Do what?” I whispered, not moving—hardly breathing. Al had tried to kill me. Okay, he’d tried to kill me a couple of times, but this last time I think he’d really meant it.

“My line is no longer in that stinking puddle of water,” he said, nose wrinkled. “I came to find out why before the sun set. It was you?” Lip curling, he dusted a nearby boulder with a silk cloth and set the lantern down. “Trying to curry favor makes you weak.”

“Al . . . ,” I breathed, and pain flashed across his face, ruddy from the setting sun.

“Do not call me that. My name is Gally.”

“Al, please,” I said again, carefully extricating myself from Ivy, hoping she would remain asleep. The heartache of his bitter abandonment hit me hard, my emotions already paper thin because of Ivy. I felt new tears threaten, hating them. “It was an accident. I was trying to . . .” My throat closed up. Ivy slumped behind me, but he wouldn’t help, and that hurt even more.

“Oh-h-h-h,” he said in mock distress. “Your sad, sad little friend is dying.”

He could save her with a word, but I remained silent, standing before him, hating his bitter callousness. He was better than this. I’d seen it in unguarded moments.

“You smell like carrion,” he said, nose wrinkled. Behind me Ivy stirred but didn’t wake. “Butterflies like carrion.” He paused as if in speculation. “No, that’s elf. I can smell the stink from here, even over the putrid reek of burnt amber.”

Nothing in him had changed. I knew it wouldn’t have. My finding love with Trent hadn’t hurt him this bad. I was a symptom, not the core of what brought this hatred out. The fear that he might kill Trent just to spite me was real, though, and I backed up a step.

“Silent?” He sniffed, looking disgusted. “Miracles do happen.”

Why is he still here? I heard the scrabbling of claws and I glanced at Ivy. “I could use your help,” I whispered, knowing he never would.

“Demons don’t help,” he said bitterly. “Demons torment. Can’t you tell the difference?”

“That’s not how I saw you.”

Al eyed the thin bands of smut crawling over the surface of my circle, his lips twisting in jealousy. “You did at first.”

“Because that’s all you showed me,” I shot back. I’d thought he’d understood me. I’d trusted him, and he’d turned his back on me because Trent was an elf, the same as the woman he’d once loved and hadn’t been brave enough to fight for. “What did I ever do to you?”

Al uncrossed his arms and leaned forward, anger shining from his eyes. “You hurt me!” he yelled, giving in and punching my circle.

With an inward rush of energy, my circle fell into him with a pop.

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Not expecting it, Al lurched, his hat falling off as he stumbled back and caught his balance. I stared at him in shock as his hat rolled to a stop almost at my feet. There’d been an instant of connection between us, an undeniable spark. He looked just as surprised, his eyes wide in disbelief.

“H-how?” I stammered, then renewed the circle as claws scraped in the ugly red light.

His lips parted to show his blocky teeth. Al put a careful finger to my bubble. The black crawled to him, and when he touched it, my circle fell.

“Stop that!” I shouted, heart pounding as I set it anew, but he was already across it and in here with me. Something was wrong. He’d broken my circle, and he hadn’t even tried.

“That little bitch!” Al shouted, and Ivy stirred.

I gasped as Al strode to me, halting with an unexpected shortness when I raised my hand in threat. “She changed your soul, yes?” the demon demanded, fidgeting and so close I could smell the smoke from his fire on him. “Newt changed it so that puking elf goddess couldn’t find you by your aura?”

I nodded, not breathing until he took three steps back. Okay, he was pissed, but he wasn’t choking me.

“The crazy bitch changed your aura to mimic mine!”

My mouth dropped open. Horrified, I looked at my circle. Jenks had said my aura was different, but he never said it looked like Al’s! But then, mine wasn’t covered in as much smut and probably looked brighter. That’s why the demon had been able to drop my circle with a touch. Great. Now I had nothing to block his spells with!

“She patterned your new aura after mine. The bitch!” Al wasn’t looking at me, hands on his h*ps as he watched the surface demons throw rocks at the lantern he’d left behind until it shattered and Al’s globe of light rolled in the dust. “That’s how you were able to move my line.”

“But why?” Had it been the crazy demon’s perverted attempt at a joke? Or maybe she thought it would bring us back together. But then a new thought sparked through me. “If our auras are the same, then Treble can teach me how to jump the lines.”

Al spun, coattails furling. Expression hard, he pointed a finger at me. “I share my soul resonance with no one!”

My skin was prickling. He was pulling on the line, gathering energy to him. Our eyes met, and he grimaced when he realized I could feel it. He took a breath, and frantic, I dove for cover. “Knock it off!” I shouted as a ball of black-tinted energy exploded against the ground, peppering me with bits of rock. “It wasn’t my idea!” I added, scrabbling to my feet.

But he was already deep in a chant, a glowing mass of forced power stretching between his fingers. Crap on toast. He was using old battle magic. “Al!” I protested, then stiffened when Al’s lantern light rolled into my circle and it fell with the sensation of sparkling tingles.

“Ivy,” I whispered, turning to see a surface demon creeping to her.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered. Ignoring Al, I dove for her. Howling, I pulled a massive wave of energy from the line. Al lurched to get out of my way, his goat-slitted eyes wide when I threw the unfocused energy at the surface demon instead of him. The surface demon skittered back, scuttling away with an evil chatter.

“And don’t come back!” I shouted, shaking as I reinstated the circle. “Or I’ll give you more of the same!”

My skin prickled. I spun back to Al. But the demon wasn’t even looking at me. Relieved, I turned to Ivy, seeing her eyes black and beautiful. “You okay?” I asked her, and she smiled.

“I’ll miss watching you work,” she said, more alive than I’d seen her in two hours.

Pissed, I pulled the hair out of my mouth and glared at Al. “You’re a prick for standing there when I need help, you know that?” I said, then ducked as something flew over my head.

“Rachel!” Bis called, the cat-size gargoyle winging in a tight circle to drop down onto the rock Ivy was slumped against. “Jenks said you were going to walk to the church. Hold on. I’ll be right back. Trent’s at the wrong line.”

Trent? I took an elated breath, but the little guy was gone. The sun had gone down unnoticed, and his pebbly black skin was hard to see against the night. I’d hardly recognized him before he’d vanished.

My knees were shaking, and I turned to find Al was gone. Coward. “You left me!” I shouted. “And I can love anyone I want!” I added, but there was no one there but Ivy to hear me.

“Son of a bastard,” I muttered, hope a quick flash as a figure stepped from nothing in the soft sound of displaced air. There was the quick pulse of leather wings, and Bis was gone again.

“Nina!” I had expected Trent, but it was Nina, the athletic woman in her classy dress suit and black nylons bolting to Ivy with a vampiric quickness despite her high heels.

“You’ve been here for hours!” Nina exclaimed, black eyes angry as she fell to kneel before Ivy and covered her with her jacket. “Why didn’t you give her any blood?”

It hurt when she said it like that. “She doesn’t want any,” I said, my relief overwhelming.

