Drio deposited our oshk bait on a stump in the woods behind our back fence–outside the wards. Her body was wrapped in iron chains, not that she was in any condition to portal or fight back. Her sores hadn’t healed on her human torso, and her oshk skin had turned the color of rust. She was vibrating, emitting a sound like sizzling butter, and she smelled like mold.

The three of us were back in full protective gear from head-to-toe. Drio gripped one of the iron poles with the curved blade that he and Ro had been fighting with in the Vault, while Rohan had three canisters of liquid nitrogen, modified with spray nozzles. He’d volunteered for the position, saying that with Drio’s flash stepping and my magic wielding from a distance, we were better equipped to deal with the direct attack. For Ro to take this support position was huge. He’d always been ready to sacrifice himself for the people he cared about–like me on more than one occasion–which wasn’t healthy.

I was proud of him recognizing that fact and desperate to know if him not wanting to throw his life away in a fight he didn’t need to have was tied into our future at all, but he was sticking close to Drio. I could have pushed the point but things were so strained between us that any conversation was likely to explode into ugly truths and put the mission at risk.

I kept telling myself that was the reason, anyway.

Drio kicked the oshk. “Call the rest of your spawn squad.”

A laugh burst out of me, dying at the look of malevolence he fired my way. Situation normal all fucked up. I wouldn’t forget again.

I squatted down on the ground, scratching at a gnarled tree root through my gloves, not bothering to check for any support from Ro. Other than a quick glance when I’d first arrived, after which he’d pulled his mask down, my boyfriend hadn’t bothered with me. Though he might not be that anymore so… I snapped the root in half and kicked it aside.

A faraway truck backed up, its beeping drifting in on the breeze and a neighbor had left their dog outside barking, but no matryoshka.

The sun rose high in the sky. We’d pulled off our head gear and unzipped our suits, moving from shadow to shadow to stay cool. Waiting for the rest of the matryoshka to show was tense enough, couple it with the fact that the men barely acknowledged my existence the entire time, and I was ready to snap harder than that tree root.

The oshk’s torso became brutally sunburned, and still the other matryoshka didn’t show.

“This is bullshit.” Rohan drove the curved blade that Drio had tossed on the ground through the oshk’s heart. The demon disappeared, her chains slithering off the stump into the dirt with a rattle.

“Way to make a unilateral decision there, Ro.” Drio scuffed one foot back and forth in the dirt.

The forest stilled like a sound-dampening blanket had been tossed over it. The air shimmered and the remaining six oshk appeared.

We scrambled to suit up.

Drio grabbed the weapon and fist-bumped Rohan.

“Go forth and fucking conquer,” Ro said.

I wasn’t included in the rallying cheer.

With my own war cry, I bombed the shit out of the matryoshka, keeping them disoriented enough for Drio to slice and dice them open for one of us to reach their heart kill spot.

The ground became littered with oshk parts. Ro doused each one with liquid nitrogen, stomping it to dust beneath his feet so that it couldn’t reattach to the demons. The liquid nitrogen swirled around him like an eerie cloak.

Drio and I had whittled a couple of the oshk down enough that one more well-placed strike would open them up, but the two melded with each other, resulting in instant regeneration, before separating once more hale and hearty.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” I snarled.

The battle raged on, trampling saplings, overturning mounds of dirt, exposing startled spiders that skittered away, and decimating one long ant formation. Not only were we starting from scratch with the two regenerated demons, but we had to keep them all away from each other so that regeneration couldn’t happen again.

The outsides of our suits dripped from their secretions, eating away at the protective material. By the time we killed two more of them, I was slick with sweat, my limbs jerky from the magic I was expending.

That left four against three and we were tiring. The oshk weren’t.

The left-legged oshk drove me backward. For every hit of my magic on her skin, my suit took an equal blast of her secretion. Cool air blew across my thigh. I glanced down to see the tear in my suit, missed my footing and tripped over a fat fallen tree branch, falling on my ass.

