Shea’s heart reached out for him, but the male she knew was gone. Replaced by the calculating monster who had tortured her maker and his mate without remorse. All she felt from him was…nothing. No emotion. No regrets. Nothing.

Except cold resolve.

“Jesse—”

“If you try to stop me, I will do whatever I have to do. Do you understand?”

Shea felt tears threatening, but she would do what was right, even if he hated her for it. “Then so will I.”

He partially turned, enough to look at her and still keep one eye on Mammot. His eyes glowed a bright yellow. “Don’t do this, Shea. Do not fight me on this.”

The tears that threatened overflowed and slid down her cheeks, but her resolve was as firm as his. “We will find another way to deal with your father.”

“There is no other way,” he told her through clenched teeth.

Mammot hocked up a wad of phlegm and spit it at her feet. “Glad you’re seeing our way of it, warlock. Get your whore the fuck out of here, and let’s get this party started, shall we?”

Shea rolled her eyes, but apparently Jesse had had enough. With the slightest movement of his arm, he sent the entire group of demons flying past the ring of vampires to land in a pile in the dirt.

Mammot sprung up from the center, his grotesque face twisted in rage. But he had no time to do anything else before he was met with another threat.

Aiden stood before him…no, not Aiden. Waano. “You really should learn to mind your manners, Mammot.”

Mammot didn’t back down, and Shea felt a shot of fear for her friend at the same time she heard Grace’s intake of breath. But she needn’t have worried.

Aiden’s hand shot out and wrapped around the other demon’s neck, lifting him off the ground with barely any effort at all. “I don’t like them,” he growled into Mammot’s face, indicating Luukas and his vampires with a toss of his head, in position to protect their friend’s body. “But I fucking hate you more.”

The others had untangled themselves by now, and were rallying behind their leader. Hisses rent the air as they prepared to go after Aiden.

“Emma,” Keira said quietly.

“I’m trying,” she answered.

Shea turned back to Jesse, letting the witches handle it while she tried to talk to him. “Please, Jesse. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“And how will it be, Shea?”

She swallowed hard, unsure of how to deal with this stranger before her. “We can send them back where they belong, and we’ll figure out another way to stop your father.”

He looked around, making a point to bring the vampires to her attention, who were keeping tabs on the demons when they weren’t practically spitting their hatred at him. “And then what shall we do, love? Go back to your place and live happily ever after? Have Saturday movie nights with all our close friends? They will never accept me, Shea. I don’t belong there. And you will never choose me over them.”

“I don’t have to! They will accept you as mine, Jesse. But you have to give them a chance and a reason to do so.”

He threw his head back and laughed. It wasn’t the same sound that had once warmed her all the way to her toes. No, this laugh was cold—mocking.

Shea looked around at the others, not knowing what else to say to convince him. She saw that Emma finally managed to get the vampires who were possessed under control, and the witches were making their way toward her and Jesse. They entered the circle with a few wary looks at him, as Luukas and the others came up behind him. All except Aiden, who was frozen with the other demons.

When Shea gave Emma a questioning look, she shrugged. “We can’t trust him. He’s one of them right now.”

Shea turned back to Jesse. “Please,” she begged him one last time.

For a moment, she saw him, the male who protected and cared about her. But he was gone as quickly as he’d appeared.

“I’ve been a complete fool. I won’t make that mistake again,” he told her, right before Luukas and Nikulas grabbed him from behind. As he struggled, Keira stepped in front of him, chanting a spell to weaken his power as they pulled him from within the circle. It wouldn’t stop him completely. He was too powerful. But it would hopefully give them enough time to lock him out of the circle until they could evict the demons.

“Shea!” Luukas shouted.

She had to make a choice. With tears streaming down her face and her heart ripping in two, Shea removed the knife she had strapped onto her thigh back at her apartment. It wasn’t just any knife, but one that was blessed with the holy blood of her entire family. She took it to her wrist, speaking words she hadn’t spoken since the death of her sister. Words she’d known since before she could talk.

They felt foreign on her tongue.

She repeated the invocation for each wrist. Blood dripped onto the earth.

As soon as she was done, Keira rushed back to her, calling the others inside as she closed the circle again and spoke the words to seal it. Grace handed a container to Ryan, and they reinforced it with salt. The witches and Shea were now protected inside.

Shea cried out as Luukas and Nik were thrown aside by nothing but the force of Jesse’s rage, and she lost her place for a moment. When they both got up and came running back for more, fangs bared, she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t fear for Jesse. She could feel his power, and it was like nothing she’d ever seen or felt before.

Christian and Dante jumped in to help them, a spine-tingling roar coming from the latter.

“Keep going!” Keira told her.

But Emma, seeing Nik get a backhand to the jaw by Jesse that looked as though it was hard enough to separate his head from his neck, faltered in her magic. It was only for a second, but it was all the demons needed.

They rushed the vampires, and in the commotion, Jesse walked calmly up to the outside of the circle to stand in front of Shea. She stared at him, trying so hard to get through to him how sorry she was as she continued the verse that would send the demons to hell.

