“Fucking…ridiculous thing,” Severus grumbled. The digital interface on the oven beeped angrily back at him, and he heard Alaric snort from across the kitchen. Refusing to be goaded into anything, he squared his shoulders and tried again, the user manual spread open in front of him. He would conquer this damn oven timer—one way or another.

Why did it need to be so bloody complicated, anyway? All he wanted was to set it for an hour—simple. Normally he wasn’t one for any complex cooking; brew a pot of lentils and he could be full for days. Most of his sustenance came from humans anyway, not food. Unfortunately, demon bodies weren’t quite as robust on Earth as they were in the hellscape below. It was part of the deal for being allowed in the human realm, the price you paid for going topside. Demons on Earth were weaker, healed slower, and operated at about sixty percent of their usual capabilities, power-wise. The farther you went from a hell-gate, the weaker you became. It was why cities located near the portals were so inundated with demons, Farrow’s Hollow included.

“Aha!” He stepped back when the timer started ticking down, then hastily threw the skillet with the wrapped pork tenderloin onto the middle shelf. “Pork is in.”

“Only took you fifteen minutes to figure the oven out,” Alaric announced, shattering his moment of triumph. “Pretty sure that’s a record, Sev.”

His roommate hovered by the breakfast bar on the other side of the L-shaped counter. The tenderloin, however, was not for Severus’s consumption, but for Moira’s. The building’s newest resident was seated at the dining table that separated the first-floor seating area from the kitchen. Papers spread everywhere, she was nearly finished marking all the essays due for her teaching assistant job at the university. As Severus strode over, Alaric sliding off one of the barstools after him, she didn’t glance up.

“Everything’s taken care of,” he told her, pausing at the other side of the table, his hand gripping the back of a chair. He tried not to smile when she savagely crossed out an entire paragraph and scribbled something in the margins. She had become ruthless with her grading since moving in almost a week ago, and given that her frustration was partially his fault, Severus felt he ought to make an apology of some kind to the students affected.

When she was done, she set the pen down with a sigh and looked up.

“Side dishes too?”

“What do you take me for?” He cocked his head, grinning. “Of course the sides are done. You just need to heat them up.”

Steamed vegetables and a very generous helping of mashed potatoes. Since Moira had been forced to move in against her wishes—for her own safety, but never mind—Severus had tried to soothe her temper by keeping her well fed. In just a short week of his meal regime, her cheeks were already a little less gaunt; as he’d suspected, she hadn’t been eating enough to match her new body’s needs. If this forced imprisonment lasted a month, Severus estimated he’d be able to completely get rid of all her figure’s sharp, pointy edges that she disliked so much.

At the sound of Alaric getting his shoes and jacket together by the front door, Severus dug Moira’s phone out of his pants pocket and set it on the table.

“Please only use it to call me,” he said, predicting the roll of her eyes before it happened.

“I know, Severus.”

Severus keeping the device on his person at all times hadn’t helped make her transition to full-time resident any smoother. Unfortunately, Moira just didn’t seem to understand the true severity of her situation, and he couldn’t risk her calling Ella and inviting her over. The fewer people who knew about his home, the better. It was logical. Rational. Reasonable, given all the chatter in the city’s demon community about the new angel hybrid in their midst. However, all that logic and reason wasn’t much help to Moira, who he knew felt like a prisoner. Getting in contact with Ella would likely lift her spirits, but he couldn’t chance it.

Besides, Ella hadn’t exactly been his biggest fan when he’d showed up on the front porch with a bag for Moira’s things a week ago. It was the only time he had allowed Moira to contact her, and his little hybrid had sold the lie that she was staying at her new boyfriend’s house for a little while—or so he’d thought. Ella had looked like she wanted to skin him alive, even more so after he answered her thousand questions as vaguely as possible while he puttered around Moira’s bedroom, filling the bag.

The curly-haired human, short in stature but fiery in nature, had to suspect something. It was why Severus had sent the occasional text message from Moira’s phone to let Ella know that she was fine, and that she would fill her in on everything soon. After all, he had agreed to it—Moira would have to eventually bring her best friend into the world of demons and vampires and angels and everything else that could rip a human in half. It was a stipulation she’d made in exchange for staying with him quietly, without a fight. Ella needed to know the truth—she needed to be protected, and knowledge was the first line of defense.

Fine. Severus would see to all that, but only after he had quelled the rumors circulating Farrow’s Hollow about Moira and her abilities. Until he could guarantee the safety of the woman who actually mattered to him, Ella was at the bottom of his priorities list.

The inner demon had become increasingly protective of Moira with every bit of new intel Alaric privately shared with him. Farrow’s Hollow was abuzz with news of an angel hybrid, and nearly every demon wanted a piece of her, just as he’d feared from the moment she blasted Diriel off him. He had never been possessive over a woman before, but his inner demon was addicted to the bored, occasionally cantankerous woman sitting at his dining table—and he would eviscerate anyone who touched a single white hair on her beautiful head. Severus was on the same page for once, and some of his inner self’s aggressive protectiveness had seeped into his everyday behaviour—hence the phone hoarding.