The oshk glided toward me, wound some blobbiness around my leg like an evil Barbapapa and pulled me toward her now-grotesquely distorted mouth. I dragged my gloves along the ground, scrabbling for a hold on anything, magic flying off my body.

The oshk ducked and wove, avoiding my strikes. I went slack, letting her lift me up and position me over her fetid pie-hole, willing myself to remain still, remain calm even as the black hole of her mouth filled more and more of my vision. The demon lowered me, my toes brushing her lips. I held on another second until my foot was now inside her mouth, the hole closing around my ankle, and blasted my current out through my shoe, down her esophagus and into her body. It bounced around inside, lighting her up like a pinball machine before dinging her heart.

She disappeared, dead. I fractured my ankle with the ensuing fall. Better that than my nose.

Rohan and Drio weren’t faring much better. The last three oshks had forced them back-to-back and were taking their time circling in for the kill.

The demons flowed together to form a huge misshapen woman with a human head, a right leg, a left arm, and a whole lotta blob.

Drio fired his pole, impaling her in the heart but the iron weapon didn’t even stop her. She shook herself and expelled the pole without breaking her stride.

Drio grabbed Ro and flashed out.

Finding them gone, the huge oshk turned her gaze on me.

I scrambled back in the dirt using my one good foot, my magic tapped out. I let her come for me, trusting that while the guys were mad at me, and my relationship had been ground into dust, that at least for this mission, they had my back.

The oshk loomed over me, blotting out the sun.

Drio and Rohan appeared behind her. Drio swung, decapitating her human head with a meaty thwack.

The oshk fell apart into three separate entities and in the split second before they could regroup, Ro firehosed them with an entire canister, freezing them on the spot. I blew them up, demon blobs hitting the ground around us like hail.

Drio located each of the larger blobs that was their hearts and drove the iron blade into them. The pieces disappeared, the forest once more tranquil.

I tore off my face mask, unzipped my suit and rolled it down to my waist, exposing my sports bra and letting the breeze cool my fevered skin. My hair clung to my face in dank strands. The men had done the same as me, both equally sweaty and red-faced.

Rohan gave me an inscrutable look before he and Drio left, canisters and the bladed pole tucked under their arms. I sat down on a log, my injured leg stretched out and the fingers of my left hand digging into the rough bark, breathing in the rich dirt, cedar, and pine.

The mission was over for Ro and I, but the question remained: were we?

A hand tangled into my hair, yanking me up off the ground. Malik’s face edged in close to mine. “Where’s Lila?”

I stretched as far as I could for my tiptoes to remain on the ground, scrabbling at his fingers. “I don’t know.”

Malik’s hold tightened. His hair was unkempt like he’d been running his fingers through it, his shirt buttoned incorrectly.

Blood rushed in my ears and my heart threatened to break free of my rib cage. I stared into his glittering eyes and saw death. So I did the only thing I could do: I kneed him in the balls as hard as I could.

Malik gasped a wheeze and dropped me.

Ignoring the red-hot agony blazing up from my injured ankle, I scramble-hopped back inside the door to our warded backyard, tripping safely behind it as Malik lunged.

He bounced off the invisible shield of the ward with a snarl. “Did you kill her?”

“I voided our deal.” Or I carried it out in grand style. I had no idea.

“Things not go as planned? Poor petal.”

My foot throbbed, I was exhausted, and yet, the waves of deadly hostility rolling off him only amped up my own fury. It didn’t matter that I’d gone to Malik to begin with: I wanted to savage him for putting me in Lilith’s path. For facilitating whatever the hell state my relationship was now in. “Get lost, demon.”

The marid nosed right up to the ward line. Only inches separated us. “You’ve got everyone poised to attack each other: your friends, the Brotherhood, witches, demons. There’s a war coming and you better be ready, petal, because I intend to survive it. And when I do?” He raked his fingers through his hair, smoothing it down, and smiled a polished smile. The one the wolf wore for the Three Little Pigs. “I’ll expand your lexicon with the true meaning of the word hurt.”

