Sophie grabbed Layla’s arm. “Not so fast. He told us to hang back.”

“I can’t see him properly,” Layla moaned. “What if he’s in trouble?”

“He’ll be fine. He was right when he said they’re good at what they do,” Sophie said grudgingly.

Layla reluctantly slowed, keeping back as Hunter had ordered. Sophie’s place was in sight now, and they could see Hunter approaching the front door. Even from this distance, though, Layla could see that something was wrong. The front door seemed to be hanging at an odd angle from its hinges, and scattered around the doorframe were smears of black that looked like soot.

Hunter moved in cautiously, pushing the broken door aside when he reached it and stepping slowly into the doorway. Without warning, he then threw himself backward, landing heavily on the grass just as a burst of flame lit up the place where he must have been standing moments before.

Layla screamed and ran toward him, Sophie hot on her heels, all thoughts of staying at a distance forgotten. Hunter seemed fine; he was already picking himself up before they’d reached the yard.

“It’s okay,” he called as soon as they were close enough to hear him. “There’s no one there. It was just a trap set for the first person to walk through the door. I think it’s used up now, but maybe you should take a look, Sophie.”

Sophie nodded and stepped up to the singed, empty hole that had been the doorframe. She stood carefully back from the threshold and examined the opening.

“You’re right; it is used up. Let’s go.”

Layla’s heart clenched when Sophie stepped boldly inside, but nothing happened.

“Hello?” she called.

No one answered. Layla and Hunter followed Sophie in to find a scene of chaos. Dust and ash lay everywhere. Most of the furniture had been destroyed, and their feet crunched on a mass of broken items.

“Damaris? Rose? Lizeth?” Sophie called out, Hunter and Layla echoing her.

No answer came. Sophie struggled to make her way to the kitchen while Layla and Hunter lifted some of the larger pieces of debris. Relieved as she felt not to have found any of her coven crushed, where were they?

Sophie returned from the kitchen, shaking her head.

“Let’s check upstairs,” Hunter said quietly, turning to take the lead.

Sophie grabbed his arm before he could get to the stairs, her face twisted up in some emotion Layla found hard to place.

“This is your fault!”

“I told you, we made sure that security was at a maximum before we left.”

“Well, obviously it wasn’t good enough!” Sophie seemed to be working herself into a rage. “You think I don’t know what this is? You’ve always hated us! You never meant to help us—you just wanted us to rely on you. You called someone to attack us while the security was lax, you bastard!”

Sophie lunged at him, but Hunter simply stepped aside, sending Sophie stumbling. She raised her hands.

Layla was ready and cast her hands out, prepared to cast a shield spell at a moment’s notice. Sophie hesitated, seeing it.

“We’ve been through this already,” Layla said angrily. “I’m not going to let you hurt Hunter.”

“You think you can win a fight against me?” Sophie scoffed. “I have hundreds of years of experience, and you’re just coming into your power. I could destroy you if I wanted to!”

Layla lowered her hands. “You’re right, but you will have to destroy me if you want to get to him. So that’s the question, Sophie. Are you willing to kill me in order to kill Hunter?”

For a moment, Sophie looked like she was considering it, but then she dropped her hands in defeat.

“No. I still say this is his fault, though!”

“It’s not,” Hunter said steadily. “Whatever happened, Phoenix and the others would have fought with everything they had. How this happened isn’t the issue anymore—at least not right now. We need to find everyone and make sure they’re safe. We’ve wasted enough time already.”

“I don’t trust you,” Sophie insisted.

“Mistrust me all you want, but right now we have to work together or we’ll have no chance.”

Sophie couldn’t seem to find a way out of it, but something told Layla that Hunter and his crew were getting fired the second that everyone was safe. But it didn’t matter. She’d study hard and put up the spells around the demons’ land herself if Sophie didn’t honor her end of the bargain.

Sophie insisted on going upstairs first, but they split up on the second floor to search. Layla picked her way over the rubble into Damaris’ room, not sure if she was more afraid of finding someone or not. What kind of condition would anyone be in after an attack with this level of violence? And when nobody had answered their calls?

She saw a foot sticking out from under a side of wall that seemed to have collapsed.

“Sophie! Hunter! I’ve found someone!” she yelled, even as she moved to the body.

Sophie and Hunter rushed in within moments, and Hunter wasted no time in lifting the piece of wall, exposing Cord—apparently battered and bruised, but alive. Sophie made a small noise of dismay that Layla couldn’t help seconding, seeing the condition he was in. Where was the coven, and if Cord looked like this, was there even a chance they were okay?

