I’m shoved into a cold room where a band of bloodsucking fiends tear off my clothes. Their long nails graze my skin as their master watches, his cold gray eyes glinting with malice.

“Son of a bitch,” I say, smacking Edith Anne’s hand away when she cops a feel. “The demon’s in my leg, not my tit!”

There’s something you don’t say every day, but then that’s why humans are safe in the world and weird gals like me are stuck with demons burrowing under their skin.

“Just making sure,” Edith adds with a wink.

I’m ready to punch her in the face, except I’m too busy cringing at the thing crawling beneath the length of my shin, its spindly insectoid appendages stretching the skin as it curls up and over my knee cap.

“Get it out of me!” I screech, growing nauseous with each numbing tug it creates beneath the underlying tissue.

“We’re trying,” Agnes Concepcion snaps, like I’m somehow inconveniencing her by having an evil being claw its way through me.

Her tiny plaid skirt smacks against my hip as she shoves me into a massive glass and tile shower. Three other vamps, dressed like naughty Catholic schoolgirls (don’t get me started) follow us in, bottles of champagne tight in their grips.

“What the hell?” I ask, kicking as if I can somehow shake this thing loose, and certain the booze is to celebrate my grisly death.

Bottles of champagne open with a pop, the naughty Catholics pouring the bubbly over my breasts, back, and ass. This isn’t real. This is something out of a bad porno and somehow I’m the star.

But as the fluid reaches my thigh the lump with the creepy legs bounces, pulling at the muscle it’s crawling over, squirming to the left then right, trying find its way around the torrent of liquid they’re pelting me with.

“Don’t let it reach her heart,” Master Vampire Misha Aleksandr orders from the opposite side of the bathroom.

“What’s it going to do to my heart?” My head whips back and forth when none of the vamps answer. “It’s going eat my freaking heart isn’t it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Agnes mutters, adjusting her tiny librarian glasses as she angles the bottle she’s holding.

“Okay . . .” I begin.

“It needs your heart to nest and lay its eggs,” she explains.

“What?”

“But yeah, then the hatchlings will munch on your heart like raw steak,” Edith adds. She reels me around when additional vamps swoop in with cases of wine, drenching my chest with more alcohol.

She seems to be having fun. I’m mostly trying not to hurl and wondering how the hell this happens to me.

Agnes is more focused. She drips the wine just above the demon, forcing it back down my leg. “Quiesco,” she says, her tone as sharp and commanding. “Quiesco.”

My body shudders as the demon scurries downward. Its movement doesn’t hurt, surprising since I think it has pinchers, but the yanking motion is unnerving, like getting stitches while under anesthesia. My head flops forward and my vision starts to swim.

“I don’t feel good,” I mumble.

Agnes slaps me, the sting of the strike causing my eyes to whip open. “Don’t fall asleep.” She slaps me again when my eyelids flutter and close. “Taran, the poison the demon is spewing is numbing your skin and making you drowsy, if you succumb to it the alcohol won’t work and the demon will take you.”

Again, her palm whips across my face. “Stay awake so we can cut this thing out of you.”

I slap her back, knocking her glasses askew. “I’m awake, damn it.”

She smirks because she hits harder and maybe because she likes it, too. She returns to my leg when the vamp behind her hands her another bottle of champagne. “Quiesco,” she whispers against my leg, her breath hot against my cooling skin.

My head falls forward as I start to go under. This time, Edith smacks me.

“God damn it,” I hiss, my right arm quaking and threatening to release my flame.

“I was just taking my turn,” she replies defensively.

Her gaze locks on my arm. She eases away as a spark of blue and white escapes from my fingertips, giving me and my power ample space as the surrounding vamps shower me with alcohol.

“Master,” Agnes says, ignoring us as she concentrates on my thigh. “It’s settling. I need the knife.”

“The wolves are bringing it,” he replies.

“The wolves?” I ask. Okay. Now I’m wide awake.