He portalled out.

I had no doubt that my day of reckoning was coming with him–with all of them–but right now there was only one person whose words meant anything.

I hopped my way into the kitchen and cornered Rohan. “Can we talk?”

He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and jumped up on the counter. “Go nuts.”

I tried, but dissolved into a coughing fit, still not at liberty to voice our deal. I swiped his water bottle, chugging it back, and wiped my mouth. “You go first. Last night.”

I toyed with the cap, a hollow pit opening in my stomach. I didn’t want to hear the details, since she’d probably rocked his world, but I couldn’t not know, either.

He studied me. “You really can’t say anything? Dr. Gelman wasn’t kidding.”

My head jerked up. “Dr. Gelman?”

“Nava, I figured there was something going on the second you restored my magic.”

“Oh.” I grabbed an industrial bottle of extra-strength ibuprophen and dry swallowed two before swiping a pack of frozen peas from the freezer. I sank into a chair, slipped off my shoes, and slapped the bag against my ankle. “I guess you wouldn’t have believed I could heal you.”

“I know you healed me once. I felt it when I was unconscious. It was the same honeyed warmth as when Rivka tried. But the second time? It was a sharp snap, more like an electric shock from all your magic at once. It was too much to believe you suddenly had the power to unravel the magic knot when Rivka didn’t know any witch strong enough.”

“So you called Gelman?”

“I did. She figured out what must have happened. Drio zipped over and picked up what I needed while you were in the shower.”

“Those smudgy candles and the world’s saltiest fish.” Now it made sense.

“We tried to pull Lilith out of you.” He rubbed his neck.

I may not have had the Word of the Day app anymore, but I was pretty solid on my grammar. Tried implied that an attempt had been made. The silence that followed implied it hadn’t gone well. “And?”

“She was too strong. Her hold on you was too deep. The best we could do was trap her unconscious inside you.”

I probed deep inside but I could feel no trace of her. That wasn’t a win. I’d rather have had a handle on her. Nothing. I had a ticking time bomb living in me with no idea what might trigger its explosion. It was terrifying, but it wasn’t the reason for my icy fingers and stuttery breath.

“When?” I mumbled, staring at my feet.

“What?”

I cleared my throat and met his gaze. “When did you knock her out?”

He crossed his arms, his eyes blazing, and his body rigid. “You want to know if I’d already fucked her? If last night I believed I was making love to my girlfriend and it had been like nothing I’d ever experienced? Will it ease your conscience if I enjoyed it?” He leered at me, lowering his face close to mine. “You were the best, baby.”

I slapped him.

The sound lingered over the gurgle of the dishwasher kicking in. Neither of us spoke, the air charged like the seconds before the eruption of a thunderstorm.

He rubbed his cheek. “How could you make that deal?”

Would the frozen peas work on my heart? “How could I not? You’d lost your magic.”

A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I told you before that I didn’t need saving.”

“Really?” I adjusted the bag on my swollen ankle. “I saw you outside after you’d learned the bad news. You were devastated.”

“I’d have dealt.”

“Like you did with Asha?”

“You have no idea–”

“Drio told me.”

“Then how the hell could you betray me?” he said. “Basic concept, right from wrong. Even you understand that.”

Even me. I dug my nails into my palms. “I tried to keep things from playing out. I tried to spell it out with the fridge magnets and break up with you and–”

“And at the end of the day, you made that deal with whatever the fuck Lilith is, involving me, without my consent.” A literal brick wall springing up between us would have been easier to breech than his unyielding stance.

I reached for him, desperate for him to understand, but he stepped back.

Was it me or this thing inside me? I was too scared of his answer to ask.

“After Drio told me about Asha, and you were out there broken,” I said, “I understood wanting to do whatever it took to protect someone I cared about. I’d have done anything to help you. ‘If I have to be an asshole to save you, I’ll do it.’ Your words.”

“‘Then you’ll lose me.’” He jabbed a finger at me. “Your words.”