Ivy pushed weakly at Nina, eyes slipping shut. “No. I’m okay. Rachel did what I asked.”

“She doesn’t want blood. Stop forcing her,” I said.

Hunched over Ivy, making her Hispanic elegance into a frightening shadow, Nina all but hissed, “This is what she is. What she wants means nothing when it comes to keeping her alive.”

But if she quit striving for who she wanted to be, Ivy might as well be dead.

I took a breath to tell Nina to back off, startled when Bis jumped back into existence. The little gargoyle was on Trent’s shoulder, and he immediately popped back across the lines, for Jenks, probably.

Thank you, God. Trent shuddered as the stink of burnt amber filled his lungs, and something flip-flopped in me. My eyes darted to where Al had last been to be sure he was gone. Trent was here. I didn’t have to do this alone. He wouldn’t let Ivy die. We’d be in time.

“Rachel.” Trent’s usual slacks and dress shirt looked out of place, sheened with red from the glow in the sky. His dress shoes slipped on the dust, and he caught his balance effortlessly. His pace crossing the dust was fast, and his eyes were quick. Sunset, even in the ever-after, was truly his best time. “Thank God you’re all right. Jenks told me what happened. Is Ivy okay?”

“She’s hurt bad,” I said as he reached me. Nina was trying to get her pearl button undone from a silk cuff, but Ivy wouldn’t let her, insistently promising she was okay. “She’s got internal injuries and a concussion.” I hesitated, surprised at the sudden lump in my throat. “I probably shouldn’t have moved her, but I had to get to a line . . .”

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“Why the hell am I always last!” Jenks complained, joining us in a bright flash of pixy dust. His bright sparkle sifted down like a temporary sunbeam over Ivy, making her smile and lift her hand to give him a place to land. She was whispering to Jenks, comforting him when it should have been the other way around.

Bis landed on the rock above them, clearly anxious to start jumping us out. His lion-tufted tail wrapped around his feet, looking both submissive and protective—dangerous even as the white tufts on his ears made him cute.

We had to go—but I nearly lost it when Trent pulled me close, smelling of green things and spice, his touch real and loving, reminding me of everything I wanted but was afraid to call my own. Suddenly I was fighting the urge to cry as fingers strong from pulling in unruly horses and tapping out keyboard commands gentled me closer. I’d had to keep it together, and now there was someone to help. Ivy was going to make it. She’d make it! She had to.

“You did the right thing,” Trent whispered, the deep understanding in his voice bringing my defenses down. I’d never have expected it a year ago, but now . . . after seeing him lose everything to follow his heart, I could. I could accept his comfort, show my vulnerability—even if it might not last. The undeniable truth was, he was meant for better things than me. One day Ellasbeth would have him, and I’d be left with the memory of who he had wanted to be.

“Rachel?”

But I’d be damned if I didn’t take what I could of the time we had. Catching my tears, I wiped my face, giving Trent a thankful smile as I pulled back and looked for Bis. The little gargoyle had his wings draped around him, looking like a devil himself. “Bis? Can you jump her to Trent’s?”

“Not until I give her some blood!” Giving up on her sleeve, Nina used her little teeth to rip the button off. “She can’t be moved yet,” the living vampire said as she pushed her sleeve up. Her naturally dark skin showed the scars even in the dim light, and her panic at finding Ivy this close to death obvious. “I can’t believe you let her sit here on the cold ground!”

“Easy,” Trent said when I stiffened, and he lifted my chin, reading the strain I’d lived with for the last few hours, the fear. “Why is it harder when those we love are in danger than when it’s just us?” he whispered, and I blinked fast. I wasn’t going to cry, damn it. I wasn’t!

“No,” Ivy said again, her eyes black as she found Nina’s. “No,” she said more stridently, and Nina hunched over her, aching with her need to help her.

“Ivy, sweetheart, please. Let me make you stronger so we can move you.”

Bis waited, wings half open, unsure and unwilling to do anything that might hurt Ivy. Trent, though, was grimacing. He knew it for the lie it was as well as I. Oh, I was sure blood would help stabilize her, but it would be an unredeemable step backward, back to where Nina, in all her expensive perfume and trendy clothes, was—back to where Ivy was striving to pull Nina from despite Nina’s assurances that she wasn’t allowing Felix into her mind anymore. The clever woman was too in control most days not to be.

“No.” Ivy’s voice was stronger. “No blood. Not like this. I’d rather die twice.”

“But, Ivy . . . ,” Nina protested, breaking off when Ivy fumbled to pull Nina’s sleeve down and kissed her fingertips. Frustrated, Nina knelt over Ivy. “It doesn’t have to be this hard!” she begged, but Ivy only smiled lovingly, feeling good that she’d resisted, that she’d won again for another day. “Why do you do this to yourself?”

I turned away as Ivy patted Nina’s back, comforting her. In Ivy’s eyes, Nina was the one who needed help.

“Bis. Go. My surgical staff is waiting,” Trent said, and the gargoyle awkwardly hopped from the rock. “We need to get out of here before the surface demons find us.”

“Too late.” My eyes lifted to the surrounding rocks, glad they hadn’t shown themselves yet as they evaluated the threat Nina and Trent might be.

“I thought so.” Trent sighed, turning to watch my back. “I’m sorry about the church.”

“My church? What’s wrong with the church?”

Jenks’s blur of wings shone against Trent’s fair, almost transparent hair, glowing red as it picked up the red ever-after dust. “The pixy-piss vampires have overrun it,” he almost snarled. “Stinking up the place and stomping everything like fairy maggots looking for spiders. They thought you might jump to the line in the garden, and they’ve got enough manpower there to make Piscary puke—if the putrid pus pile of vampire piss were still alive.”

Ivy chuckled, the laugh choking off in a pained sound making Nina’s eyes go black again. Bis carefully reached a clawed foot out to touch her, and when Bis and Ivy winked out of the ever-after, the tight knot around my gut finally began to ease.

Nina hunched over the space Ivy had been in for a moment before rising to lean dejectedly against the rock. Slowly her expression changed as she realized where she was. Tension wound through her, turning her from uneasy to a threatening shadow, smeared red with the remaining light in the sky. When I’d first met Nina, she’d been lively and eager for anything new. Now, after almost a year under a failing master’s warped attention, she was still looking for thrills, but she was also twitchy and unpredictable—her jealousy of any attention I might show Ivy becoming increasingly violent. I didn’t believe for a second that Felix was ignoring her, but every time I brought it up, Ivy got mad, wanting her happy lie rather than the inconvenient truth.

“Word got out you were finding undead souls,” Trent said softly.

“That’s not true!” I exclaimed, but he was nodding as if already knowing it.

“Even so, every undead vampire in the city now believes you can,” he added. “Especially after what happened last July. In their minds, they don’t understand why you haven’t done it.”

No wonder they were camped out at my church. “I don’t think you can tie a soul to a mind when the body is dead,” I said. “That’s why souls leave after the first death.” I was tired, but I didn’t dare relax, and I strained for any clink of rock, any sliding of dust.