“So, still won’t tell me where you’re going, huh?” Moira asked as he rounded the table and swooped down to plant a kiss on her cheek. She leaned into it with a soft sigh, eyes drifting closed. Severus lingered, breathing her scent, fighting to control the beast within.

Understandably, Moira had been less than forthcoming physically since he had trapped her inside his home. He and Alaric had bought some furniture and converted the previously empty third floor into something Moira could feel comfortable in during her stay. Sometimes she did her schoolwork on the couch set, but despite having a perfectly apt queen-sized bed of her own, she slept in his every night—with or without him present.

His lips parted when she smoothed a hand up his cheek, nails grazing his recently trimmed scruff. Alaric’s less than subtle throat-clearing from across the room had him straightening with a growl.

“You don’t want to know where we’re going,” he assured Moira as he cupped her chin, thumb stroking her cheek. She had been getting warmer to the physical touch since that night, but, not wanting to worry her, Severus had kept that to himself. When Moira shot him a skeptical look, he sank down to her eye level. “I promise. You really don’t want to know.”

One of Verrier’s informants had told Alaric that some of the demon mob families would be getting together tonight to have some drinks, eat some food—and then bid for ownership of Moira. None of it mattered, because Severus wouldn’t let them find her, but he couldn’t stand the idea that someone out there would think they owned her. Legally. He had no doubt that someone would be up from Hell to administer the binding blood contracts and everything. So, he and Alaric—well, just Alaric—had landed themselves on the guest list and intended to outbid every sick fuck present. Severus had a sizeable fortune after working for years as an escort, but it was Alaric who had a limitless supply of credit in every currency, courtesy of his father.

Verrier might have been retired, but every demon within his jurisdiction was required to pay the same tribute to him on Earth as they would pay to the princes of Hell below—and it was a testament to just how much Verrier had loved Alaric’s mother, and Alaric by extension, that he had handed over his little black card the moment Alaric requested it.

Meanwhile, to say that Verrier had been less than impressed with Severus when he had waltzed into his office at the Inferno, begging for angel names, would be the world’s greatest understatement. While the former prince had provided them, he’d done so with the assurance that that would be the last he heard of this angel nonsense.

And then Moira had thrown Diriel across his bar, damaging tables and chairs and glassware in the process. While Verrier refused to become directly entangled in the fallout of that night, he had allowed Moira to stay in his son’s secret building, and now Alaric had a blank check to bid on her tonight. He might have wiped his hands clean of angel affairs, but Verrier would still do anything for his most beloved son.

It was a weakness Severus knew he had exploited far too often in the last week, but he had no other choice. Moira’s life was at stake. None of the demons searching for her would kill her—just gleefully torture her until her life expired, however long that would be. Hybrid life spans varied depending on what the human was mixed with, and no one had much experience with angels. At this point, even Severus was just making it up as he went along.

“How long will you guys be gone?” Moira asked as he crossed the room and swiped his shoes from the rack in the coat closet.

“Apparently the…” Alaric pressed his lips together, the word “auction” likely on the tip of his tongue. Severus shot him a look as he sat on the stairs and stuffed his foot into one of his polished wingtip oxfords.

“I believe we should be back by eleven,” he told Moira, looping the thin laces. “I’ll send you a message should things run later.”

“And then we can start our movie night,” Alaric added, the enthusiasm in his voice failing to draw more than a half smile out of Moira. “Right? Right? I can’t believe you’ve never seen any of the Indiana Jones films. Harrison Ford is a legend.”

“So I’m told,” she said flatly, then offered a more genuine smile when she caught Severus’s eye. “Pick up some snacks on the way back?”

“Certainly. Text me your preferences.”

“Have fun tonight,” she called as they headed out the front door, “with whatever it is you’re doing.”

“Trust me,” Severus told her, gripping the knob tight and scowling at the thought of what was to come, “we most certainly won’t.”

* * *

Moira waited until the final lock was set and Alaric’s gaudy car had pulled away from the curb before she sprang into action. The chair’s legs scraped across the hardwood as she shoved back and scurried into the kitchen, lowering the temperature on the oven and quickly checking on the tenderloin to ensure it wouldn’t burn. Pork took forever to cook, right? At such a low temperature, she could get to campus and back before it was done—and well before her demon guards returned from whatever they were doing tonight.

Nibbling her lower lip, she returned to the dining table that had been her essay-marking hub for the last few days, then gathered all the corrected essays—due at midnight tonight from all teaching assistants, no exceptions—and set them in a neat pile. Heart pounding, she looked to the door, half expecting Severus to come thundering back in with an aha, the jig is up! All she got instead was the very gentle evening traffic cruising by the front window. Still, she waited a moment longer, her palms starting to get clammy, before grabbing her phone and ordering a taxi to the address of the apartment complex next door.