“Have I lost you?” I could barely croak out the words through the thickness in my throat.

At least with his anger, he’d still felt something toward me. Rohan standing here, hands hanging limply at his sides, his eyes closed, not answering? That was him giving up.

My skin tingled from the strain of holding in my sharp sorrow. It weighed me down in pieces: knotted behind my breastbone, pulsing in my temples, and pooling in my feet. Lilith didn’t rouse to gloat, though.

I pressed my fists to the side of my head. “Where do we go from here?”

“On which part?” He slumped over the counter, his back to me, his head braced in his hands.

“All of it. Is it…” I took a deep breath. “Are we over?”

His phone rang. Rohan glanced at the screen and answered it. “Hey Mom, this isn’t a good–” He straightened up. “What? When? Is he–?”

Concerned, I stood up, hissing when I put my weight on my foot. Ro’s expression softened in sympathy for a second before hardening once more. His gaze flicked away.

“Yeah,” he said on the phone, “I’ll get a flight today. Okay. Bye.”

I placed my hand on his arm and he flinched. My eyes watered. “What happened?”

“Dad had a heart attack.”

I opened my arms without thinking, immediately correcting to wrap them around my chest. If he’d flinched at my touch, I couldn’t take seeing what he’d do at the full body contact of a hug. I dug my fingers deeper into my ribcage, moving to the opposite side of the island to give him space, but no matter how hard I tried to keep myself upright and dignified, my body leaned toward his. “Is he all right?”

“He’s alive, but he’s in the hospital.” He clutched his phone, staring blankly at it. Then he shook himself off and headed for the door. “I need to go home.”

When Rohan had sung me “Slay” he’d proclaimed that I was his home. The loss of status was numbing.

But I had my answer about us.

I pressed my hand against my mouth, but there was nothing I could do about the tears streaming down my cheeks.

He stopped in the doorway, his back still to me. “Nothing happened. With Lilith. I would never…”

“Okay.” I dragged in a shaky breath.

In three strides he was back at my side, kissing my wet lashes. With my eyes closed, I could pretend that his lips on my tears were in comfort, and that the nausea swirling in my stomach was giddy anticipation.

But I couldn’t keep my eyes shut forever, and when I opened them, I was hit full force with the cold vertigo of my splintered heart, his touch and warmth lost to me and the broken look on his face more devastating than all our words.

“This isn’t the end of us,” he said. “Just…”

I sniffled. “A break?”

A coffee break? A bone break? A heartbreak?

He rested his forehead on mine. “A slowing down. We kept saying we wanted each other desperate,” he said. “And as much as it had been a joke, it wasn’t. We can’t do that anymore. Can’t crave each other so much that it’s this all-consuming mess of fucked-up power dynamics and who gets to keep who safe and happy.”

“I know. And the harder we tried, the harder we trampled each other.” The problem hadn’t been making ourselves vulnerable, it had been accepting the times when the other person’s vulnerability was on the line.

I lay my hand on his cheek, wondering when he turned into it, his stubble scratching my palm and his eyes damp, if this would be my last memory of him.

Of us.

Rohan was right. We needed to slow down. I understood that intellectually. Emotionally, I was howling, laying bleeding and gutted on the floor, the ruins of what we’d had strewn around me in shattered disarray.

He stepped back and I mourned the loss of contact. “I’ll call you when I get there.”

I struggled for breath to form the correct, careful platitudes, gripping the counter behind my back to keep myself from going with him. No longer having any right to be his source of comfort. “I hope your dad gets better quickly.”

“Me too.” We held a look that wasn’t so much mutual recrimination as tragic acknowledgment.

Ro half-raised his hand in a wave and I nodded. All this time, I’d been so worried about Rohan and his bad behaviors, but it turned out that the real danger to our relationship had been me all along.

I didn’t watch him walk out the door.

* * *

HAVEN’T READ BOOK ONE YET?

See where it all began: the demons, the explosive chemistry with Rohan, and the questionable welcome she received from the Brotherhood.

Deep breath ... and go.