“They don’t want to believe that.” Trent cupped my elbow. Tingles spread from there to the small of my back where his other hand had gone to pull me closer to him. “We’ll figure this out. I’m not entirely penniless, you know.”

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That he was there to help without my asking was a guilty relief, but I didn’t know how he could. He’d lost almost everything in discre***ing the truth of his illegal manufacture of genetic medicines and the very drug that the vampires depended upon for survival. It didn’t sit well that both the vampires and the elves had gone after him because of me, and I bowed my head when I realized I’d done the same thing to Al, bankrupting the demon before he’d had enough and left. I was an albatross, pulling down those who meant the most to me. Maybe I should leave before I brought Trent down, too.

Trent’s arms were around me, but I couldn’t speak, unwilling to breathe in his clean scent and feel the whisper of wild magic that sometimes rose from him like aftershave. But the guilt of him losing almost everything because of me was a sharp, insistent thorn.

“He still cares for you,” Trent said, and I looked up, confused. “Al, I mean. He was here, wasn’t he?”

Oh. That. Grimacing, I turned in Trent’s arms, feeling his grip ease as I looked at Al’s line, knocked off its path by my desperate pull on it. Al’s jealousy wasn’t born of affection, but from a weird kinship and maybe a little envy. I’d stood against the demons to keep who I loved, and Al had worked within the shadows of their hatred for a thousand years for the same reason, ultimately failing. He was bitter. “How can you tell?”

Smiling, Trent tucked a gritty strand of hair behind my ear. “You have that ‘I yelled at someone who deserves it’ look. He’ll come around.”

Sour, I bobbed my head and pulled entirely from him. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Bis jumped back in, and Jenks yelped, taking to the air and dodging the winged gargoyle until the bigger flier snagged him. “I’m going last!” Jenks protested. “I’m going last with Rachel, you overgrown worm!” And then he was gone. It was just me, Nina, and Trent.

The scrape of wood on rock jerked my eyes to a surface demon, its gaunt shadow rising up black against the still-darkening horizon. And the surface demons, I thought, setting up a new protection circle and wondering if it was too late.

Behind me, a rock clinked. Slowly Trent moved to put his back to mine.

Yep, it was.

“Rachel?” The air tingled at the pull Trent drew on the ley line.

“There,” I said, flicking a tiny pop of energy at a swiftly moving shadow. ****, there were two of them in here. Heart pounding, I turned to the first. “Detrudo!” I shouted, and he pinwheeled back, crashing into the inside of my circle. His staff lay on the dirt, and I ran forward, scooping it up before running back to Trent.

Hissing, the larger surface demon jumped from rock to rock, looking alien as he circled us. Nina was white faced, pressed up against that rock, and I beckoned to her. Scared, she inched closer, but she was moving too slowly, and there was a demon creeping up behind her.

“Nina! Get down!” I shouted, leaping to get between them. Without thought, I pulled on the line, sending it from my chi to my hand, condensing it as it took fewer and fewer pathways until it finally reached my fingertips and ran down the staff. “Dilatare!” I shouted as it exploded from the end, the rod acting like a rifle bore to focus it into a finite point that slammed into the surface demon with a thunderous ache of release.

Nina screamed as she dropped, the burst of light showing surface demons doing cartwheels into the rocks and pebbles. The shock echoed back up my arm, and the staff fell from my senseless fingers. Shaking, I looked at it, wondering what the thing was made of.

And still . . . a hunched shadow found its feet, not giving up as it began to creep forward again, low to the ground and hissing.

Slow with surprise, Trent helped Nina up before coming to stand beside me. His jaw was set, and he looked fantastic, eyes bright and a glow of magic about his hands. Seeing him as he wanted to be, not the careful businessman he was so good at being and that others had forced on him, I felt my heart swell. I’d had something to do with it, and I was proud of him for finding the courage to be what he wanted. Why can’t it last? I thought, aching.

“Together?” I said, and Trend nodded, eager to blend our strengths into one. I quashed the fear that Al was watching. If he’d known Trent was here, he’d be trying to kill him.

Pale, Nina scooped up the staff, holding it inexpertly. My hand found Trent’s, and my breath came fast as his energies mixed with mine like shades of gold twining together. The rank taint of burnt amber eased, overpowered by the clean scent of grass and trees and sweet wine. My chin rose. This wasn’t wrong. I didn’t care that the demons and elves said it was. This wasn’t wrong!

The surface demon hissed, his ragged clothes hanging like a tattered aura. He hunched, preparing to jump, and Trent and I gathered our power.

“Now!” I shouted, exhilarated as our joined energies wound together and struck the demon, sending it rolling back into the darkness. Trent’s eyes were alight, his hair almost floating as he inhaled, bringing with it a wash of sparkles through me. My God, it was almost better than *** with the man.

Nina’s scream iced through me, and we spun. The second demon was on her, the staff the only thing keeping it from her neck. Snarling, the twisted form fought to wrench the staff away. My heart thudded. I reached out, fingertips aching as I made a fist, unable to use my magic for fear of hitting her. “Nina, get him off you!” I shouted. “Let him have the stupid staff!”

But she couldn’t let go, afraid. Her gasping breaths cut through the air, and I jumped when Trent blasted the first surface demon behind us. Jaw clenched, I ran for her, feeling as if my hand sank into the demon when I reached for it.

It screamed at my touch, and I stumbled back, ripping it off her as I fell on my butt.

It didn’t do much good, as the age-twisted thing went right back at her.

“Oh God!” Nina cried, and then both surface demons were on her, smelling the blood.

Son of a bitch! I stared, flat on my ass, aghast and panicking as they covered her. I could not go back to Ivy and tell her Nina died in the ever-after.

“Trent!” I shouted, head hurting as I pulled in a massive amount of ever-after. This was going to end right now.

“Get! Off!” Nina thundered, and I froze, halfway to her, when first one, then the other surface demon flew through the red-tinted air to land in the rock-strewn shadows.

Someone touched me, and I jerked, pulling my energies back when I saw Trent. “Trent . . . ,” I started, words failing when I realized he was dragging me away from Nina.

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My eyes darted to her, and my mouth went dry.

I didn’t think it was just Nina anymore.

She’d rolled to her feet, hands still holding that staff as she hunched into a ball and bared her teeth at the surface demons still shaking off the fall. Her eyes flicked to Trent and me, and I shuddered as I recognized the second presence smothering her psyche. It was Felix. And it had happened far too fast.

In a smooth, unhurried motion, Nina rose, her feet placed wide to bind the skirt about her knees. An almost visible charismatic power spilled from her in the new dark. Black eyes glinting, she whirled the staff in a dangerous arc, making it smack into the earth in a clear threat.

Anger tightened my resolve, and I pulled myself straight. Nina had lied. She had outright lied to Ivy, telling her she’d made a break from Felix. There was no way the master vampire would’ve known she was in danger if she hadn’t already had him in her, balancing her emotions and soaking in her thoughts of sunlight and love.

