Tavin shucked his clothing for the second time that night in a secluded corner where two buildings formed an alcove. It was actually edging toward morning, but the telltale gray lining the eastern horizon was nowhere in sight.

Sorcha had been beyond furious at being banned from accompanying him, but the only way he saw a reconnaissance working was to get in—and out—as fast as possible. Two mages dripping magic would make them targets since their power would bleed through any warding.

Particularly hers. Blood called to blood. It didn’t matter if the portal had been constructed by demons or witches. Both would recognize Sorcha.

He had no idea what he’d find beyond the boundary, but it was constructed and maintained by dark power, which meant some kind of early warning system had to be built into its weave.

“Can you hear me?” He tested telepathic communication with the raven.

It squawked. He took it as a yes. He already knew he could hear it. Sorcha’s bird flew ahead as he summoned his falcon and shifted. Airborne, he winged after the raven. Two birds of prey on the hunt.

Except falcons and ravens didn’t normally socialize.

Maybe demons didn’t know that. They paid less than no attention to the natural world. If witches had constructed the gateway, though, they’d discern the oddity immediately. The raven crossed the liminal border and immediately vanished from sight, a clue if ever there was one that a different world lay on the far side.

He flew after it. The moment he cleared the threshold—constructed of burning logs with some magical way of renewing themselves—the air grew dense with the scents of brimstone and ozone—and rot. The raven was waiting for him, flying in circles. He didn’t blame it for not wanting to land.

Beneath him, the ground ran with something that looked like molten copper, except it stank of evil. Heat rose from it in nauseating waves. No reason to stop here. Once they determined whether the passage linked to a borderworld, a witch’s den, or Hell itself, they’d leave.

Did a way exist to obliterate the threshold—and this tunnel? Maybe if enough Druids gathered, and they threw the combined weight of their magic at the problem, they’d come up with a way to destroy the gateway.

That left the chore of finding other portals, assuming this wasn’t the only one. It wouldn’t make much of a dent in whoever had created them, but at least losing their entry points to Earth would slow them down.

The raven vanished around a bend but reappeared almost immediately. It flew high, its black plumage blending in with murky shadows. Tavin joined it and understood the familiar was hunting for a spot to land where it wouldn’t be visible. Not many options. The floor was out of the question. The liquid metal—oily smoke rising from its smooth surface—would burn them to a cinder. Or at least him. He wasn’t at all certain what impact fire would have on the raven. The smooth, glassy, rounded walls of the tunnel had been carved from the ether between worlds. That any air existed was unexpected, except everything living needed to breathe.

Wouldn’t have made sense to construct a passageway no one could use.

He wanted to ask the raven what it had found, but maybe even the small amount of magic he’d have to summon for telepathy wasn’t a good idea. The raven wouldn’t have returned if it hadn’t run into danger. Hoping it would intuit what he was about, Tavin stayed high, lost in the dim recesses at the top of the passageway. It was harder to breathe up here, but he didn’t plan to stay long.

He flew slowly around the bend. His bright feathers were much harder to hide than the raven’s, but usually no one spent a whole lot of time looking up. Two demons sprawled on planks jutting from the sides of the tunnel. A third floated above the ever-moving river that created the floor.

From horned heads to forked tails and reddish scales, they could have been poster boys for Demon Central.

“Damn your lazy hides.” Demon three shook a fist at the other two.

“Take a load off, Iz,” one of the other ones yelled. “No one’s here. By Beelzebub’s balls, use what few brains you have. No one could walk in here. We’d hear the fuckers screaming.”

“Yeah,” the other demon chimed in. “Besides, we’re mainly here to make certain no one leaves. Humans may be a bunch of dumb asses, but they’re not so stupid, they’d waltz through the portal. Pfft. This is a total shit assignment. Waste of time. We’re done in a few turns of the glass. Do not make waves.”

“Fine, be that way.” Demon three floated to a third plank and sat heavily. “I don’t like it here any better than you.”

“If we sound an alarm,” the first demon pointed out, “Satan and a few of the princes will be on us like stink on shit. We’ll be lucky to ever see Hell again.”

“You know how it goes.” Demon two snickered. “You boys did such a great job, you get to stay.”

Tavin had heard enough. He made the tightest circle he could and flew toward where he’d left the raven.

“Awk! There is something there,” one of the demons, probably the third one, shouted.

“Stuff it,” another yelled, followed by the sound of a closed fist hitting flesh.

Tavin scuttled around the ninety-degree bend that hid them from easy view. Breath puffed through his beak in little panting gasps. Part of it was the thick, hard-to-breathe air, but a bigger part was fear. The trio of demons hadn’t spelled out what they’d do to intruders. They didn’t have to. Anyone they caught was dead meat, best-case scenario. Worst case, they’d be passed up the line to one of Satan’s princes, someone who’d made torture into a fine art.

The raven had located a spike sticking out of the smooth walls and curved its talons around it. Tavin flew close and jerked his head toward the exit. The raven launched off its perch, and both birds headed for the gateway. They flew and flew and flew. He was certain they were headed the right way. The bend in the passageway lay behind them, and there weren’t any side corridors.

Finally, he risked telepathy. “We should be out.”

Instead of answering, the raven asked, “Can you teleport in bird form?”

“Nay.”

The raven fanned its wings, slowing its forward momentum. Something was up. Tavin slowed and paced it. “Keep moving,” he urged. “Whatever this is, we’ll fly through it.”

“If we could have, we’d be back on Earth,” the raven argued. With no warning, it turned and flew back the way they’d come, moving fast.