With an estimated arrival time of five minutes, she packed her shoulder bag—graded essays, wallet, phone—and hurried upstairs. Her lungs burned by the time she reached the third floor, still no more accustomed to scaling the thin, narrow stairwells today than she had been a week ago. It had been very thoughtful of Severus and Alaric to give her an entire floor to herself while she was stuck here, even if she spent every night in Severus’s bed rather than the squishy queen they’d had delivered on her first day.

In fact, as she changed out of her sweats and into something more campus appropriate, Moira had to acknowledge that her new roommates had been very accommodating—despite her moodiness—from the very beginning. Sure, the night of the incident had been tense. Alaric had apologized for what he’d said the following morning, citing stress as the reason for blaming her for all their problems, and Moira had forgiven him without a second’s hesitation.

Alaric had turned into a welcome ally in the week that followed, always up for playing video games with her, watching movies or shows, and drinking well into the early-morning hours with expensive liquor from his dad’s bar when Moira felt like getting drunk. She hadn’t succeeded yet, but Alaric made it fun to try.

Even Severus, for all his phone-stealing and lecturing, had put in the effort to make her comfortable. He hadn’t apologized for his behavior that night—for storming off and leaving her sobbing in his bed—but his actions had suggested as much. By day, he saw his human clients, bolstering his strength for the nights he spent in the demon underbelly of Farrow’s Hollow, supposedly trying to quash whatever rumors were flying around about her.

He had even faced Ella’s wrath, both in person and over the phone, when he had gone to their house and packed up some of Moira’s things for her. The incubus took care of all her meals, and he hadn’t once tried to fuck the tension away—as much as Moira wished he would. All in all, he had been a perfect gentleman, which made what she was about to attempt ten times harder.

As Moira pulled her black wool cap on, carefully tucking all hints of white hair beneath, she hesitated again. Severus had been great, even with her sullen pouting and frustrated glares. Moira had made it very clear she didn’t want to stay here, locked up like a prisoner, but she understood the logic behind it. Unfortunately, understanding didn’t translate to acceptance, and her mood had been up and down—mostly down—all week. Alaric had suggested that she might finally be processing, really processing, everything that had happened to her since she met Severus, all the hard new truths she’d had to swallow. It made sense, and she knew she shouldn’t have taken her mess of emotion out on Severus—but he had proven to be an easy, willing target.

And it made her feel awful. Just—downright shitty, honestly.

This—sneaking out—made her feel worse. The essays were due back, however, and Moira was determined not to let that stupid incident derail her life completely. All she needed to do was get to campus, take all the back routes to her professor’s building, then leave the stack in her mailbox. Hail a cab, somehow figure out how to get back inside the magical building that no one but her, Severus, and Alaric could see, and then bam. She’d be good to stay indoors for another miserable week.

Wearing a thin beige knit sweater and a pair of old skinny jeans, the waist still too big, Moira slipped her feet into her beat-up runners, then hurried down to Alaric’s room. Violating his privacy didn’t make her feel any better—nor did the distinctly boy smell of his dark, cluttered bedroom—but the bathroom on her floor had no windows and the skylights in Severus’s didn’t open, so she needed this one to get to the fire escape that spanned from the roof to the ground floor of the building. The front door wouldn’t open for her after Severus had locked it, and she wasn’t sure why, but in a pinch, the fire escape would do just nicely.

While the lock on the window latch was trickier than she anticipated, Moira managed to get it open. About a foot to the right, the ladder ran parallel to the window, and she climbed on top of the toilet, her heart leaping into her throat as she peered down. Why hadn’t she thought it would be this high? The building was narrow and tall; Alaric’s second-floor bathroom looked like any regular fourth-floor drop. Taking a deep breath, she maneuvered herself as nimbly as she could, adrenaline making her movements somewhat uncoordinated.

Once she had a hand wrapped around a black metal ladder rung, she managed to swing herself over, a little squeal slipping out when she didn’t immediately find her footing. As soon as she did, Moira took a moment to catch her breath, heart pounding between her ears now. There. The hard part was over, right? All she had to do was climb down. The alleyway was silent behind her as she descended, one rung at a time. Beyond the usual downtown chorus of car tires on cement, the occasional honk, and the very distant chatter of pedestrians, she felt alone behind the building.

When the tip of her shoe touched cement, she hopped down but kept one hand firmly on the ladder. She peered up, squinting at the still-open bathroom window, then flinched when her phone started to ring from the depths of her bag.

Moira turned to dig it out—and in that moment, as soon as she broke contact with the fire escape, the building disappeared.

She gasped, despite having known that was exactly what would happen, then reached out. Her long, grasping fingers didn’t collide with anything as she swiped her hand through the air. Gone. Like it had never existed.

