CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Lincoln dreamed of Hell. His visions were brighter and clearer than ever before. If he hadn’t laid down to rest in a cottage in the mountains behind Northgate, he would have believed that he was truly there. He could smell the smoke and sulfur. Breathing the air burned his lungs. He felt sluggish, as if the air were thicker than water, and it seemed to take him forever to turn.

Oh, Lincoln…I’m ready for you.

The Devil was there. She was always there , waiting for him to gaze upon her bloody smile. He had been inside of her. Lord have mercy, he had spent himself with her legs locked around his waist and her breasts slick against his chest.

She wore a necklace of bones. A spine was curled around her waist with the tailbone flat against the inside of her thigh. Skeletal fingers gripped her breasts, leaving imprints on her skin, allowing the nipples to peek between the rotten tendons of the knuckles.

Lightning arced through the smoky haze. For an instant, she didn’t look like Elise. She looked sallow, decaying, bloated. There was a towering, black-skinned beast behind her, with the wings of a bat and cloven hooves. It was waiting for her to take Lincoln so that it could act.

When the light cleared, she was standing closer to him. Lincoln only needed to wrap his arms around her sumptuous curves.

Taste me, she said, fingers tracing the lines of her abdominal muscles, dipping along the furrow of her thighs until she reached her nether lips. Her long strokes drew his gaze along the path of her fingertips. She slid one finger between her legs, inside of herself, then touched the juicy tip to his mouth.

Lincoln sucked on the finger. The taste of copper stung his tongue.

He wanted her. He needed her.

Let us be one, said the Devil. At her back, the black beast chuckled.

She placed a black-nailed hand against his chest and shoved. Two steps back, and the ground vanished underneath him.

He was falling, tumbling down the pits of Hell, the air heating with crimson flame. Screams beat at him. Hands tore at his naked body. His fall was slowed by the thick air, and when the Devil followed, she soared on its currents like a dark angel clad in death.

The Devil caught him in her arms. The hard edge of teeth grazed his throat.

Just say yes , she said, a serpentine hand curling around his erection, stroking him until he was so turgid that he thought he might break.

She slid onto him. Her cunt was sweet fire.

Say yes, Lincoln.

Her limbs tangled around his body. Her mouth crushed his. Her maw was growing, blacking out the sky. He inhaled her breath and saw only her eyes and tasted her blood.

Let me take you. Just say yes…

The orgasm crashed over him. His body plunged into the pits of Hell.

“Yes,” Lincoln said.

Near-instantaneous travel through Northgate’s night wasn’t nearly fast enough. The moments that Elise floated over the town felt as endless as the time that she had spent trapped in the garden.

She wasn’t the obsessive type, yet she couldn’t shake the images that flashed through her: the smiling faces of the pack, the laughter of a family sharing jokes, even Nashriel’s frustration at being forced to do the dishes. A murderous demon walked among them. It was Elise’s fault, and she was the only one that could save them.

Elise plunged into the mountains, darted between the trees.

And she smashed headlong into magical wards.

She shocked back into her human form as she bounced onto the forest floor, flat on her back. Elise stared up at the tree branches stretching toward the stars and couldn’t feel her fingers or toes. Whatever she had hit, she had hit it hard—and it had hit her back.

“I told you to leave,” James said.

Elise’s blood ran cold. She sat up to see him standing with his arms folded a few feet away. He was still wearing the glamor that made him look young. His hair looked black, his eyes were piercing blue, and his crow’s feet were tightened into disapproval.

He was also standing on the other side of the wards, where she apparently could no longer reach him.

“You can’t be in there,” Elise said, as if denying what she saw could make it truth. “You can only get in there if the pack takes you.”

“Wards that I constructed can’t keep me out,” James said simply.

Everything fell into place.

That was what had bothered her about Seth calling Stephanie “family.” Rylie had said a member of her pack’s family had referred them to a witch, who had created the wards. Stephanie was related to one of the werewolves. She had asked James to protect the sanctuary. And James had forced Lincoln to get building permits for the pack—not the White Ash Coven.

His fingerprints were all over Rylie’s pack, and Elise hadn’t seen them. More patterns that she had failed to put together.

It was too late now. James had locked her out of the sanctuary, revoking her right to enter and strengthening the magic that protected them.

And Lincoln was on the wrong side.

“You have to let me in,” Elise said, getting to her feet. “Open the wards now .”

James gave her a pitying look. “Leave, Elise. It’s past time.”

She stepped as close to him as she could without getting slapped by his magic again. Six inches apart, separated by a chasm of wards, she pinned him with her black gaze. “You don’t understand. People are dying in the sanctuary. Lincoln’s been possessed by a demon, and I have to exorcise him.”

“I told you that some things require taking a stand,” James said. “I will not let you interfere with the pack any longer.”

“Even if that means letting some of them die?”

He didn’t respond, but his silence was answer enough.

She clenched her hands into fists at her sides, digging her fingernails into her gloved palms.