“He’s unconscious,” Hunter said, leaning down to check Cord’s pulse. “Come on, let’s clear somewhere for him to lie down.”

The three of them managed to clear the couch downstairs, and Hunter laid Cord gently down on it. Layla got a glass of cold water and a cloth, dabbing at Cord’s face in an attempt to wake him.

It worked. After a few minutes, Cord coughed and opened his eyes. He immediately tried to sit up, but Hunter held him down with a hand on his shoulder.

“The danger is passed for now. What happened?”

Cord looked around, taking in the three of them kneeling close to him, and the destroyed living room.

“I don’t know,” he said bitterly. “They completely blindsided me. I heard the back door blow open, and then everything went black. I’m not sure what knocked me out, but Phoenix should have been by the back door. You’ll have to ask him what happened.”

“Phoenix isn’t here. None of the others are. You’re the only one we’ve found, Cord,” Hunter said simply.

Cord went pale. “Nothing should have been able to get past Phoenix or any of the others.”

No one pointed out that someone clearly had.

“Have you done it yet?” Cord asked Hunter.

Hunter shook his head. “I wanted to see if anyone was here first.”

“Done what?” Sophie demanded.

“There’s a way we can use to track each other when one of us is in trouble, but it’s not ideal. I guess we have no choice now.”

Sophie glared suspiciously between Hunter and Cord. “Well? Get on with it! I suppose you waited because you were hoping one of us would be killed.”

Cord shot Hunter a quizzical look, but Hunter just rolled his eyes.

“Cord is too weak, so you’ll have to help me. I need a spot to lie down on the floor, and we’ll need a knife.”

Layla didn’t like the sound of this, but Sophie seemed perfectly happy to come up with a wickedly sharp blade. Layla tugged it out of her hand. If anyone was going to have a knife while Hunter was in a vulnerable position, it would be her.

With some difficulty, they cleared a patch of floor. Hunter lay down and instructed Layla.

“You need to make cuts along my wrists, ankles, and chest. The blood will pool, and you need to collect it from the floor with a sponge. Once you have it all, that sponge must be squeezed into a silver bowl. I’ll look into it, and I should be able to see where the others are.”

“You’re blood bound,” Sophie murmured.

Hunter nodded. “It’s a ritual all demons are capable of, but not many do,” he explained to Sophie. “We did it a couple of years ago. We’re always able to find each other, but the ritual will drain my powers for a while. I won’t be much stronger than an ordinary human, though my training will remain.”

“That’s too risky!” Layla protested. “When we find them, we’ll probably need to fight them to get everyone out safely. We can’t have you weakened.”

“We don’t have much choice. There’s no point in being physically able to rescue them if we don’t know where they are. First things first.”

“Sophie, what about a locator spell?”

“Let Hunter try his thing first. Remember, a locator spell will weaken me if I do it or a random one of us if you do. I’d rather have him weakened and us ready to cast spells if needed.”

“You just don’t care if Hunter gets hurt,” Layla accused.

“She’s right, Layla,” Hunter cut in. “It’s our job to protect you. I’ll be fine.”

Layla didn’t like it, but it didn’t seem like she was being given much of a choice. Hunter lay on his back and looked at her expectantly. She didn’t want to hurt him, but she’d rather it was her than Sophie wielding the knife, at least. She felt pretty sure Sophie would still prefer Hunter dead to alive, and if she was willing to attack him with magic, she could just as easily ‘accidentally’ cut too deeply.

“It’s okay,” Hunter told her.

Layla put the blade to his wrist and tried to put pressure on it, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t bring her body to do it. She knew it was necessary, but how could she hurt him?

She dropped the blade in defeat. “I can’t.”

She expected Hunter to argue or try to talk her into it, but he simply nodded. “I wouldn’t be able to if it were you, either. Sophie?”

Sophie reached eagerly for the knife; it looked like she’d enjoy this. Before she could get close to Hunter, though, Layla grabbed her arm. “If you hurt him any more than strictly necessary, you and I are going to have problems.”

“We need him to help rescue the rest of the coven,” Sophie growled at her, eyeing Layla’s hand on her arm. “I’m not going to do anything to sabotage him now.”

Layla nodded, noting the ‘now’. Maybe it would be best if she and Hunter cleared off for a while once everyone was okay, or at least until Sophie gave them her word that she wouldn’t hurt him. For now, Layla just winced and looked away as she saw the blade dig into Hunter’s flesh. He didn’t make a sound. Layla wasn’t afraid of blood in general, but this she didn’t like.