From the darkness, a surface demon hissed.

Trent spun, his shoes grinding the grit as his magic tugged at my energies. The smaller demon was running at her, Nina screaming at it, egging it on, whirling the staff again as if it were a sword.

But it never reached her as that second, larger surface demon plowed into the first.

“Look out!” I cried, pulling Trent back as the demons rolled in the dirt, grappling, hissing and howling, clawing at the tatters of their clothes and gouging each other’s eyes.

“Get back!” Trent said when, with a scream of outrage, the larger demon finally beat the first away. Standing between Nina and the darkness, the tall surface demon raised his hands to the sky, howling as if making a claim. His cry echoed against the flat spaces, dying away to leave the demon staring at us, his chest moving up and down as he panted, thin hands clenched.

Trent’s fingers tightened in mine, his uninvoked charm hovering just under his skin. “Wait,” I said as the surface demon spun to Nina. “No, wait!” I demanded as the silence was broken by the soft clicks of rock and the whisper of dead grass as the surrounding surface demons skulked back, leaving us. “I think he drove the rest off.”

With a high-pitched whine, the tall surface demon fell prostrate before Nina, burbling and groaning, the tattered remnants of its aura smearing the dust to leave patterns. Nina/Felix stared, inching backward.

“What is it doing?” I whispered as the demon closed the new gap, his wizened arm black with age or disease, stretched out as if wanting to touch her but afraid to.

Bis popped in, winging up for altitude when he saw the surface demon writhing at her feet, gibbering like a monkey. I’d never seen anything like it, and the noise it made crawled up my spine like ice.

“Go away, you putrid thing,” Nina threatened, her voice dropping into the lower ranges. It was Nina, but not, and I started when Bis landed on my shoulder to wrap his tail around my back and under my arm for balance. He wouldn’t dare jump her out. Hell, I think he was scared to touch her, much less share mental space with her.

But the surface demon cowered like a beaten dog as it couldn’t move forward, couldn’t move back, snatching glances at Nina and the blood dripping from a scratch under her eye. I’d never been this close to one before and not been fighting for my life. It was almost as if I was looking at him through a fog. His features were indistinct, but gaunt, as if starved. The tattered remnants of his clothes gave no indication of color, and as soon as I looked away, I couldn’t remember if his hair was long or short. Again, I was struck by the feeling that he was there, but not, and I shuddered at the memory of how it had felt when I had pulled it off her.

“I said, go!” Nina/Felix shouted, and the surface demon scuttled back at her swinging foot. Feet spread in a way no woman in a skirt ever would, Nina threw the staff after it to clatter into the dust.

My circle was long gone, but it didn’t matter. The surface demons had left, even the ones at the outskirts. I exhaled, relieved. But another part of me was seething in anger. Felix had taken Nina over far too easily. The woman had been lying to Ivy, lying for three whole months. The worst part was, I think Ivy knew it.

“I ought to leave you here to rot,” I said, talking to Felix, but if I did, Nina would be the one *****ffer.

Nina stiffened, her lip curling to show tiny pointed canines. She wouldn’t get the extended fangs until she died, which—if I got my way—would be tomorrow.

“Rachel,” Bis whispered as his feet pinched my shoulder in worry. Trent, too, wanted to leave, but I couldn’t. Not yet. The son of a bastard was playing Ivy for a fool.

“Get out of Nina,” I said, shaking off Trent’s hand and moving a step closer.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nina said, foolishly trying to hide the fact that it really was Felix, but young women in dress suits do not tug their sleeves down in agitation.

“Do we have to do this right now?” Trent said, eyes on the darkening shadows.

“Yes,” I said, coming another step closer. “Felix, get out of Nina. Get out and don’t come back. Right now, or I’m telling Ivy.”

The woman bared her teeth, dark eyes going darker. “Ivy? She doesn’t matter!”

“Maybe not to you,” I said shaking from the spent adrenaline. “But if Ivy knows, she might give up on Nina.”

“That’s fine with me.” Nina’s eyes narrowed, making the woman look dead already in the last of the light.

“Me too,” I said, heartsick for Ivy even as I hated Felix. “But if she does, Nina is going to find the balls to kick you out for good.”

Beside me, Trent made a sound of understanding. Nina’s expression twisted up in a snarl, hearing the truth of it.

“Love is funny like that,” I added.

Nina’s expression darkened, anger bubbling up until she was as ugly as the monster seeing the world through her eyes, wallowing in Ivy’s love as if it was his to have. My chin lifted, and seeing my determination, he suddenly left her.

Nina staggered, collapsing like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Sobbing, she huddled on the ground, exhausted and hyped up on the hormones Felix had pulled into her blood system. She touched her face, shocked at the blood, and my heart just about broke for Ivy. God, I hated the master vampires.

He might be gone, but the flash of evil intent that had crossed her left me shaking.

He’d be back.

Chapter 4

The coffee smell coming from the wax-coated cup was nauseatingly familiar, and I held it listlessly as I sat in the chair I’d pulled into the carpeted hallway. The oil-like sheen on the surface caught the fluorescent lights, showing the shake in my hand. I’d managed a few fitful hours of sleep after Ivy had come out of surgery, and though the beds in Trent’s surgical suites were comfortable, I’d been too worried to do more than doze. Besides, the smell of antiseptic and stainless steel kept waking me up.

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Nina had crashed right in Ivy’s room. She was in there still, the guilt that I’d found out her secret making her noticeably passive and pliant. It pissed me off that she’d been lying to Ivy all this time, but I think Ivy had known it, her belief that she didn’t deserve anything good or lasting keeping her mouth shut and her eyes blind. I hoped that Bis and Jenks were doing better, the two of them having returned to the church to try to get the squatters out.

My breath came in with a harsh sound, and I listened to the voices echoing down from the third floor where Trent had his living quarters. I’d always wondered what took up Trent’s second floor. Now I knew. Two well-outfitted hospital suites were tucked between the ground floor and the third story, but the surgery itself was downstairs, closer to his labs.

Hand trembling, I sipped the coffee. It had no taste. I’d just been in to check on Ivy. She’d been sleeping: clean and sanitized between ivory sheets. The angry red suture lines and orange antiseptic stains had been hidden behind a cotton nightgown, but I’d seen them before I’d lost it and cried from relief. Now I just felt numb.

And yet something sparked in me at the sound of Trent’s footsteps on the unseen stairway, and I sat up straighter when Jonathan’s voice twined melodiously with Trent’s. I didn’t like Jonathan, but I’d be willing to bet Trent’s number two adviser had a singing voice that could make angels weep.

I managed a smile as the two of them came around a corner. Trent looked as confident as always with his hands in his pockets like a GQ model, his smile faltering as he took in my tired misery. His hair was free of the ever-after dust, and he was smooth shaven. I’d taken the time to shower, but I felt scruffy in a pair of jeans and clean sweater I’d left over here a few weeks ago. Jonathan wrinkling his nose at me in disapproval didn’t help, and I checked to make sure all my hair was back in a scrunchy, the frizzy red tamed with a band of elastic instead of a charm.