Violence boiled in her skin. Elise couldn’t hold it.

She lashed out, punching the invisible wall of magic, and the contact shocked through her entire body. She tasted blood, burning leaves, and the familiar electric zing of James’s power. It punched back, harder than she had, and she stumbled. But it didn’t stop her from hitting it again.

Elise was screaming—screaming with pain, with rage—because there were no words to contain her hate. Her roar rattled the sky.

When she pulled back for another strike, James caught her fist.

He stepped easily through the wards and kept walking, using his grip on her hand to shove her back against the tree, safely distant from the unfriendly magic.

“Damn it, Elise, stop hurting yourself!”

She twisted free and swung. Her knuckles connected with his jaw. The crack of bone on bone was more satisfying than any sound she had ever heard, and she was instantly addicted.

Elise struck out again. James ducked, letting it blow over his head without contacting.

She kneed his lowered face. His grunt fed years of revenge fantasies.

But he didn’t let her strike again. His hands closed on her arms, pinning them to her sides. Magic crackled through his gloves. Her ears buzzed, she smelled copper, and her vision blurred. It was as hard as getting struck by the wards—no, even harder.

The back of her head smacked into the tree. James held her against it, chest heaving with exertion. “The pack was fine when I last checked on them,” James said.

“Do you think I’m lying?”

“I think you have an agenda.”

“Let me in, goddammit,” Elise said. “They’re dying!”

“Even if that were the truth, you can’t tell me that you care.”

“You have no clue what I care about, Faulkner!”

A long pause.

Her vision cleared, and she realized his face was inches from hers. His breath smelled of icy-cool breath mints. Hurt touched his eyes, tilting them down at the corners. “‘Faulkner’? Are we on last-name terms now?”

She fisted her hands in his shirt. She would have preferred to grab him by the throat, but his grip on her biceps kept her from being able to reach that high. Elise let her fingernails bite into his waist instead. She hoped it hurt. “There have been serial killings. It is—was —the work of a cult. They summoned a demon to possess Lincoln, and he’s inside the wards. You have to let me in to stop him.”

James’s jaw tensed. “This is about Lincoln?”

Perfect fucking timing to get jealous. “This is about Lincoln being possessed by a demon and killing innocents!”

His gaze roved over Elise’s face. Without his warding ring on his finger—she could see the metal shining in the neck of his shirt, hanging from a chain—the protections between their minds were fragile enough that he might be able to force his way into her head.

They didn’t get time to find out. A body crashed through the trees. Seth appeared, sweaty and breathless, rifle drawn.

He stopped at the sight of Elise backed against a tree by James.

“Did you already stop him?” he asked, brow furrowing, fingers tensing on the trigger.

Elise shoved James away. It was easier to think without his hands on her. “I can’t get through the wards. How did you know what happened to Lincoln? I didn’t tell Rylie.”

“Crystal called me,” Seth said, every muscle in his body taut. His eyes flicked between them. “I don’t know why you’re here, James, or why Elise can’t get in, but they’re under attack. Lincoln was asleep in one of the cottages and came out shooting with silver bullets. Crystal said that Nash had him pinned, but wasn’t sure how long he could hold him.”

It was exactly as Elise had feared. Lincoln was probably a good shot—she had a hard time imagining that he could be bad at anything he set his mind to—but she hoped the demon was clumsy on the trigger. Anything to waste those twelve bullets and prevent them from hurting the pack.

“Go,” Elise said. “Stop him.”

Seth broke through the magical barrier without so much as a misstep. Elise’s frustration only grew as she watched his back retreating into the night, unable to follow.

She faced James. “Let me in,” Elise said, enunciating each syllable carefully.

“I can’t,” he said finally, reluctantly. “I just finished reinforcing the spells protecting the sanctuary. It would take a few hours to disassemble them again.”

They didn’t have hours.

Elise fisted his collar, jerking his face down to her level. “If anyone dies, it’s your fault.”

James didn’t try to argue with her. His heart was pounding, and she could taste it thick on her tongue, like pressing her mouth to the pulse leaping in his throat. His expression said nothing, but his body betrayed him: the flush of heat on his cheeks, the spark of neurons, the thrill of adrenaline burning hot in the air between them.

He wouldn’t be able to see her physical cues as acutely as she did with demon senses, but he didn’t need to. James had known her since she was sixteen. Barely out of childhood. No matter how schooled she kept her features, something would betray her.

His hands wandered from her shoulders to her hips, tracing her body with a familiarity that he didn’t deserve. He had seen every inch of her before, touched her, tasted her, and she instinctively reacted to it. Her nipples hardened, even as she rolled her fingers into a fist. She tensed her hand. Knuckles popped.

“Don’t touch me, Faulkner,” she said.

James cupped her chin. “Don’t call me that. It’s ridiculous.”

“Get unraveling. Open the wards. The sooner, the better.”

He didn’t seem to be interested in having that argument again. He tugged her hips so that she had to step closer to him.