The doors crash open as a pack of weres in human form stomp in, the exception being an immense, midnight-black wolf with a white left paw who leads them. His lips peel back, exposing a row of pointy fangs as he growls at the vampires surrounding me. But it’s the man storming forward with dark almond eyes and a six-inch dagger in his hand that gives me pause.

“Hi, honey,” I say, giving him a little wave.

Funny thing, he doesn’t wave back. His gaze swoops over my naked body. “Hold her,” he snarls, ramming the knife into my thigh.

Reality shoves aside the shock of having the man I love stab me in the leg. Like a heated blade through butter, he slices through the skin and muscle, creating a diagonal line and spraying blood across the glass shower walls. I expect pain, scorching white-hot pain, and to lose my blood supply in large volumes. But like the creepy crawly beneath my skin, I just feel that wretched pulling and grabbing.

My bleeding trickles to a stop just as Gemini’s hand plunges deep into the incision. The image is so graphic and brutal my stomach lurches. I’m seconds from passing out. The vamps on either side of me are the only thing keeping me vertical. But when my focus latches onto the hilt of the dagger, and I realize it’s a femur—a freaking femur! — my body immediately slumps.

Of course, that’s not the worst part.

The tangle of bodies, limbs, and faces, carved around the hilt twitch, as if seizing, breaking free of what’s holding them to slither. Oh, and it gets better. The mouths open, singing one messed up version of O Fortuna.

“Jesus Christ,” I gasp, my body trembling violently as their slowly amplifying voices echo across the room.

Agnes grips my jaw, yanking my face toward her. “Taran, get it together before you set this whole place on fire.”

I wrench my head free. “Don’t you think I’m trying?!”

I bite back a curse, and a few more, when something scampers toward my right butt cheek.

It doesn’t get far. Gemini thrusts his hand deep, wrenching a large, screeching lump from my leg, exciting the minute faces continuing to sing and slide along the hilt. Their voices crescendo and their bodies writhe with glee. I don’t get a good look at the demon impaled by the dagger, and I don’t want to. I only see enough to realize I was right about the spindly legs and pinchers.

Gemini carries the shrieking demon to the sink, ignoring the way the long cluster of centipede legs kick out and clutch blindly at the air. I wish I could ignore it. But those things you can’t unsee? I’ve seen plenty in my twisted, messed up life and this is one more to add to my list.

Gemini holds out his free hand. Without asking, a vamp drops an open bottle of vodka into his palm. Gemini pours the vodka over the demon, stunning it and causing the legs to fall open like petals—nasty petals covered with blood, pointy grippy ends, and little bits of me.

With a turn of his wrist, he drops the demon into the sink. It falls with a sick plop.

Agnes’s weight abruptly pulls off me when she stands and hurries to the sink. She flicks a lighter another vamp tossed her and drops it on top of the demon. “Ad infernum,” she tells it, sending it back to hell.

The vamps step away from me as the flames spray up to lick the ceiling. The exception is Edith who remains on her knees, clutching my leg between her breasts and sealing my wound with several fast and enthusiastic strokes of her tongue.

“Get away from her,” Gemini demands. His voice is more beast than human, setting off an orchestra of snarls from the rest of the pack.

Like a very hungry dog with a bone, Edith doesn’t want to let go. Gemini doesn’t give her a choice. From one breath to the next, he rips me from her, wrapping me in a blanket someone hands him and carrying me away.

“Taran,” Misha calls.

Gemini and I glance at him. “I’ll see you soon,” he tells me with a smile and an all-too playful wink.

The midnight wolf at our side answers with a powerful snap of his jaws, not quite loud enough to overshadow the inhuman growl from my mate, nor the choir in the knife, which is evidently having the time of its cringe-worthy existence.

“Babe,” I begin, touching his shoulder.

My touch is usually enough to soothe him, or at the very least keep him from mangling the closest prey. Hey, sometimes that’s the best I can hope for. To his credit, he hasn’t eaten anyone, yet.

He reels, rushing forward, his insane speed and strong movements propelling us down the long hall. I don’t see the splendor of Misha’s estate, and barely feel the bounce of Gemini’s feet as he leaps down the grand staircase. I’m too busy pressing against him and attempting to soothe his livid beast even as I struggle to calm my fragile nerves.

