Two weeks later, I stood outside in the back parking lot of the RVPD, my nails biting into my palms, my face wet with tears, and watched four heavily armed guards and six cops prepare to load Angus into the reinforced supernatural transport van.

I hadn’t allowed the children to come. They’d said their goodbyes the day before. They didn’t need to see him hauled away.

Shane, Miriam, Clayton, and Rhys stood beside me, grimly silent. Miriam laced her fingers with mine, and though her eyes were shadowed, they remained dry. Miriam was a supernatural. She’d seen bad shit before.

“Angus,” I called. “We’re here.” Because I couldn’t let him think he was going off alone.

He listed in the big wheelchair, somehow diminished and pale and something more human than the huge, forceful shifter he’d been before the humans got their hands on him.

“Angus,” I called, my voice cracking. I started toward him, but the cops immediately created a barricade with their bodies. They waved their cruel batons and stared at me, waiting to see if I’d dare.

I held up my hands, for fear they’d hurt Angus, and I backed down.

It was only because of the captain’s insistence that we were permitted to watch him leave. To keep him company as they loaded him into the van and shipped him to the prison where he’d spend the next five years of his life.

The humans believed he was getting off easy. Five years, they’d scoffed. That’s nothing.

But to those of us who loved him, it was everything.

To the ones who existed there, it was everything.

Only to the humans was it nothing.

“Come on, honey.” Miriam squeezed my hand and urged me away. “Let’s go home. He’ll be out before you know it.”

But I refused to move until the van was out of sight and Angus was gone. Really gone. It was as though they were giving him the true death.

“Bay Town won’t be the same,” Rhys murmured. Then he turned and walked away, Shane at his side.

“We’ll visit him,” I said, watching them go.

“Supernaturals aren’t permitted to visit,” Miriam said, crisply. “We’ll take care of his kids, his home, and his business, and everything will be ready for the big dummy when they kick him out.”

“I will visit.” I thumped my chest, angry and fierce and determined. “Let them try to keep me away.”

She nodded. “You’re our champion, Trinity. The humans might think you’re theirs, but we know you’re ours.” She stared up at me, soberly. “You’re ours.”

“Yes.” I managed a small smile. “I belong with the supernaturals. You need me more than the humans do.” And I needed them more than I needed the humans. Much, much more.

I looked at Clayton, who stood quietly beside her, his pensive gaze turned in the direction the van had gone.

“He’ll be back,” he said, and there was no doubt in his voice. “He won’t die in there.”

I grabbed onto his words with everything I had. “How do you know?” I hadn’t wanted to appear doubtful, but God, I was afraid.

Miriam didn’t hit him or tell him to shut up. She watched him as intently as I did.

“Clayton,” I begged. “How do you know?”

He shrugged, uncomfortable. “Just a feeling.” And then he looked at me.

 I gasped and stepped back, my hand to my pounding heart, my eyes wide and glued to his face.

Both Miriam and Clayton frowned and took a step toward me.

“Trinity?” Miriam peered up into my face. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

I looked from her to Clayton, unsure. Not about what I’d seen, but what it meant.

I knew what I’d seen.

“It’s…my stomach,” I said, finally. “I thought I might throw up.”

“Baby hunter,” Shane called, and pounded on the hood of his truck, against which he leaned. “Night is coming, and we have vampires to kill. Let’s go.”

With one final, tentative glance at Clayton, I murmured my goodbyes and jogged away, my thoughts churning.

I tried not to think about how badly I’d wanted to wrap my arms around Clayton’s waist, or how badly I wanted to be held in his arms.

How much I wanted to force him away from Miriam, even if it hurt him, even if it killed him.

I shoved away my longings and concentrated instead on what I’d seen when he’d turned his stare on me.

I’d seen something familiar, something unmistakable.

I’d seen the incubus.

He hadn’t left.

Maybe he’d fallen asleep, or had buried himself so deeply Clayton had been unable to feel him, but wherever he had gone, it wasn’t back to hell.

And Clayton didn’t know.

The incubus might live inside him, but it no longer had the power to free him. Clayton would have felt that immediately. Or the demon had the power, but was somehow keeping it to himself…

And I just didn’t know what that meant. “What can I do about it?” I whispered, to myself.

Shane slammed on the brakes, jerking me out of my thoughts, and tossed me a smile. “Grab your sword and get the hell out of your head, Trinity Sinclair. There’s a lot going on, and you can’t do a thing about any of it. But you can kill vampires.”

He was right.

So I jumped out of the truck, drawing Silverlight as infecteds ran toward me, and excitement began to sing through my body.

It wasn’t the end of the story.

The story was just beginning.

Angus would come home.

Clayton would deal with his demon.

The Bay Town supernaturals would survive.

And me?

I was going to love and hate and have sex and fight and kill vampires.

I was going to live.

And I would be just fine.