Light flickered in the distance, pale gold and beckoning. Pain seethed through me as I struggled toward it. Heaviness weighted my limbs.

Trapped. Blind.

I struggled, or tried to. I couldn’t move. Something held me down. Through the morass of pain and exhaustion, I pulled myself toward consciousness.

When I first opened my eyes, I saw nothing. Blackness all around. Then light filtered in, revealing a high wooden ceiling. A figure leaned over me. Pale, slanted eyes and a pair of tiny horns stood out starkly in my vision.

A demon!

I shrank back.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Roarke’s voice, rough with concern. “She’s helping you.”

My neck ached as I turned my head. Through blurry vision, I saw Roarke, hovering behind the demon. His clothes were blood-soaked and dirty, and concern shadowed his eyes. My gaze dropped to his hands which were clenched into fists.

I opened my mouth, trying to ask what had happened, but my head swam. Something cool flowed over the wounds in my chest, followed immediately by a searing, molten-iron agony.

Blackness took me.

I floated in the dark, free of pain. Visions flashed across my mind. Memories. Me, lying in the pit. Roarke, tall and strong in his Were-demon form, jumping down beside me. Blood poured from wounds piercing his chest and stomach, but he bent and picked me up, cradling me to his chest.

His wings spread wide, and he lifted us both gracefully into the air.

* * *

When I woke again, the healer was gone. So was most of the pain.

Golden sunlight filtered in through the cracks between the wooden blinds, sending an orange glow across the wooden floor. My head felt like it weighed a million pounds as I turned it to search the room.

Roarke sat on a small sofa near my side of the bed, his head tilted back and resting against the wall. His broad chest rose and fell slowly. He slept. The shirt he wore was cleaner than the other had been, but patches of fresh blood dotted it.

He hadn’t let anyone tend to his wounds.

Stubborn man.

But otherwise, his face looked peaceful in slumber.

My gaze darted around, taking in my surroundings. The room was rustic-chic with a heavy wooden bed and fireplace on the far wall. The ceiling was high with wooden rafters hung with iron lights. Paintings of the forest dotted the walls, and through the windows, I could make out the faintest sound of a rushing river.

We were at his place by the river in the woods. It had the feel of Expensive Mountain Retreat rather than Cabin, but that didn’t surprise me. Between his car and clothes, Roarke was used to the best.

“You’re awake.” His sleep-roughened voice made me jerk my head toward him. A slight pain pierced my skull at the quick movement, but it faded.

Relief was stark on his face. Happiness as well. It made his expression look lighter, as if a weight were lifted off him.

Huh. I wouldn’t have expected that.

He stood, then knelt by the bed. Concern darkened his eyes. “How are you?”

“Okay.” I struggled to sit, my muscles aching and pulling. Though I felt like I’d been hit by a bus, there was no sharp pain like I would have expected from the kinds of deep wounds the demon had given me.

“My healer mended your wounds. The poison is still in your system, but you’ll survive. She gave you another dose of the potion that wards off the transition, but we still need the demon’s blood to cure you.”

And we hadn’t gotten any. Not in that fight, at least. But he’d gotten someone to heal me? “Is that why we’re at your place?”

“Yes. It’s closest to the portal she uses to leave the Underworld.”

“Thanks.” I glanced down to see that I was wearing an overlarge T-shirt. His. My arms weren’t wrapped in bandages. They weren’t even scarred.

I peeked under the neckline of my shirt. My chest was the same, except for the scar from the blade that had killed me.

“Did you put these clothes on me?” I asked. Nerves skated through me. I definitely didn’t want him seeing me naked.

“No. Lofta did.”

“The healer?” An image of her face flashed in my mind. “The demon healer.”

He shrugged. “She’s good.”

“Yeah. She was.” I should be far more injured than this. Dead, even. Though I did feel vaguely disgusting. “But I could use a shower.”

Roarke nodded and stood, wincing.

“You should have let Lofta tend to you.”

“She was tapped out. Are you hungry?”

“Famished.”

He strode to the door, then turned back. “Del? I’m glad you’re all right.”

I blinked stupidly. His words were one thing, but his tone…

So grateful. He really cared that I was all right. He’d taken care of me before himself, letting the healer use up all her magic healing my wounds instead of his. And he’d sat by my bedside this entire time.

The gruff Warden of the Underworld was hell of a lot kinder than I’d thought.

* * *

Roarke’s shower turned out to be even more amazing than the bedroom. It was a massive slate-tiled thing with the biggest showerhead I’d ever seen. It looked and felt like an actual waterfall. There was even a window overlooking the river and forest, like I was a part of nature.

This guy showered in the forest like a freaking woodland nymph. Albeit a large, scary woodland nymph.

Once I’d cleared some of the cobwebs from my mind, I called upon my dragon sense. What had happened to that demon when the ghostly dragon had carried him off?

And had it actually been a dragon? It sounded crazy. Real dragons had been gone for centuries. And that hadn’t even looked like a real one. It’d been transparent. And blue. Like I was when in my Phantom form.

Too weird.

When I finally climbed out of the magic shower, my muscles felt slightly better. I still couldn’t run, but at least I was walking. I spent a minute standing in front of the mirror, searching myself for signs of transition, but found none, thankfully. The potion was still working.

I found a duffle bag on the bed. My duffle bag. I frowned at the familiar sight, then hurried to it and unzipped it.

Inside were my favorite T-shirts, jeans, leather jacket, pants, PJs, and even my underwear with polar bears on them. My lucky pair. There was a note on the top. I pulled it out and unfolded it.