“Oh, Moira,” she said, sighing like Severus did whenever he was mildly exasperated with her lack of otherworldly knowledge, “you did not think this through.”

When she had concocted this little scheme of hers a few days ago after reading a terse email from her professor reminding all TAs that the essays were due, it had been easy to just throw her hands up and decide she would figure out how to get back inside Severus and Alaric’s magical home when she returned. Now, however, she could acknowledge the folly in that logic.

What could she say—this former honor student had zero experience breaking the rules. Moira had been punctual and obedient all her life, sometimes to a fault. Sneaking out was unexplored territory.

She pursed her lips, knowing and accepting she’d have to call Severus on the way home to explain what she’d done. He’d be angry—and rightfully so—but she knew he would let her in. Hopefully. And then deliver a well-deserved earful of lectures about safety and how terrible demons were and how much of a risk she had taken and blah, blah, blah.

Fidgeting, Moira checked her wool cap one last time, now aware that her tell as an angel hybrid was the startling white hair she shared with all the others at Seraphim Securities. Then, because curiosity prompted her to, she took another swipe at where the building ought to be standing. Nothing. A little smile tugged at her lips. Amazing.

She really wanted to meet this witch cousin who had enchanted an entire building to vanish completely, not only from sight, but from every other sense too.

Unfortunately, there were more pressing issues to take care of. With her phone still bleating at her, she fished it out and answered somewhat breathlessly.

“Daisy’s Taxi here for Lara?” a woman’s voice remarked as Moira held the phone to her ear with her shoulder, now jogging through the vacant, dismal, rain-soaked alley where a building had once stood.

“Coming now,” she managed. She might have made a mistake in using her real name when she booked a night with an escort, but Moira had learned since then. Her mom’s name, thankfully, was common enough not to arouse suspicion, and she kept her head down when she blitzed from the shadows of the alley and into the awaiting taxi in front of the neighbouring apartment building.

The driver in the front seat smiled at her in the same palpably disinterested way most taxi drivers did when they picked up a student headed for campus, and as the car—its interior positively reeking of cheap, sharply floral perfume—eased away from the curb, Moira flopped back in the seat, and only then noticed she was shaking.

Shaking, but free at last.

Even if it was just for the next half hour.

* * *

The end of this term marked Moira’s fifth year on the FHU campus—and it was strange to realize she actually missed the old place.

Standing at the bottom step of the stairs to her professor’s sprawling gothic tower, a building which housed all the offices for the art department, Moira studied the familiar campus with a smile. She shouldn’t have missed this place. It drove her nuts on a good day, all the clueless undergrads milling about. Always too busy, lines too long at the coffee bars, nowhere to sit in the library when she wanted to work. But she had missed it.

Eleanor Grimsby, the professor she had been assigned to TA for this year, had roped her into a conversation when she’d caught Moira dropping off the graded essays in the mailbox outside her office. Apparently, she had been the last TA to do so, but Grimsby hadn’t chastised her for it. Instead, she’d asked if everything was all right, noting that some of her colleagues had been chatting about her absence from seminars this past week.

“Oh, just caught that flu thing that’s going around,” Moira had insisted, a part of her pleased that her professors noticed when she didn’t attend their classes. But then again, with her new looks—how could they not? The pair had chatted in the dimly lit hallway for a good fifteen minutes about essays, exams, and her thesis, due next year, which Moira still hadn’t started. It had been oddly pleasant to discuss academics like nothing had changed, and now as she stood on that step, the horizon painted amber and gold and purple with the setting sun, Moira could forget that the entire demon population of Farrow’s Hollow was out looking for her.

She could forget that she was turning into a creature, angel or not.

She could forget about Severus’s warnings and Alaric’s cautious hybrid chatter. Moira was just a graduate student again. A teaching assistant. A twenty-three-year-old with her whole life ahead of her.

However, as soon as she forced herself off that step, breaking into a brisk march toward the campus bus terminal—taxis were known to loiter around there too, even at this time of night—it all came flooding back to her. That she wasn’t just a normal university student. That her whole life might or might not still be ahead of her. That Severus was going to ream her out—and that she hadn’t spoken to Ella face-to-face in a week.

Abruptly, she stopped, ignoring the grumbles of the lanky asshole who walked into her because of it. He carried on, enormous headphones over his ears, and Moira grabbed her phone with trembling hands. This was the longest she and Ella had ever gone without seeing each other, excluding that one summer Ella had been forced to visit some cousins in New York. It had been the summer between eleventh and twelfth grade, and that had been the longest three weeks of Moira’s life—or so she’d thought.

The distance had a purpose, of course. As she stared at Ella’s display picture on her contacts page, grinning at the crossed eyes and the tongue poking out between her full lips, Moira knew that bringing her into this very real, very supernatural world was damning her.

But she couldn’t go on like this. Ella had known something was up, something was different in her life, ever since the changes started, and Moira hadn’t done much to include her in that. She knew it hurt Ella. She knew her best friend suspected Moira was keeping secrets—and she couldn’t stand it.