A lot had changed since the allegations of drug running and illegal genetic research had been levied against Trent. It had been ages since I’d seen him in a full suit and coat; his business meetings had dropped to almost zero and the research campus had been closed. On the plus side, he was more relaxed, more apt to crack a dry joke, more often smelling like ozone or his stables than the boardroom. He was doing more on his own, needing me less and less for security.

My focus blurred, and I looked into the depths of my coffee as I imagined what it would be like to go to the mall with Trent, catch a bad movie and dinner. Maybe I should ask.

The one-sided conversation between Trent and Jonathan was clearly coming to an end, and their forward progress halted. Trent gestured elegantly as he made his point, and I stood, leaning heavily against the wall as I waited. I knew he got lonely, even with Quen and the girls keeping him occupied. Falling out of high society had been good for him and his family, if you ignored the increased number of death threats and his loss of income. Trains still ran, though, and farms still grew food. He wasn’t destitute. Yet. Ellasbeth was still working on that in her effort to gain control of the girls, and through them, Trent.

Not going to happen, I vowed, but after having witnessed the four of them on a good day, the girls playing happily and both Trent and Ellasbeth as loving, though not united, parents, a questioning guilt slid through me. Quen, too, seemed to regard Trent’s and my relationship as a phase tied to Trent’s newest preoccupation with furthering his magical studies. It was irksome, but every time Trent spoke of Ellasbeth and the girls, it left me wondering why I was delaying the inevitable.

“Thank you, Jon,” Trent finally said, touching the tall, almost gaunt man on the shoulder as he gave him a grateful smile. “That makes my day a hundred times easier.”

Contenting himself with a short nod and a dry look at me, Jonathan turned and went back the way they’d come. I knew the girls loved the man, but I liked him just as much as he liked me. Which was to say not at all.

“Is Jonathan going gray?” I asked as Trent closed the few steps remaining between us.

“I haven’t noticed. But that might be why he’s cutting it so short lately.” Trent stopped before me, worry creasing his features. “You could have slept upstairs. You did sleep, yes?”

“A few hours.” I fell into step beside him when he gestured for us to continue down the hall past Ivy’s door. “I’m not a spare room kind of girl.”

“It wouldn’t have been the spare room you would have been in,” he said, matching our steps and giving me a sideways hug. “Life is too short for bad coffee,” he said, taking my cup out of my hand and setting it on a table in the hall. “How’s Ivy?”

“Okay, thanks to you,” I said, not wanting to talk about it. My arm went around him and my head fell onto his shoulder. Trent eased us to a halt and I pulled him to me, resting my head against his chest. The light scent of his aftershave was a bare hint, just enough, and my jaw finally began to relax. I could hear the sound of his waterfall downstairs, past the great room, and my eyes closed.

The relief that he came to help me in the ever-after had almost hurt, even if he’d risked his life and an already failing reputation. There hadn’t been a wisp of regret in him, and I shoved the coming heartache down because even though he meshed with my life perfectly, I did not mesh with his.

Trent had been moving toward bringing his people back from the brink of extinction his entire life. The path had been laid out. He’d willingly sacrificed for it—and he would again. The ugly truth was, I couldn’t help him accomplish what he needed to do, I could only hinder it. That was why Jonathan disliked me and Quen disapproved even as he agreed that this was the happiest Trent had ever been despite his dwindling fortune and the lawsuits piling up like cordwood. Trent was all about duty—and I was dragging him down.

“You okay?” he asked, and I tilted my head and turned the hug into a brief kiss.

“Yes.” I dropped my head again, needing to feel him next to me if only for this space of time. “I don’t like leaving her in that ugly white bed.”

“It’s going to be okay.” His voice rumbled up through me.

I didn’t want to move. Ever. “I don’t know what I would have done if she had—”

I couldn’t even say it, and my eyes warmed as the tears spilled over.

His grip strengthened, and I blinked up at him, feeling like a wimp. “But she didn’t,” he said firmly, understanding in his eyes. “You did good. You got her out of immediate danger, and more important, gave her a place to meet her future with dignity and peace. If she had died, she would’ve done so with the person she loved most in the world with her. No one can ask for more than that, even kings.”

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How could he understand so clearly? “When you put it like that . . .” I sniffed back the tears, letting go of him to wipe my eyes. “Sorry,” I said with a sad little laugh that really wasn’t one. “I haven’t gotten enough sleep. I don’t know how you do it, getting up at daybreak like this. This is crazy.”

He eased me back into motion, heading down the hallway. “Coffee helps. Have you found the staff break room? There’s a mini kitchen. Frozen waffles . . . ,” he coaxed.

I remembered the homemade ones Maggie had made for us. It had been the first meal we’d ever shared. “Sure, thanks.” His hand lingered about my waist, and I dropped my head onto his shoulder again, breathing him in, gaining his strength. I wished things were different. Ivy was going to be okay, but that Trent had saved her life wasn’t going to help his political standing. Keeping her alive was going to be even harder. Cormel didn’t want money, he wanted his soul.

The click of Ivy’s door brought me around, and we hesitated when Nina came out looking exhausted and rumpled—worse than the day after she and Ivy had come back from a five-day backpacking adventure in what was left of a Turn-ravaged Guam.

“Coffee?” the bedraggled woman rasped, her hair still dull with dust and hanging in strands about her creased, worried face. The scratch the surface demon had given her was red rimmed and swollen, looking worse than it probably was.

“And waffles.” Trent gestured for her to join us. “Right this way.”

Relief flickered across her face. “Thank you,” she whispered, shuffling forward in her torn nylons. She hadn’t even taken the time for a shower, and was still in the same clothes she’d had on in the ever-after. The faint scent of burnt amber lingered even now. Her clothes were a monochromatic orange from the dust, and guilt kept her head down. That was fine with me.

“We keep this stocked for the medical staff,” Trent was saying as we found the comfortable, if somewhat sterile, break room, open to the hallway. “I’m assuming that you’d rather eat here than upstairs?”

I nodded as I took in the clean counters, homey tables, and fresh flowers in vases still beaded up with condensation. Four monitors hung from the ceiling, three dark and one lit with Ivy’s vitals. An entire wall was taken up with one of those floor-to-ceiling vid screens showing a deck and a garden, and I collapsed at a table, thankful for the small comfort.

Nina took a chair across from me, easing down with a little more grace and a cautious glance. There were dirty dishes in the sink from the doctor and nurse on call. I’d put them in the dishwasher later.

I loved watching a man cook, even if it was only toast, and I collapsed my head onto the cradle my arms made on the table, exhausted, as Trent took waffles out of the tiny freezer in the top of the fridge. “If you want to come upstairs, I can make them from scratch,” he said as the door sealed with a sucking sound. “The girls are at the stables with Quen. I thought it better to keep them occupied out of the, ah, house.”