I can feel Gemini fighting not to change, my fear urging his beast to appear. During times of stress and unparalleled danger, two wolves are better than one. They can protect and fight with graceful lethality. But the danger is over, and right now, I need the man to soothe me, not the wolves who bite.

I’m tough as railroad spikes, aggressive as a fighter going for the championship belt, and as powerful as most preternatural beings we encounter. That doesn’t mean I don’t get scared. Me and fear are old friends, lovers, and sometimes enemies, and over the past few days fear has paid several visits, reminding me it’s never far away.

 I rub my cheek against Gemini’s chest. Just as my presence manages to keep him from munching on vampire limbs, his warmth and the familiar way his body curls around mine reminds me I’m safe.

The moment we’re outside, a frigid wind streams across Lake Tahoe, breaking through the thick pines and sending an army of goosebumps marching down my spine. Gemini leaps from the stacked stone steps, landing beside his black Mercedes SUV. He places me in the passenger seat, slamming the door closed with enough velocity to rattle the interior cabin.

My guess is he’s a little pissed. He tosses me a glare. Or perhaps, a lot pissed.

His midnight twin wolf hops into the rear when Gemini throws open the door, sniffing the top of my shoulder. “I’m fine, sweetie,” I assure him.

I take a moment to stroke his large head before clicking my seatbelt in place.

Gemini pauses, likely sensing my touch through his twin. The midnight wolf turns back to look at him and whimpers. I think he’s sad, but then I realize Gemini is calling him back. From one leap to the next, the wolf dissolves into Gemini’s exposed back, returning home and once more becoming part of Gemini’s soul.

This time, when Gemini closes the back door, it’s less forceful. Yet his anger remains.

Another were approaches carefully, keeping his gaze lowered as he opens an old piece of leather fabric stained with wine-colored splotches. Gemini drops the knife in the center of the cloth, growling words I don’t understand as he folds each corner over the knife, muffling the mouths that continue to sing.

“Get the knife back to the Den,” he orders, securing the knife with twine.

“Do you want us to follow you back?” the were asks.

“No,” Gemini tells him. “The Elders need to settle the knife and seal it in the vault. Otherwise, it will need to eat and search out prey. I don’t want to spend the night hunting demons to feed it, or tracking it if it flees.”

If it flees . . .

Apparently, I’m not the only one disturbed be this news. The were straightens. “How long do I have to get it to the Elders?”

“Not long,” he answers, tightly. “Go.”

And he does, breaking into a run and peeling away in his truck.

Gemini slips inside. I place my hand on his shoulder. “Tell me you were kidding about a knife, partial to breaking into creepy songs, running amuck in Lake Tahoe in search of demons to eat?”

He frowns. “Why would I joke about something like that?”

Humor is apparently lost on the Guardians of the Earth. I blame it on all the scary things they’re forced to mutilate, oh, and possibly global warming.

He and his twin growl at the pack of weres gathered in front of us. I pull up the blanket covering me as they scatter. Weres are used to being naked around each other in human form, but I’m not a were, and because of it, they’ve never seen me naked.

Until tonight, cause, don’t I know how to put on a show?

The next set of growls from him and his twin have them all hopping inside their vehicles and cranking the engines. The lights from the cars in front of us cast a gleam against the angles of his face, sharpening the menace plaguing his features.

He’s angry, and he should be. As a non-were different rules apply to me, one of them being they shouldn’t stare at his naked girlfriend.

He powers across the blue slate-lined double driveway, causing the dusting of pine needles covering it to stream past the window. I wait until we clear the wrought iron gates at the entrance to the compound before placing my hand on his thigh. But it’s not until we pass the miles of stone wall surrounding Misha’s property that I speak again.

“That probably looked pretty bad, huh?” I ask.

He clenches his jaw tight, enough to strain the cords along his neck. “Which part? The part where I find you surrounded by vampires pouring champagne over your naked body?”