Elise saw the thought budding in his eyes before he said it. He was thinking about that again. The betrayal.

“Don’t start,” she hissed.

It was too late.

“I have no excuses for what I did to you, Elise,” James said softly. “I won’t even attempt to formulate any such thing. I also won’t apologize again—not to spare my nonexistent dignity, but because it’s insulting to presume that words could make up for my actions. All I can say is that you have never strayed from the forefront of my mind. Even for the three years you avoided me. Even now, when we are at odds.”

She captured his head in her hands, fingertips digging into the nape of his neck, thumbs framing his face. For an instant, she entertained the thought of ripping his skull from his neck. “If you love me, then why would you think that I’d hurt Seth and Abel?”

“Because once you know the truth, you will,” James said.

“What truth?” she asked. He tried to look away, but she held his head captive. “What don’t I know, James?”

He dragged her body against his, arm clamped around the small of her back. “No, Elise,” he said. His breath was hot against her cheek.

“No what ?” she asked, voice thick with frustration.

James kissed her, plunging his tongue into her mouth, exploring its recesses. His free hand slid up the hem of her shirt, flattened over her ribs.

Her knees still weakened, her muscles liquefied, and her skin flushed with heat.

Three years, and she still couldn’t resist him.

The first time that Elise had tried to kiss James—when she was eighteen years old, on a beach in Denmark, shortly after they had bonded as kopis and aspis—he had rejected her. She had wished she could die after that.

The next time that they had kissed, she thought that she might die, but of happiness.

This time, she was just fucking pissed.

Elise bit his tongue. Hard.

He twitched back in shock, but his hands only gripped her harder, holding her against his chest. It was probably as much self-defense as it was from passion. Elise couldn’t get up as much momentum to punch him the way he deserved when she was pinned to his body.

She flashed into darkness, out of the circle of his arms, and reappeared behind him.

James turned too slowly. She rammed her elbow into his kidneys. He stumbled, and she grabbed the back of his head, using his momentum to slam his face into the tree trunk.

Magic flared. He threw a hand behind him, lobbing electricity in her direction. Elise side-stepped it easily, but her heart skipped a beat.

When had James learned to throw magic without a single written symbol?

He spun, tossing another one at her—a blast of air that flung her to the ground in a shower of dry leaves. Elise disappeared, reappearing on her feet, and swung a roundhouse kick at his head.

James ducked, seized her ankle. He jerked her off-balance. Caught her before she fell.

He kissed her again, harder than before, with a hand on her throat and the other clutching her back. She still felt faintly bruised where Rylie had bitten her, and he seemed to know just where to press hardest to make her shiver. God, it was good. She groaned into his mouth despite herself.

If not for her subconscious screaming a reminder that there was danger in the air, Elise might have surrendered. But Lincoln had been seized by a demon, and he had twelve silver bullets. He could commit twelve murders in a pack of innocent werewolves.

And Elise was kissing the man that had damned her to Heaven.

When she jumped away again, it was into the shadow of trees twenty feet away, on top of a pile of rocks—well out of James’s reach.

Elise couldn’t seem to breathe. Luckily, James didn’t chase her.

“Do what you need to satisfy your urges,” he said, wiping the blood off of his lip. It glistened black in the night. His tongue must have been bleeding. Good . “It changes nothing. Lincoln means nothing. When all of this is over, I will find a way to earn your forgiveness.”

Elise rubbed her wrist over her bruised lips, wishing that she could wipe away the evidence of their kiss—and all of the feelings that had come with it. It was so much easier to hate him when she wasn’t yearning for him to touch her again.

“I will never stop hating you,” she said fiercely. And the way his body made her feel only made Elise hate him more.

“Never means nothing in the span of eternity,” he said.

He turned and walked away—damn him, he walked away , like it was so easy for him to leave her behind with no way to enter the sanctuary. The wards yielded to him effortlessly. She felt the sting of magic when he passed.

“James,” she called. He ignored her. “James!”

“I’ll protect the pack. Don’t worry,” he called over his shoulder.

By which he meant, he would protect Seth and Abel, who he cared about more than Elise at the moment. But why? He had jammed his tongue down her throat, but didn’t have the decency to explain his lunacy.

James broke into a jog, ignoring her shouts.

Magic flared in the forest, sucking all of the oxygen out of her lungs and silencing her voice. Elise grasped her throat, stumbling.

That wasn’t James’s magic—his spells had never had that kind of heat behind them. His power was the kiss of rain, an autumn breeze. This was boiling summer heat in the Sahara.

Elise spun to search for the source and saw a beam of light lancing through the sky. It only lasted for a heartbeat before vanishing.

It had been centered over Northgate.

Someone in the cult had survived, and they were casting another spell.

She cast one more furious glare at the wards. She couldn’t save the pack, couldn’t exorcise Lincoln, couldn’t even walk six feet west without falling on her ass. But she could finish the cult.

Elise leaped into the sky.