“Frozen is good.” I smiled as he ripped the box open, letting my head hit the table as the toaster went down. I liked the girls, but Lucy, especially, was inquisitive to the point of exhaustion.

“I never thought I’d ever eat anything out of a box from the freezer,” Trent said, his voice distant in thought, “but the girls want everything now, and frankly, these aren’t half bad.”

My breath was coming back stale from the table. It sounded as if he was in the fridge again, and curious, I pulled my head up as he set butter and cold maple syrup on the counter. Nina had fallen asleep in the chair, her head lolling back and her breath even.

I had said I wasn’t going to tell Ivy, but I couldn’t ignore the fact that Felix had been dipping into her Nina as if she were his personal thirty-one-flavor shop. My anger was a slow, steady burn for the lie she was living. Ivy was trying to help her, damn it. Ivy loved her. And Nina wasn’t even trying.

A muffled thump echoed through the walls, and Nina snorted awake. For an instant, we froze. Alarm slid through me at Nina’s expression. She was scared. It wasn’t fear for Ivy, it was fear for herself. What have you done, tricky little vampire?

My eyes went to Ivy’s monitor: elevated pulse. Panic dribbled through my thoughts, and I stood.

“Rachel?” Nina quavered.

Fear slammed into me, and I ran.

“Jonathan!” Trent shouted, but I was already sliding to a halt at Ivy’s door. Heart pounding, I yanked it open. Fear bubbled up, acidic and paralyzing. Ivy was on the bed struggling with a man all in white.

Jaw clenched, I silently grabbed his arm and flung him off her. His mask pulled free and he crashed into a bank of low cupboards, arms and legs askew. Ivy’s face was creased in pain. Her eyes met mine as she held her middle and slid off the bed and out of the way.

The man’s black shoulder-length hair stood out strongly against the white of his suit, and the annoyed expression on his young face ticked me off. “Who let you in?” I said, and he smirked as he got to his feet.

Living-vampire fast, he made a dart for the door. I jumped for him, careful not to hold him long enough for him to turn and get a grip. It had been years since I’d sparred with Ivy, but hard-won lessons die even harder. My foot jabbed out to hit the back of his knee. He went down, pissed when he caught himself with his palms on the floor. Tossing the hair from his eyes, he shook his head, the promise of hurt in his eyes.

He came at me fast and hard. I blocked, the sudden pain in my arm vanishing when his second strike made it go numb. I retreated, pulling the side bar from the bed and slamming it into his next swing. He hissed in pain, and I spun with it in the bare moment he hesitated. It hit him square across the temple, and he reeled backward. My heart pounded as he staggered, hand to his head. I still had my magic, and as he shook the stars from his sight, I pulled the line to me.

“Ivy!” Nina shrieked from the open door.

“No!” I cried, reaching out when the attacker dove for her instead.

Trent was a dark blur, yanking Nina into the hall and out of danger. “Celieano!” he shouted, hand outstretched, and I felt a drop in the ley line. It was a simple circle, and Ivy’s attacker ran right into it. He staggered back into the room, his nose broken and bleeding, unable to see through the blood and tears.

I dropped the bed bar. Hands in fists, I spun for momentum and sent my foot into his exposed middle. His air huffed out, and he hit the floor and slid into the built-in wardrobe.

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Panting, I looked at Trent. We had to take the vamp alive, or we’d never find out who’d sent him.

The vampire, though, was finding his feet.

“Detrudo!” I exclaimed, shoving a wad of energy through my palms. It blew him back onto the bed and sent Trent stumbling into the wall. Ivy rose, shaking and pale. The vampire’s eyes widened upon seeing the needle in her fist.

“Right,” he said, and with no warning, he lunged at Trent, jabbing out in a rabbit punch at the last moment. Trent shifted to avoid it, falling when the vampire hooked his foot behind Trent’s and pulled. Trent went down, silent even as he pushed back up.

The damage, though, had been done, and the vampire dove for the hall and his freedom.

“Get him!” I shouted as I lurched past the bed. Trent was three steps faster. My breath came in with a gasp at a sudden pull on the line. Trent stopped short, and I ran into him.

“Down!” he shouted, shoving me.

We hit the hallway’s floor in a tangle. Trent’s elbow slammed into my gut even as my shoulder took most of the fall. Wiggling, I tried to shove him off, only to have him grip me tighter. I found out why when a heat-stealing wave of force pulsed over us, and was drawn back, tingling like frost in my nose. It was Jonathan, and only now did Trent slide off me.

I propped myself up on an elbow and tossed the hair from my eyes. The vampire was clenched in a ball, either in pain or from cold. Jonathan’s aura danced over him like little waves of electricity. Jonathan stood in an aggressive hunch, the charm still dripping from his stiff fingers.

Crap on toast, he’d done it again. I was sure the vampire was alive despite it looking otherwise; Jonathan enjoyed wringing information from people more than he should. I had a pretty good idea of how word got out where Ivy was, but confirmation would be nice.

“Oh God, Ivy!” Nina exclaimed, and she passed me in a wave of burnt amber and vampire incense.

I pulled my knees together and wiped my mouth. “Thanks, Jonathan,” I said, reaching up for Trent’s hand. He yanked me up, and I stood, catching my balance against a brief wave of vertigo. Felix might not be actively in Nina, but a master that skilled could lay low, take in the world without even being recognized. Damn it all to hell and back. Like it or not, Nina was a threat to Ivy’s life. I couldn’t let Ivy pretend anymore.

Jonathan lifted his eyes from the contorted vampire on the floor and tugged his shirt straight. “Why is it every time the Sa’han is with you, someone tries to kill him?”

“He wasn’t trying to kill Trent, he was trying to kill Ivy.” Ivy. Anger bubbled up as I turned to Ivy’s room. Pissed, I strode in. Nina was there, crying as she tried to get Ivy into bed.

“I’m okay. Nina, I’m okay!” Ivy protested as she slid into the rocking chair instead. She wasn’t okay. She’d sat there because it was too hard to make it to the bed.

Shaking, I grabbed Nina’s shoulder and spun her up and away from Ivy. “Get away from her!” I shouted as Nina fell back against the bed, her shock shifting to a black-eyed hatred.

“Rachel, no!” Ivy protested, but I pushed her hand off me, not caring that both vampires’ eyes had gone pupil black.

“This is her fault!” I exclaimed, my hand shaking as I pointed at Nina. “She let him in!”

“I did not!”

She wasn’t a very convincing liar, especially when she scooted across the bed to get closer to the door and away from me. “How else would Cormel know where we were?” I demanded, and Trent took her shoulders. If it was to keep her unmoving or to keep me from smacking her, I didn’t know.

“I wouldn’t help Cormel!” Nina objected, eyes darting. “I’ve not even told my sister where I am!”

But if Felix was as good as I thought, she’d never know he was there. I hadn’t in the ever-after.

Ivy’s hand was cold on my arm, her fingers making a tingling path. “You don’t have to,” I said softly, and Nina’s face went ashen. “Tell her. Tell Ivy, or I’m going to.”