She forced her eyes to remain open and take in the scene. She needed to watch to make sure Sophie wasn’t doing anything she shouldn’t. Focusing more on Hunter’s eyes, Layla tried not to see the blood any more than necessary.

It was done surprisingly quickly. Sophie mopped everything up with a sponge, efficiently and cleanly. Layla got the impression that she’d done something like this before, but Hunter’s eyes were closed, and his breathing was shallow. It was a lot of blood to have been lost. Cord seemed only semi-aware, his eyelids fluttering.

“Hunter? Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he said faintly, opening his eyes. “It just takes a lot of energy. Is the bowl ready?”

Layla helped him sit up, and Sophie handed her the bowl of blood. It looked pretty gruesome, and she averted her eyes.

Hunter gazed into it, seemingly in a trance.

“I can see their faces,” he murmured. “They’re alive—hurt, but alive. It’s zooming out. They’re…” He broke off and frowned. “What?”

“What?” Sophie repeated. “Where are they?”

Hunter looked up, seemingly bewildered. “It cut off.”

“What do you mean ‘it cut off’?” Sophie snapped.

Hunter shook his head. “The way the bond is supposed to work, it first shows the faces of the ones you’re looking for. Then the vision zooms out the view so that you can see where they are. It started zooming out, but before I could see anything, it just cut off. Let me try again.”

They all watched anxiously as Hunter stared into the bowl. For a moment his face lit up, only to sag again in disappointment. “Nothing. I don’t understand it.”

“It means whoever took them has strong magical power,” Sophie said grimly. “Only someone very talented could block something as powerful as a blood bond. The question is why they haven’t killed them yet. Did you see any of the others? My coven?”

“No. I’m sorry. The spell only works for those who are bonded. I can’t see what the point would be of keeping the demons and killing the witches, though. They’re probably all alive, captives. I just don’t know why.”

“Maybe to draw the rest of us out?” Layla guessed. “I mean, whoever it is obviously has a grudge against witches, and you’ve been helping us. They probably want to kill us all.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Sophie said. “They’ve been taking out one witch at a time for a reason—witches are hard to kill. Taking on a whole coven at once is lunacy.”

“Actually, it does make sense.” Hunter put the bowl aside and took the bandages Layla handed him. “As Sophie said, taking on a coven of witches is mad. They’d need a huge advantage if they were to stand a chance of coming out of it alive, let alone winning. That’s probably why they’ve kept any of them alive, so that they can have all of us instead of some. We need to expect the worst.”

“What do you mean, the worst?” Sophie’s voice had suddenly become unnaturally high as she stared at Hunter.

“I mean, whoever has your coven will probably use them to distract you. Perhaps they’ll be seriously injured and need help or in some dangerous situation that’ll leave you unable to deal with the attacker. We’ll have to scope out the situation beforehand.”

“First, we need to find out where they are. I guess we’ll need to do that locator spell, after all.”

“I’ll do it,” Layla said. “You’ve got a lot more experience than me in fighting, so you’ll need your full strength when we get there.”

Sophie nodded. “Unless your spell picks me to drain again; I have to stay in the room with you—this is too powerful a spell for you to learn quickly and then do on your own.”

“Well, at least there’s a chance it won’t drain you if I’m doing the spell. If you cast, it’ll definitely be you who’s drained.”

They all agreed, and as there was no time to waste, Sophie sat down with Layla to teach her the spell. Layla prayed that it would be one of those spells that came easily to her, rather than one that took her hours of practice to succeed.

“I’m going to scout around,” Hunter told them. “We need to be sure the area is safe.”

Sophie nodded absently, focusing on the spell. Cord tried to get up to help Hunter, but Hunter pushed him back down, telling him to rest. He still looked a bit unsteady on his feet, and he had a big bump on his head. Rest was probably the best thing for him, but he wasn’t going to get much of it. As soon as they had the location, they’d go, and they’d need all the help they could get. Cord couldn’t stay behind.

“Layla! Focus.”

Layla quickly turned her eyes away from Hunter to find Sophie looking at her strangely. “What?”

“You really care about him, don’t you?”

“Of course I do! What did you think this was all about? I love being a part of your coven, Sophie. I wouldn’t give that up for anything—except for Hunter. He’s…he’s my mate. We belong together.”

Sophie pursed her lips in that way Layla knew meant she was unhappy, but she didn’t say anything. Layla felt a flicker of hope. Maybe Sophie would come around after all. But then, she hoped that, once they’d saved everyone, she’d have a coven to come back to.

She took Sophie’s hands, ready to be guided through the spell. If this didn’t work, she didn’t know what they’d do.