Beyond that, if the demons matched a name to Moira’s face, Ella was at risk. And in Moira’s mind, there was being at risk and being oblivious to it—and then there was being at risk and knowing the dangers. At least with the latter, Ella could be protected. She could make her own decisions—maybe even move in and share Moira’s new digs.

At least then, she wouldn’t be left in the dark until something that haunted it finally took her.

So, Moira pressed the call button and brought the phone to her ear. At the first ring, students spilled out of the nearby chemistry building, the seven-to-nine evening classes finally letting out. The bus terminal would be busy, and Moira slowly drifted toward it, her smile vanishing when Ella’s voicemail recording started to play. She hung up, tapping the disconnect button harder than necessary, and went to her text messages instead. Ella lived with her phone. Even if she was in a class, she always answered.

Unless something from Moira’s new world had taken her, Ella was screening her calls.

Frowning, Moira fired off a quick text to let her best friend know she was on campus if she wanted to grab coffee.

I’ll wait for the next fifteen minutes—until the next bus arrives. Just let me know. I’m so sorry, Ella. I really need to talk to you.

After she hit the send button, she called Severus too, her heart pounding faster with each ring. That call also went to voicemail, and this time she left one.

“Hi. So. It’s me. Don’t be mad, but I’m on campus because I needed to drop off these essays with my prof. So far, so good. No black-eyed creatures following me. I was discreet. I’m just waiting to see if Ella wants to grab coffee with me, and then I’m going to head back. If you guys are done with whatever you’re doing, you could always pick me up. I fully anticipate a lecture. I know. I deserve it. I just had to get out and do this.” She paused, breathless, and then cleared her throat. “See you back at your place.”

When she hung up, something inside of her deflated a little to see that Ella hadn’t texted her back. She deserved that, too.

The bus terminal was a nightmare around the time classes got out; nowhere to sit, no one looking where they were walking, smokers brazenly lighting up in defiance of all the no smoking signs. The hustle and bustle had been annoying to endure before the changes. Now, it was downright awful.

Moira’s every sense faced a continuous assault these days, the clamor of crowds just a little too loud, the clashing scents of perfume and body odor making her just a little too queasy, and the array of color and clothing making it just a little too hard to focus. Nothing crazy. Nothing she couldn’t handle. It was just—a little too much. She wasn’t sure if her senses were heightening. She could hardly feel it when humans knocked into her, not like she had with all the demons manhandling her at the bar. But the rest of her senses were on overload tonight, more than usual, and she zipped around the corner of the nearby science library, in need of a brief reprieve.

An empty street greeted her—not a car, bus, or student in either direction. A quick check of her phone showed nothing from Ella or Severus, and Moira finally stopped her aimless pacing, leaning against a fat, heavily graffitied campus security post—press the big red button if being attacked!—and frowned.

Should she be concerned that neither were responding to her?

“Excuse me?”

Moira looked up sharply at the figure standing in front of her. Dressed in a salmon-pink collared tee and jeans far lighter than hers—ugh, and very white shoes—the guy was the physical manifestation of every douchebag who partied in the frat house across the street from hers in the suburbs.

“D’you know where Morrisey house is?”

Typical. It made sense that a guy who looked like that, with a six-pack of beer in one hand, was headed directly for said noisy frat.

“Uh, yeah.” Moira pushed off the security pole, strolling toward him and pointing back toward the FHU campus core. Something hummed in her ear, and she swatted at it distractedly—were the mosquitos out already? Wasn’t it still spring? “You’re just on the wrong side of campus. You can cut across the Hills, then through the pass between the biology building and the greenhouses. It’s like four streets over from there. You can’t miss it.”

Especially if those assholes were having a party. The whole place would be lit up like Christmas, lights strung along the balconies and porch railings. Kegs delivered the day of. Police arriving by 2 AM, right on schedule. They always invited Moira and her roommates to join them, but thus far no one had ever taken them up on the offer—excluding the one time last September that Moira and Ella’d had to drag a belligerently drunk Lee away from the party house, but that had only been because she thought the frat house was their house and she just wanted to go to bed.

“Oh, shit, really?” Frat Boy Junior, young enough to maybe be a year out of high school, scratched at the back of his neck. “Damn. Okay.”

“Okay.” Moira looked down at her phone again. Nothing. Where the hell—

A startled cry caught in her throat when the guy backhanded her—hard.

Demon hard.

Moira staggered into the pole, her phone clattering onto the sidewalk at the same time the six-pack of rattling beer bottles did, forgotten. Her hands warmed as they shot up defensively, Frat Boy Junior closing in with black eyes and a horrible smile.

“Lights out, half-breed,” he sneered, moving faster than she anticipated. He skirted her outstretched hands and pressed a wet, scentless rag to her face. She lashed out at him, trying to duck out of reach, but found her movements instantly sluggish. Her mind slowed. Her hands cooled. Her knees buckled.