“I . . . I . . . ,” Nina stammered, pulling away from Trent to stand alone. She wanted to be caught in the lie. She wanted it to end. She could be innocent—but I didn’t trust her.

“Rachel . . .” Ivy’s voice held heartache. It ticked me off. Ivy knew she wasn’t clean.

“Tell her how you’ve been letting Felix in,” I said, and Nina dropped her head, her beauty marred by fear. “As long as he stays quiet, you’ve been letting him see the sun and remember what it’s like to love someone.”

Her head snapped up. “Stop it!” she protested, but she wasn’t nearly angry enough.

“You don’t have enough control,” I said, carefully gauging her mood as I goaded her. “He’s been doing it for you! Ivy’s been risking her life, everything, to help you get out from under him, and you’re sneaking behind her back, pretending you’re clean, but you’re nothing but a filthy vampire doll cutting lines in your own arm *****ck on!”

Nina stiffened. “How dare you!” she exclaimed, eyes black.

I rocked back to put distance between us. “How dare I?” I echoed. “If he wasn’t in you now, you’d be at my throat. You don’t have enough control on your own—not with all the power he’s dumped into you. Little girl whining about how hard it is. You need to decide if you love her or him, and make your choice. Frankly, I don’t care about you, but I will not let you drag Ivy back down into that slime. He’s in you now, isn’t he? Isn’t he!”

Nina’s eyes widened, but it wasn’t me she was afraid of. Trent wisely eased back as Nina shuddered, a violent spasm taking her. I swallowed hard, tensing when her trembling ceased. I could hear people whispering nervously in the hall, and I prayed they didn’t come in.

For three seconds, Nina didn’t move, head bowed and hands clenched. Slowly, as if settling into her skin, she drew herself up into a confident stance and cold mien. When her eyes met mine, it wasn’t Nina anymore. I was starting to wonder if it ever had been.

Behind me, Ivy groaned, heartbroken.

“You’re becoming a pain in my ass,” Nina said, but though the voice was the same, the cadence was not. It was Felix: devious, soulless, politically powerful, and yet still Cormel’s ward. Cincinnati’s master vampire was required by law to chaperone him until old age and madness picked away the last of him and he walked into the sun. It looked close now. Nina would go with him. I could see no other path, and my heart ached for Ivy. She had wanted to help her so badly, saw her own redemption in saving Nina. That’s what hurt the most.

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I backed down with a show of deference if only to save my skin. This was all I had wanted: Ivy to see so she wouldn’t blind herself any longer. “Get Ivy out of here. I want to talk to Felix alone,” I said, and Ivy protested as Trent helped her out. Nina shifted her gaze to Ivy as they passed, and I stiffened.

“Leave the door open,” I said softly, and Nina snorted, the sound both scornful and masculine. I didn’t care if Felix knew I was scared. I was, and I didn’t want that door shut. I could hear doctors, and my worry for Ivy eased. She’d be okay. Me, however . . .

Finding a firmer stance, Nina tugged the sleeves of her trendy, soiled jacket as if it was a business suit. Glancing down, she frowned at the state of her untidiness, a soft tsk-tsk escaping her as Felix noticed the hole in her nylons and that she was pretty much barefoot and filthy.

“Tell Cormel that I’m working on how to fix souls to the undead and to back off,” I said, wishing I had that bed bar in easy reach.

“I’m not your messenger boy.” She was looking at Ivy’s chart, again shaking her head. “We are so fragile.” Her head came up, and a cold wash went through me, making her eyes dilate. “And yet we cling to life long past what should be possible.”

I took a breath and held it. “If Ivy dies, I’ll never give you what you want. You can tell Cormel that, too.”

Nina twitched, and I wondered if Nina was trying to regain control. “If we don’t get what we want, Ivy dies. If we still don’t get what we want, you die. Give us what we want, and everyone lives. Why do you hesitate?”

Again, she twitched, her knees almost buckling. Hope, unexpected and almost painful, pulled through me. Nina? Ivy had never given up on Nina. Maybe I shouldn’t either.

“It’s impossible,” I said, wondering. “It can’t be done.”

Nina put a hand on the dresser, her head bowing in pain, and my pulse thundered. “That’s . . . what you’re good at,” Felix said through her. “Doing the impossible. Blind. The living are so blind. Why do you fight this? That you love her burns like the sun itself. You could have everything, and yet you still fear it?”

My breath came in fast, and I held it. Felix was talking about Ivy. Yes, I loved Ivy, but I couldn’t give her what she craved, deserved. The one time I’d tried, it almost killed me. But that’s not why I’d said no. “I’m not afraid,” I said, my resolve faltering when even the last rims of brown were lost behind the utter blackness of her eyes. The air seemed to haze, and my skin tingled from the pheromones he was pulling from her, sophisticated and far beyond her living-vampire abilities.

“You’re afraid to love,” she said, pushing back from the dresser and tossing her hair from her eyes. Felix was regaining control, and a thread of doubt pulled through me. “Ivy still waits for you. Nina knows it. She knows Ivy loves you best. That’s why I will win.”

“I’m not afraid to love someone,” I whispered, but the pain in my gut said he might be right. I’d said no to Ivy, not because she’d almost killed me, but because I was afraid that by saying yes, I’d lose my own dreams, my own self. Would I lose them now if I stayed with Trent?

“Shut up,” I whispered as Nina began to laugh. “I said shut up!” I shouted, and her chortling glee took on a hysterical sound before it eased into a happy mmm of sound. My jaw clenched. I didn’t care that he was feeding off my anger, relishing it. I wasn’t afraid to love someone. I wasn’t! I’d loved Kisten. And he had died.

“Nina is too weak,” she said, running an ever-after-stained finger across Nina’s neck in a motion of seduction. “Her love isn’t strong enough to best me. Leave me alone.”

“Perhaps,” I said, chin high. “But Ivy’s is strong enough for both of them.”

Nina eyes flicked to mine, her expression suddenly blank.

Seeing it, I felt my resolve strengthen. Ivy. It had always been about Ivy. “Nina,” I said suddenly. “You love her. Don’t let her think she doesn’t deserve you! She needs you, Nina, more than you need her! More than she needs me. You know that!”

“You stupid little . . . bitch . . . ,” Nina choked out, suddenly wavering. She stiffened, stumbling back. “No. You’re mine. You’re mine!” Nina cried, a hand reaching as her eyes went wide. A silent scream came from her, mouth open as she gasped, and then her eyes rolled to the back of her head. I sprang forward to catch her as she went limp, her sudden weight almost bringing us both down.

“Trent!” I shouted, managing to at least break our fall. Maybe Ivy was right. Love had given Nina the strength when nothing else had.

“Oh God!” Nina sobbed, her voice high and panicked as she huddled on the floor beside the bed. “Someone help . . . me. Someone help me!”

“I’ve got you, Nina,” I said, wrapping my arms around the panicked woman as Trent skidded in. He must have been just outside the door, and my face flamed at what he’d overheard. “Ivy is going to be so proud of you.”