I sent someone to pick up your stuff. Your friend Claire packed it. -Roarke

Awesome. I pulled out my favorite penguin PJs and lucky underwear, then tugged them all on. Once I was fully swaddled in Arctic-themed flannel, I felt a heck of a lot better. There was just something about wearing your own clothes after being attacked by a murderous Ubilaz demon that felt great.

A glance at the clock showed that it was now 7:00 p.m. Good. I needed another full night’s sleep.

My stomach growled.

“Shut up, you,” I muttered.

I followed the sound of music out of the room and down the hallway. The house wasn’t huge—just four bedrooms on the top floor—but everything was top-notch. Nosiness was a major failing of mine, and now that I had a chance to snoop around the house that belonged to the Warden of the Underworld, I wasn’t going to miss it.

Each bedroom was decorated beautifully, complete with its own fireplace and bathroom. A balcony overlooked the river and another interior one overlooked the living room where the ceiling soared high overhead, punctuated by skylights. The room below was one of the most beautiful I’d ever seen, a comfortable space that screamed Expensive Ski Lodge, just like my bedroom had. The fireplace was huge and the TV bigger.

The Warden might not have a huge place, but it was nice. Then again, he also owned a castle in the Underworld, so maybe he wanted to feel like a normal dude on Earth.

I made my way down the wide wooden staircase and easily found the kitchen by following the sound of the Allman Brothers. So he liked good music. I didn’t want to like that about him, but I did. Of course. Because I was an idiot easily swayed by my hormones.

The kitchen was a large space with sleek wooden cabinets, black granite, and top-of-the-line appliances. I didn’t actually know how to identify top-of-the-line appliances, but they looked big and expensive, which I figured qualified. There was a breakfast nook on the other side of the kitchen. Windows surrounded it, and I’d have bet big money that they overlooked the river.

Roarke was just pulling something out of the oven as I entered. He’d changed into a clean T-shirt, and it looked like his wounds had stopped bleeding.

“I thought you didn’t like frozen pizza,” I said.

“I was occupied.”

Occupied sitting at my bedside. Right. “Looks great.”

“I think it has potential.” He pointed to the counter. “Help yourself. There’s no boxed wine, but I do have a bottle of red.”

“Hey, no need for snark. I happen to like boxed wine. It’s both convenient and portable. No breakage. Three bottles for the price of one.”

“I noticed you liked it. You looked pretty happy about it when you had it at your place.”

“I was.” I went to the counter and found two coffee mugs sitting by the bottle of expensive wine. I held them up. “You like drinking wine out of coffee mugs too?”

“Sure.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Honestly, I don’t care how I drink it. But you like coffee mugs.”

“Maybe I don’t have any wine glasses.”

“You do.”

“Snoop!”

“Guilty.” He grinned and my heart flopped around in my chest.

I couldn’t exactly yell at him, though. He’d snooped while cooking me dinner. Probably because he needed cooking tools or whatever. As long as he stayed out of my bedroom, I didn’t care. And I had just snooped around his place, so it looked like we were both nosy.

“Well, thanks for the wine.” I poured myself a mug and made my way to the table, unable to stand for much longer.

Roarke set a plate on the table in front of me. It held half a pizza. His plate held the other half.

“That looks awesome.” I took a big bite. While I chewed, memories of the fight back at Glastonbury flashed in my mind. What had that dragon been? And where had it taken the Ubilaz demon?

I reached out with my dragon sense to find the demon. But I couldn’t find anything. No tug, no sense of its location.

What the hell?

A cold sweat broke out on my skin. “The Ubilaz demon might be dead.”

Oh, fates. What did that mean for me if I couldn’t get its blood for the antidote?

Roarke’s brow creased. “It’s not dead. I’d know if it had returned to the Underworld.”

Hope flared. “What do you mean?”

“When demons reappear in their Underworld, my staff knows. I asked, but they said he hasn’t arrived.”

I set the slice of pizza down. “So he’s definitely still on Earth?”

“Yeah. But you can’t find him?”

I shook my head. “No. That’s weird. He’s blocked from my sight.”

“What can do something like that?”

“Um… A concealment charm, for one.” For years, I’d worn one to protect myself from the Monster who lurked in my past. Ever since we’d escaped from him at fifteen, he’d hunted me and my deirfiúr. He was gone now, killed by Cass, but the charms had hidden us from his seer’s vision for years. Concealment charms were rare and hard to come by, though.

The memory of the demon yanking the golden pendant off the neck of the skeleton flashed in my mind.

“You didn’t see a golden charm or necklace in that pit at Glastonbury, did you?” I asked.

“No. There was nothing there other than the sarcophagus.”

“Then that’s what the demon was after. Before he was taken away, he grabbed a necklace off the skeleton.”

“But you can’t sense him.”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t find him other ways.” I picked up my pizza, which was now cold, and chowed down as my mind raced. I replayed the scene in the crypt. Finally, something stood out. “Who do you think Gwenhwyfar was?”

“Was that the name on the sarcophagus?”

“Yeah.”

Roarke pulled a sleek cell phone out of his pocket, fiddled with it for a moment, then looked up. “Nothing on Google.”

A man after my own heart. “We can go ask Dr. Garriso tomorrow. He’s a historian at the Museum for Magical History. He knows just about everything, and if he doesn’t, he’s got a book that will have the answer.”

I might have some of this info in the books in my trove, but I didn’t even know how to start searching for the name Gwenhwyfar. I needed a card catalogue in my library, or something. Between the demon hunting and all the rest, my life was too busy to properly curate my collection. I knew where some things were, like demon books, but obscure history was more difficult to find.

“So we’re changing tactics,” Roarke said. “Using books to find the demon.”

I shrugged. “Technically, I’ve been using books since the beginning. Most historical mysteries like this can be solved with books.”

Roarke nodded. “Fair enough. It’s the best we’ve got.”