Jesse stood absolutely still as complete chaos broke out behind him. Luukas, Nik, Christian, and Dante were too busy fighting off the demons to try to stop him now. Shea could only hope the circle would hold.

Bright yellow eyes turned to Keira, and she immediately cried out in pain, her hands clapping down on either side of her head.

Luukas, sensing his mate’s distress, flung two demons away and rushed Jesse, fury igniting his power and making him a terrifying sight to behold. But without looking away from Keira, Jesse stopped Luukas’s charge and sent him back into the melee with only a wave of his hand.

Shea looked to Laney. The witch had her eyes on Dante, and by the sweat beading down her face, she was concentrating hard.

But it wasn’t enough. With a spoken command, Jesse broke the seal and stepped into the circle.

A shout of alarm was heard, and Nikulas kicked off a demon and came running toward Emma. The others, seeing the witches were no longer protected, let out roars of fear and rage, and made their way to their mates. All except Aiden, who wasn’t fighting on either side, but watching it all with a blank face.

“Grace! Get in here!” Emma grabbed her arm and put her in the center of them. Now that the circle was broken and their plan was going to hell, quite literally, the witches did what they could to help their males. “Shea!” Grace shouted. “Forget it! Emma lost it. We can’t hold them!”

“We can hold them,” Ryan shouted.

“Not everyone has spirits protecting them, Ryan!” one of the witches yelled.

“You do now,” she answered.

But Shea couldn’t take her eyes from Jesse. They stood in the middle of all the craziness, like the eye of the storm, staring at each other until Jesse finally said, “I’m sorry, Shea. But this is the only way. I must do this.”

Her arms fell to the sides, her holy blood running into the ground at her feet. “I will never forgive you if you go through with this. I don’t want to live in a world ruled by the children of hell.”

His eyes darkened in pain, and a spark of hope lit her from within, but he only nodded. He would accept her hatred to do what he felt he needed to do. With another wave of his arm, he sent the others from the circle, leaving only him and Shea. In the next second, he held out his hand, and a large backpack came flying from the woods where the demons had hidden it. It busted through any bodies in its way and landed in his palm. As soon as he had it, he began to close the circle again.

She heard the demon leader tell him to hurry, and Shea knew immediately what it was: the demon blood. The real blood.

Furious that he would give up on them so easily, Shea bared her fangs and lunged at him, knife raised above her head. She wasn’t thinking, just reacting. After all they had been through to be together, after all she had been through to accept him as hers, the fact that he was willing to throw it all away, throw her very life away, was more than she could take.

Jesse sidestepped the knife, grabbing her arm to keep her from falling from the circle. But she hadn’t quite gotten her footing, and someone else yanked her off balance by the back of her shirt. She fell from the circle just as the seal went up, and was instantly pulled up from the ground and wrapped up in a chokehold. Shea screamed, her body jerking from the shocks of pain shooting through her, the knife falling from her hand.

Mammot yelled next to her ear, “Do it, warlock. Or I will tear her fucking head off.”

Shea could do nothing to stop him, her body a prisoner of the pain ripping through her.

A wave of fury struck her from the front, pushing her into her attacker. The demon tightened its hold on her, and she felt fangs sink into the side of her neck.

Shea screamed again.

“Release her!” Jesse’s roar was heard above everything else. With a growled command, he left the circle and was immediately attacked by demons from either side and thrown back in. He was on his feet in a flash, throwing bodies in every direction without touching them.

Gritting her teeth against the pain, Shea began to chant, igniting the holy flame in her blood. The demon holding her tore his fangs from her throat, screaming in pain as her blood burned through him. And suddenly, she was free.

Jesse caught her as she fell, lifting her up into his strong arms. “Are you all right? Shea!” He fell to his knees, still holding her, and cradled her against his chest. “Please tell me you’re all right.”

She tried to answer him, but could only nod. He lifted his head, and she reached up, touching his face, and tried again to speak. This time she managed to get the words out. “Please, don’t do this.” Her bloody fingers left red streaks down his cheek.

The muscles in his jaw jumped. He looked around, taking in the fighting around him, then back down to her.

He was faltering. She could feel it. “Jesse, please. Don’t do this. Let us send them back, and I swear to you we will help you deal with your father. Jesse”—she touched his face again—“you can still change things.”

“And if I do, Shea, what will that accomplish?”

“You will have me,” she told him simply. She wanted to tell him more. Wanted to tell him that in spite of it all, she cared about him. That she knew now she’d fallen for him during those weeks he’d protected her in his room, right after he’d saved her from becoming one of the monsters around them. She wanted to tell him so much. But they had no time.

I feel the same about you.

His voice came to her, and Shea couldn’t hold back a sob. He hugged her to him again, and she wrapped her arms around him as he pressed a kiss to her wounded throat.

I’ll fucking kill him.

She pulled away. “Jesse?” She didn’t need to say anymore. He knew what she was asking him.