“Um . . .”

“Or do you mean getting the call that a parasitic demon has infested your leg and is attempting to make your body its nesting ground—then watching it try and claw its way to your heart?”

“Ah . . .”

His steely eyes cut my way. “Or perhaps you’re referring to the she-vamp licking your thigh in a way I should only touch you?”

Yeah, he’s a little irate. I start to defend Edith, but she is Edith and those were some pretty suggestive licks.

“Baby,” I say.

“Don’t.” He huffs. “Nothing you say changes the fact that you’re working for the leeches.”

“You know why I’m doing it,” I tell him. I groan when he all he does is stare ahead. “I have to protect my sister.”

“No, I have to protect her, and you,” he fires back. “I can’t do it if I don’t know where you are.”

“I didn’t mean to run off, but we needed the relic of Dirpu.” He narrows his stare. “Well, we did,” I insist. “And FYI, I totally snagged it. It was in Egypt.”

“I know,” he snaps. “Reports of fire raining down in Giza was my first clue to your whereabouts.”

“That was an accident,” I say, pointing at my right arm. Its stark white appearance glows like a strobe at the mention, lighting the dimness of the cabin and blanching the rest of my olive skin. “You know how she gets when . . .”

“Your life is in danger?” he offers when my voice trails.

I press my arm against my belly, stroking it with my other hand. My right arm is a combination of magic I was born with, and magic as old as time. My left is all me, my original fire and lightning.

I have complete control over the power radiating through my left arm. My right, not always, especially when she’s angry.

“It happens, Tomo,” I add quietly.

He stiffens at the sound of his real name. When we’re alone at night, or at times when I want to feel close to him, it’s the name I use instead of the nickname he goes by. I don’t feel close to him now, not with his anger erecting an invisible wall between us. But I want to.

I love him. I don’t want to go back to how we were all those months we were apart, miserable, hurt, and bitter. It took so much for us to reconcile. The last thing I want is for something else to drive us apart.

“It only happens when you’re in places and situations you shouldn’t be,” he says.

He’s still angry, but his quieting voice assures me he doesn’t want to be. “The relic of Dirpu opens portals to the demon domain,” I explain. “I couldn’t chance the Dark Legion seizing it once its location was leaked.” I twist to better see him. “Try and understand, whatever evil is threatening to rise could have used it to summon a warrior demon, an evil spirit, or something just as deadly to kill Celia and her baby. I can’t let that happen.”

He pulls onto the highway leading back to Dollar Point. “Was that how the leeches spun it?”

“What?”

We’re driving fast, too fast. He eases his foot off the accelerator as we round the curve and Lake Tahoe comes into view.

“Taran, at last count there were two-thousand, seven-hundred, and thirty-eight documented relics of power. At least half can open portals, a third can summon darkness, and close to eighteen can bring on Armageddon and divide the sun in half.” He glances at me. “Did the vamps happen to mention that?”

No. But holy shitballs. I cross my arms, the motion turning off the fluorescent bulb that is my right arm. “Well, now there’re one less to worry about.”

He punches the gas, accelerating up the hill. “You can’t go after every relic that presents itself—no one person can—which is why my pack works as a team to secure each that’s located. How do you think we found the dagger?”

I knit my brow. “Are you talking about that fucked-up singing knife?”

He scrunches his face. “Don’t insult it, it can hear you.”

“It can hear me?” I glance out the window in the direction of the woods, then back toward the lake where the moonlight streams rays of silver light across the gentle waves, waiting, just waiting, to hear O Fortuna begin to play. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

He shakes his head slowly. “The Dagger of Aberlemno sees all, knows all.”

I still. “Please tell me it’s not one of those things that can split the sun.”

“It’s not.”

My shoulders slump. “Oh, good—”

“But its brother can.”

Its brother can. Awesome.

I keep my comments to myself, obviously. God forbid I piss off the knife, its evil fork brother, or whatever the hell. “This world is messed up.”

“I know, Taran,” he agrees. “Which is why I need to spare you from it.”