And as she felt his arm coil around her, darkness clouding her vision, the last thing Moira heard before she lost consciousness was the sound of tires screeching across pavement—headed straight for her.

* * *

“Sir, a moment of your time?”

“What, Thompson?”

Severus smirked at the sharpness of Alaric’s tone. Just about every demon present was on edge now that the auction was over an hour behind schedule, and having his vampire babysitter loitering outside, constantly checking in on them, had been driving Alaric up the wall.

Generally, Alaric’s watchers kept their distance, but only because Alaric’s nights mostly consisted of bartending at the Inferno. No risk there, not with his father working one floor above. Any demon who tried to hurt, maim, or kidnap his roommate would be on a suicide mission. However, when Verrier had learned they’d be attending this auction, it had taken all of two seconds for him to insist they bring Thompson with them. Severus wasn’t a fan of the bloodsucker either, but he had learned to tune him out a long time ago—the same with all of Verrier’s babysitters. As far as Severus was concerned, they were nothing more than the hired help. Flies on the wall. Insignificant and easily replaceable.

Alaric rolled his eyes and stepped into the hall, leaving Severus all by his lonesome in a small room stuffed full of demons representing the three demon mob families of Farrow’s Hollow. The number of mob families had fluctuated through the decades, but there were currently five key players running the city’s dingy underworld. Five groups who sometimes played nicely together, but usually did not.

At the moment, there was Verrier’s posse in the legitimate private sector, usually there to quash larger conflicts before an angel was forced to step in; Diriel’s ragtag band of thugs, whose sole purpose in life was to party like it was their last night on Earth; and finally, the three mob families, each specializing in either the sex, drug, or weapons industry. Most of the Farrow’s Hollow demons fit within one of those groups—being alone was oftentimes worse. Severus would know.

It was Alaric’s contacts who had rooted out the auction’s time and location, and while Severus had been disgusted at first to be stuck in this small space, nothing more than an empty stockroom at the back of a demon-run clothing boutique, he was now getting a kick out of the fact that the auction had fallen on its face before it even started.

The mobsters were all eager, of course, whispering and gossiping with one another about Farrow’s Hollow’s only human-angel hybrid. Everyone had had to sign a treaty, blood signatures only, at the front of the room that stated all would honour the outcome of the auction. Whoever won Moira tonight had first dibs on acquiring her. Alaric had his black card ready to go, and had even signed his father’s name just for some additional security. The rest of the black-suited, low-jean-wearing cretins hadn’t said a single word to Severus since he’d arrived, and only a few dared ask Alaric why his father was so interested in a hybrid. Naturally, they had received no response—only a withering glare that would make Verrier proud. The questions stopped shortly after that.

Sighing, Severus retrieved his phone from the deep pocket of his black trench. An hour and five minutes late—and still no signal. With a clenched jaw, he lifted the phone, moving it about, hoping to see the bars fluctuate at least a little. Nothing. He scowled. One of the families had probably used their witch to block reception to the building tonight.

It was quite hush-hush, this auction. All the proceeds were to be held in a trust at the lone demon-run bank in the core of the business district. Once the winner claimed Moira for himself, the funds would be transferred to the communal fund used to pay off the city’s human authority figures. No one liked groveling, but the cooperation of some key players was essential to ensure demon comings and goings went on unnoticed by the general public.

The mass hysteria of humans learning demons walked among them… It would be a mess. A mess most demons would relish, mind you, but it would certainly make things more taxing on those who just wanted to assimilate.

“Sev?” Alaric’s face appeared in his peripheral view so suddenly that he jumped.

“Something wrong?”

“We need to go.”

Without questioning it, Severus slipped out the propped-open stockroom door, then followed Alaric down the dingy back corridors, not speaking again until they were out the fire exit. Thompson had picked them up from the Inferno, changing from Alaric’s flashier vehicle to something a little more low-key—as low-key as a burly black Lincoln Navigator could be, the enormous SUV taking up nearly the entire width of the alleyway they’d parked in.

“What is it?” Severus demanded now that they were out of earshot. His first thought was Moira, but Alaric would have been in more of a panic had that been the case, surely.

“Chatter says angels are breaking up the party in about two minutes,” Thompson remarked, a black earpiece with a wire trailing down under his suit giving him quite the federal-agent vibe. All he needed was a pair of sunglasses and he’d be set.

Lean, pushing six-and-a-half feet, with skin whiter than freshly fallen snow, the vampire had been Alaric’s nighttime watcher for about seven years. Given the fact Verrier hadn’t seen to replace him, he must be damn good at his job—and that meant angels were, in fact, headed this way.

Still, Severus couldn’t help but ask, “Are you sure?”

But Thompson was already standing at the back door of the SUV, gesturing for them to get moving—stiff and expressionless as ever.