Trent reached to help us up. “Ivy’s okay. What happened?”

My foot was twisted, and I wedged it out from under me. “Nina kicked him out,” I said, truly proud of her as Trent helped me get her up. I’d call her a wimp, but what she’d done was incredible. “Upsy-daisy. That a girl!”

Her wailing suddenly ceased, and Trent’s hands sprang away as her head lifted, a snarl on her face. “I hate you!” she screamed, jerking from me. “I hate you! You don’t know anything! Leave me alone! Ivy is mine. I hate you!”

Yep, Felix was gone. She was on her own now, and out of control.

“Watch it!” Trent warned, and I danced back when she swung at me, her fingers crooked into claws. But it was only Nina, and I ducked under her arm, pinning her arms to her sides and tilting my head when she flung her head back to hit me. Ivy was at the door, eyes holding love and pride, slumped in one of the doctor’s arms. I waved her back, but she knew better than to come in yet.

“That’s better,” I soothed, trying to keep Nina facing me. The hormones that Felix had been turning on in her brain were running like a bad drug trip. He’d been keeping her calm and under control before, and now she was alone, tossed into the deep end of the pool with no life preserver. “Slow breaths. Calm down. Ivy’s right next door,” I lied.

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“Let me go!” She began to twist, going limp and then wildly kicking out. “I hate you! Where’s Ivy? You can’t keep her from me! I’ll f**king kill you! I’ll kill you both!”

“My God.” Trent glanced at Ivy as he jerked out of reach of Nina’s swinging foot. Tears spilled from Ivy, and she held a hand to her mouth. “Is this normal?”

Ivy nodded, still a silent witness. I’d seen this before. Actually, I’d seen worse. “Breathe, Nina,” I said, tossing my head to indicate the drugs on the side table. “No one is attacking you.”

“Ivy!” Nina raged, her voice raw.

“It’s going to be okay,” I soothed as Nina stopped fighting and began to sob. “Ivy loves you. She needs you. She doesn’t need me anymore. I’m not going to keep you apart. She’s resting. You can see her in a minute.” My face flamed. How much had Trent heard? All of it?

At the door, Ivy closed her eyes, aching. The doctor holding her upright finally stopped trying to get her to leave, and the professional woman watched with sympathy as Trent readied a syringe. I made my hold on Nina even looser as he took her arm. Those veins of hers were popping up like mole trails, and Nina watched through the tears as he angled the needle to her inner elbow. As out-of-control vampires went, this wasn’t half bad. Guilt had tempered her.

Snuffling, she said, “I didn’t mean to let him stay. I thought I had this. I wouldn’t hurt Ivy for anything. Ow! I love her. What did you give me?”

The spent adrenaline and lack of sleep were making me shake. “I know you do,” I said as Trent silently backed up to dispose of the empty syringe. “It’s going to be okay now. Take a deep breath. You want to lie down?”

She didn’t answer, the drug already hitting her. But she was looking at the pillow, so I eased her down, pulling her feet up as if she were a child and drawing a blanket over her. Eyes already closed, she clutched Ivy’s pillow, breath fast as she fell into a medically induced sleep.

Slowly and in pain, Ivy shuffled in with the help of that doctor. Worried, I stood over Nina as Trent moved the cushy chair right to the bedside. No one said anything as Ivy sank down, and I put a hand on her shoulder. The doctor fussed about getting her back into a proper bed until I gave her a dark look, and she finally left in a professional huff, leaving the door open behind her.

“Wow,” Trent said, and I took a long, slow breath. “I’m totally out of my depth here.”

“She’ll be fine now,” Ivy whispered, and Nina whimpered as Ivy intertwined her long fingers in Nina’s broken-nail, red-dust-smeared perfection. “Everything will be fine. The hard part is over.” Tears spilled from her, and she kissed the top of Nina’s hand. “I’m so proud of you.”

Hard part over? I wasn’t so sure.

It smelled of frightened vampire and the ever-after, and my neck was starting to tingle. I’m not afraid to love someone, am I? I turned away, and Trent caught my elbow.

“Rachel, I can kill the vampire virus, but I don’t know how to treat someone coming off a master high.”

“Soon as Ivy’s stable, we’re leaving,” I said, not really answering his concern. “It’s not safe here.”

Ivy nodded, and deciding they were okay for now, I went into the hall. I didn’t think anywhere was safe anymore. I didn’t know what to do, and frustration tempered with fatigue rose up, swamping me.

Turning from the closed door, Trent ran a hand over his chin in thought. “Let me ask around,” he said softly as we started down the hallway. “See who owes me a favor.”

But no one owed Trent Kalamack favors anymore. Again, sort of my fault.

My guilt thickened, and sensing it, Trent looped his arm in mine, slowing our pace. “Rachel, you aren’t afraid to love. He was saying anything he could think of to put you on edge.”

Crap. Embarrassed, I tried to quicken my steps back to the kitchen and hopefully some coffee. “I think that’s the last we’re going to see of Felix for a while,” I said with forced cheerfulness, desperately trying to change the subject.

Beside me, Trent sighed in acceptance. “I hope so. But really, Rachel, what are the chances? Twice in one night.”

My pace slowed, and I nodded at the doctor as she passed us in the hall on her way back to Ivy and Nina. “The chances were never good,” I admitted. “But it feels better now. Nina kicked him out. The longer Felix sulks, the more stable she will be when he tries again.” Because he would try again.

But thin as it was, it was still hope, and my heart ached for Ivy as we found the kitchen. Tired, I sank back down in my chair, glancing at the newly lit monitor before letting my focus blur and my head hit the table.

Trent sighed, and I heard him take the cold waffles out of the toaster. “You ever see anything like that before? With the surface demons?”

“You mean that one fought the others off?” I lifted my head. “Only when they wanted to eat me by themselves.”

“That’s not what he was doing, though.” Trent’s lips twisted as he looked at the waffles. “These are awful. I’m making you some from scratch.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said, and he turned from throwing them away, his eyes pinched.

“Coffee?” he asked, and I nodded just so he’d lose that sad look. His reach for a mug hesitated at the sound of men in the hall, but it was just Quen setting up ad***ional security. A faint smile twisted my lips. I imagine a white-clad vampire sneaking into the common rooms had put Trent’s head of security in a tizzy. Thank God Jonathan had been there.

I blinked. Thank God Jonathan had been there? Never thought I’d think that.

Trent set three full mugs on the table, and I pulled the nearest closer, a flutter going through me as I felt as if I was a part of something—Trent expected Quen to join us, and I was a natural part of the conversation—even if Quen acted as if he was humoring us.

“What strikes me as the oddest is that the demon who defended Nina was the same one who tried to chew her face off not thirty seconds earlier,” Trent said, gaze unfocused as he held his coffee and breathed in the steam. “One moment she’s breakfast, and the next she’s a god.”

I tapped the mug with a finger, not liking the red dust under the nail. “I think I’d do a little groveling myself if I’d never seen a master vampire before.”