“It’s too late to shut my eyes and pretend the boogie monsters don’t exist, love.”

Again he quiets, the intensity in his watchful eyes growing more severe. “You can’t keep doing this, Taran,” he says. Regardless of the brewing anger overtaking his form, he eases the SUV around another curve. “Not to yourself. Not to us.”

“I’m not trying to hurt us,” I add.

“But you are,” he tells me. “When you disappear without telling me where you’re going, and what you’re up to, you’re betraying my trust and our relationship.”

“That’s not my intent,” I say, hoping my tone reflects how bad I feel.

He sighs. “But it’s the result.”

I’ve hurt and likely embarrassed him. But

“You wouldn’t have let me go,” I point out.

I’m not trying to be difficult, nor am I anything close to defensive, at least not this time. When it comes to the bad guys, my role in the secret world of the supernatural has always been muddled. That changed when my sister became pregnant with the first of several children prophesized to rid the world of a new evil that’s rising.

Without meaning to, Celia became a target. As a result, I delegated myself to stand in front of her, doing my best to shield her from the encroaching arrows.

I don’t want to die. If I’m being honest, I’m scared shit-less. But I’m more scared of losing Celia, and what will happen if the Dark Legion succeeds in killing her babies before they have a chance to be born.

Gemini meets my gaze, it’s brief, but more than enough to silence my thoughts. “You’re right,” he says. “I would have found a way to keep you.”

I stroke my right hand when she twitches. She does that when deep emotions rile her and her power awakens. It’s the reason why fire rained down in Giza and the Sphinx is now sporting a new tan. It wasn’t my intention to mar a monumental treasure, but

“All those times you left to fight during the supernatural war, you ignored my pleas to stay,” I remind him.

“I didn’t ignore them,” he says. “As a were, I’m sworn to protect the world, and because of it, I was obliged to leave you.”

“And I’m obliged to protect my sister,” I remind him.

“It’s not the same thing,” he says, his voice gruff. “You’re being used. Can’t you see that? The vampires have the means to ghost you around world, not for the earth’s or the Alliance’s gain, but for theirs. Each relic is power they accumulate to do as they wish, regardless of what the rest of us need or desire.”

“I know,” I say quietly. “But whatever relic I find doesn’t just go to any vampire.”

“No,” he says, his voice lowering. “It goes to one of the most powerful in existence.” He looks at me. “As the only known vampire with a soul, Misha will one day be unstoppable.”

“He will,” I agree, lifting my face in his direction. “But the only reason he has a soul is because Celia returned it, giving him back some of his humanity, as well as his heart.”

“You’re giving him too much credit,” he counters.

“And you’re not giving him enough,” I press. “He loves her, Tomo, and because he does he’ll protect her, using the relics if it comes down to it.”

“Is that what he told you?” he asks, hints of his anger returning.

“He didn’t have to. I just know he will.” I ignore his growing anger, keeping my voice calm. “You can’t dismiss what Misha and Celia have been through.”

“Do not insult my alpha by comparing his matehood with Celia to whatever affections that leech feels toward her.”

“That leech helped save her life.” The memory of that day causes my eyes to burn and my arm to twitch. “She wouldn’t have made it without him and the fate of the world would already be decided.”

“It doesn’t absolve him from all those times he risked her life and now yours. I won’t have you working for him, Taran.”

“And I won’t have my sister in danger. Not if I can help it.”

“By putting out fires better handled by weres?”

I shrug. “Every bit helps.”

“Not when all it helps are the vampires.”

“Gemini, do not let your hate for the vamps cloud what I’m trying to do for Celia, Aric, and their baby.” He doesn’t budge, which only frustrates me more. “After what they’ve been through, they deserve some peace and happiness.”

“Not at your expense!” he growls. He pulls into our neighborhood, slamming down the parking brake in front of our house just to glare at me.

I glare right back. “I’m not going to let her die,” I say. “Not if I can help it.” I swing open the door and step out, fumbling with the blanket as I limp forward and a sharp sting tears up my thigh, burning my skin.