Alaric, however, hung back, hands in his pockets. “You want to wait around and see? Thompson’s sources are usually pretty on point.”

Did he want to sit tight and wait for an angel to gate-crash? Not really, but the idea that someone had leaked the intel just to get Severus and Alaric out, knowing they had been spotted with Moira, made the inner demon anxious. The beast had prowled to and fro all day in anticipation of tonight, stalking the breadth of its cage—demanding to be set free. Severus couldn’t risk it. Even if he had been bolstering his strength with daily client visits, plus touching any human he could in the meantime, he’d be outmanned at the auction—outmanned by demons whose brute strength didn’t rely on humans. No, the inner demon could gnash its teeth and stay put.

“It might be a trick,” he said after a moment’s consideration, his voice low—though he knew Thompson’s sensitive vamp ears would hear every word anyway. “You know, to get us out of the way?”

“Yes, but…” Alaric fell silent when Severus distractedly pressed a finger to his downturned lips. A high-pitched whine, like the sound of an incoming bomb strike, grew louder and louder with each passing second. A quick look to Thompson showed that the vampire heard it too, and in an instant he was by Alaric’s side, making the hybrid jump and curse under his breath.

“We need to move—”

Whatever was falling collided with the top of the building, everything from the walls, the bricks, straight down to the foundation rattling on impact. It all happened so fast—the crashing of a lead weight between the floors, windows noisily bursting on the street side and the odd two at the back shattering into the alley. Severus yanked Alaric aside to avoid the fallout, only to stagger back as a blinding white flash of light radiated throughout the building. Short-lived screams from the demons inside assaulted his ears.

“Sir, we must—”

The fire exit door, purposefully weighted like a dying star to keep humans out, flung open, the angelic light bathing the alley. All three cried out, Severus falling to his knees and curling into a ball to shield his face—and Alaric crawling on top of him like a hybrid shield. The holy light seared whatever bits of skin it touched, and Severus gritted his teeth through the agonizing pain. Had Alaric’s body not been covering him, he’d be a blistered nothing.

Just as swiftly as it arrived, the light vanished—someone had turned off the juice. As darkness cloaked the alley once more, Severus pushed Alaric off him and flopped onto his back, gasping and writhing. What skin had met the angel’s light bubbled in a manner akin to a human’s third-degree burn. His body would heal, even if it took a little longer on Earth than in Hell—and hurt a whole lot more.

“Are you all right?” Alaric whispered, crawling back to his side, that bright green stare sweeping up and down his body. “Did it get you?”

“We should have just gone,” he muttered. The largest knuckle on every one of his fingers was a scorched, bubbling disaster. The skin around it had also reddened, but nothing worse than a severe sunburn. Severus would survive. The demons inside wouldn’t be quite as fortunate. “You good?”

“Fine,” Alaric insisted as he helped Severus sit up. “It did sting a bit, though.”

“Well, look at you.” He patted his friend’s shoulder, the movement searing across his damaged skin. “Seems like you’re growing into your demon skin yet.”

“Doesn’t seem like a benefit in these circumstances.” The strain of lifting him flashed across Alaric’s face as he hauled Severus to his feet.

“No, I’m afraid not. Better hang on to that h-humanity until all this is settled.” Over his friend’s shoulder, Severus spied what was left of his vampiric babysitter. “Didn’t do Thompson much good either.”

Alaric whirled around. “Fuck. Father’s going to be so annoyed.”

Touched by the angel’s light, the vampire had become nothing but a pile of black ash—truly dead at last. He had to hand it to the guy; at least he’d stayed behind in a foolish attempt to protect his charge. Severus would never speak ill of him again.

“He really hates interviewing new handlers,” Alaric continued as they shuffled toward the SUV.

“What about—” Severus gritted his teeth when his hand closed around the passenger-side door handle and one of the blisters burst. Acidic puss oozed between his fingers, and he wiped it off on his pants—only to burst two more in the process. Breathing deeply, evenly, he wrenched the door open and climbed inside as the engine roared to life. He didn’t bother with the seatbelt like Alaric, and instead stared straight ahead, his entire body quivering as he tried to ignore the agony coursing through him. “What about K-Kingsley? He’s been gunning for Thompson’s post for,” he swallowed hard, eyes clenched briefly, “years.”

“Yeah, I’ll put a recommendation in. Kingsley’s just a real boring old sod, you know? Dresses like it’s still 1896, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile,” Alaric muttered, and the SUV jerked backward when he slammed his foot on the gas. Hightailing it down the vacant alley in reverse, he handled the enormous vehicle with an impressive amount of finesse.

“Yeah, b-because Thompson was such a hoot,” Severus fired back, his smile dropping as soon as he saw that fire exit door burst open again. Before he could catch a glimpse of the creature responsible, Alaric slammed on the brakes, kicked the SUV into drive, and made a sharp turn into an alley between two buildings that would take them onto the street. He lost the passenger-side mirror for his effort, and Severus watched the rearview until they were back on Flemming Street—expecting to see an assailant at their heels. Nothing.

Instead, they were greeted by the wail of sirens and the stunning flash of red and blue lights; fire, ambulance, and police vehicles were already hurtling down the street toward the scene, the boutique on fire and glass everywhere. Alaric pulled over to let the brigade pass.

“What a mess,” he said with a shake of his head. Both he and Severus turned back to watch the rescue efforts unfold through the SUV’s tinted back window.

“They got here fast,” Severus noted thickly. While demons paid off their fair share of human officials, he figured angels had their hands in many of the do-gooders’ pockets too. Fire and ambulance were a given, though he had always thought the police force could go either way. “Probably tipped off that they’d be needed for cleanup.”

“Gotta look like an accident,” Alaric agreed as he slowly rejoined the stagnant flow of traffic. Across the street from the boutique, a crowd had already started to gather, many with their phones out to film the aftermath. “Do you think anyone survived?”

“Not at the auction. I know there are human apartments above. They’ll be untouched…by the angels, anyway. The fire is a different story.”

Fire wasn’t supernatural. The angel responsible for that light wouldn’t do much to stop it—hence the call to the fire department. Additional emergency response teams raced by them on their way back to the Inferno, but when Alaric bypassed the nightclub completely, Severus nodded in its general direction with a grimace.

“Don’t you want your car?”

“I’ll drop you off first,” his friend insisted, making a U-turn on the relatively empty street and parking in front of their building. “I’m sure Moira’s annoyed that we’re not back yet. Start the movie without me. I need to tell Father what happened tonight.”

In no mood to argue, Severus offered a curt nod before all but falling out of the vehicle. As he was closing the door, Alaric’s phone went off, its ringtone muffled once the door shut.

Severus wasn’t sure what prompted him to check his phone. The inner demon was eager to get back indoors, desperate to rub up against Moira so she could coddle him through his injuries. The redness in his skin had already started to fade, but the blisters still screamed as he retrieved his phone. Service at last—and a voicemail from Moira.

Severus stared down at the screen for a moment, his physical aches fading to background noise—anxiety swiftly taking their place. He tapped his knuckles on the window as he dialed into his inbox, motioning for Alaric to wait a moment, then brought the phone to his ear.

“One new message, I know, I know,” he hissed at the automated voice recording. He never had messages. No one but Alaric ever communicated with his personal phone—work phone was a different story, of course. As he tapped around to open the first unheard message, his concern spiked, a flood of adrenaline pounding through his limbs—and only made worse by Moira’s message.

“Hi. So. It’s me. Don’t be mad, but I’m on campus because I needed to drop off these essays with my prof. So far, so good. No black-eyed creatures following me—”

“Fucking woman,” Severus growled, throwing himself at the front door. He called for her as soon as he got inside—but first addressed the smoking tenderloin in the oven. He yanked it out without oven mitts, hands fried enough that he didn’t care about the additional burns, and then raced through the building, shouting her name.

By the time he reached his floor, he sounded frantic even to his own ears. “Fuck.”

The building was empty. Not a pretty little hybrid in sight. Severus slammed his fist against his bathroom mirror, hissing as the shattered bits sliced into his hand. The pain didn’t matter—and it couldn’t compare to the anger the inner demon expelled, burning him from the inside out.

He had to find her. Nowhere in Farrow’s Hollow was safe for her—hadn’t he drilled that into her thick fucking skull enough this week?!

How had she managed to get out? He’d asked Cordelia to enchant the front door before she went to Hell last week, and his cousin provided a talisman to lock it completely from the outside whenever he needed.

It didn’t matter. Moira was out there. She was vulnerable.

Severus needed to find her—immediately.

He hurled himself down the stairs, tripping on each landing before thundering out the front door. He’d been moving so fast that he ended up slamming into the SUV while reaching for the door, which then pushed the whole vehicle off-balance, tipping it onto the two wheels on Alaric’s side. His friend scrambled for the wheel, dropping his phone in the process, and stared wide-eyed as Severus flung himself into the passenger seat.

“Campus,” he growled, pounding the dashboard with bloodied, pus-ridden hands, nearly all his blisters torn open. “She went to campus.”

The tires screeched as Alaric raced away from the curb, narrowly missing one of those ridiculous two-seater smart cars in the process. The driver slammed on the brakes and the horn, and Severus glared back with black eyes, his lips lifted into a snarl.

“We’ll find her,” Alaric said, sounding uncharacteristically tense as he ran the nearest red light. “I’m sure she’s fine.”

“Just drive.”

He hadn’t the patience to be nice about it—to hide the inner beast, which had fled its cage at the first whiff of her missing. Because with his history of having the shittiest luck on both worldly planes, Severus had a gut-wrenching feeling that his pretty little hybrid was already dead.

Or worse yet—taken.