“Stop,” Tavin called after its retreating form. “Evil has you in its grip. Come back. Only death lies that way.”

Tavin treaded air, uncertain. Should he follow the raven? Had Sorcha’s familiar fallen prey to an insidious message? One Tavin hadn’t heard.

The raven winged back toward him. Thanks be to the goddess the bird had come to its senses—or broken free of the wicked enchantment that had snared it. Tavin batted air with one wing so he’d be headed the proper direction, but the raven flew in front of him, blocking his path.

“What are you doing?” Tavin demanded, ready to engage in aerial combat if the raven had turned from friend to foe. He didn’t know Sorcha well, or at all, really. She could be a spy as easily as anything else.

Aye, but a spy from where? She was telling the truth when she said she’d been on the run forever…

“Sorcha is below,” the raven said, breaking into Tavin’s troubled musings.

“What? It’s not possible. I told her—”

The raven screeched laughter into Tavin’s mind. “She’s her own person. Hurry. She’s heading right toward the demons. I’ll put her in danger if I employ telepathy.”

“You’re using it with me.”

“She’s far nearer the demons. Come on.”

Tavin pushed his misgivings aside, wheeled, and flew back the way they’d come. At least he thought it was the way they’d come. Something deucedly odd had happened since they’d crossed beyond the liminal space. Another Black Magic booby trap, no doubt. One of the demons had been clear their primary job was to ensure none of Hell’s denizens used the gateway to exit Satan’s realm.

He and the raven had obviously been snared by illusion, except it was a hell of a powerful one since no matter how far they’d flown nothing changed, and they hadn’t been any closer to leaving the tunnel.

Sorcha.

Damn the woman. Now all three of them would be lost in this infernal passageway. If he could locate a place to stand, he could shift. Once he was human, he could teleport. Maybe. He hadn’t had any trouble hanging onto his bird form, but who knew how well the rest of his magic would work in here?

The raven flew lower, circling a blank place.

Tavin wanted to probe it with his magic, but it was a very bad idea. That one demon was certain he’d latched onto something that shouldn’t be in here. Another might have slugged him, but it wouldn’t make him less vigilant—or less surly.

The raven stopped flying, looking as if it were suspended midair, and then it vanished entirely. Tavin experimented. He extended his talons in the same spot the raven had been. Damn if he didn’t connect with something solid. Sorcha swathed in warding and crouched in the hot metal river. How in the hell had she managed it? Her feet should have melted by now, leaving her screaming in agony.

When he looked closer, he noticed the molten copper river split a foot in front of her and flowed around where she knelt. Neat trick. He’d have to discover how she managed it.

They were too close to the demons to risk telepathy. The raven had been spot on about that assessment.

Sorcha stood, careful not to jostle him, and did a 180-degree about face. He wanted to tell her not to bother. That she only thought it was the way out. She kept up a good pace with him on her shoulder and the raven out of sight. Perhaps it had joined with her in whatever mysterious way witch familiars possessed.

Heat from the hot metal rose, surrounding them, but Sorcha didn’t miss a beat. The island of solid material beneath her feet stuck with her. A brilliant red flare flashed to her left. Another to her right after a few steps. The lights were brief but easy to follow.

Tavin would have whistled if he’d been human. The damned woman had known about the illusion and created a trail to follow, one that would allow her to leave the passageway.

He felt cowed—and stupid. He’d flown through the liminal boundary big as you please without so much as a backward glance. If he’d stopped long enough to glance over one shoulder, he’d have understood.

Aye and taken pains to plant my own series of markers.

The trail she’d laid might defeat the illusion that the tunnel was endless. A big part of wielding magic was believing in results, and she’d had enough confidence in her strategy to venture deep into the passageway.

He wasn’t too worried about demons following them. The one, maybe, but the other two were lazy bastards. All they wanted was to return home. Apparently, some wicked creatures actually liked Hell.

Why shouldn’t they? ’Tis the only home they know.

Courtesy of Sorcha’s trail, the exit was precisely where he thought it should be. They walked out into pouring rain and a gray, gloomy day. After the heat and stench of the tunnel, he welcomed water sluicing the reek from his feathers. He didn’t know whether to rebuke Sorcha for not following instructions or thank her for a timely rescue.

He could have used telepathy but didn’t. Maybe by the time he shifted and dressed, he’d come up with a middle-of-the-road path that accomplished both objectives.

She stopped next to where he’d left his garments and loosed her invisibility spell. “There you go,” she said far too cheerfully. The raven was perched on her shoulder.

Sorcha held one of his favorite blades, its sharp edge coated with her blood. So that was how she’d managed to leave a track. It was brilliant. No one would notice demon blood in the middle of a demons’ haven.

The raven cawed. It might have been agreement or something more complex. Like a warning not to take its mistress to task.

Tavin flew into the alcove where he’d left his clothes, his mind busy. He’d originally planned a leisurely journey through northern Scotland, but finding the portal put a whole new spin on things.

Added an urgency that hadn’t existed before.

He had to let Arlen and the others know. Together, they’d have enough power to blow this particular gateway to bloody bits and pieces. With the additional manpower, they’d split up and search for more of these abysmal creations. It might put a crimp on Arlen’s prioritizing of Rhea Roskelly, but it couldn’t be helped. The old witch probably knew about the portals, given what he’d heard about her riding dragonspawn and loosing demons to terrorize the Druids.

She’d like as not forged an unholy alliance with demonkind to bring some of them across the psychic veil. Satan would buy into an idea like that whole hog since he rarely got juicy invitations to wreak havoc.

Tavin narrowed his eyes in thought as he zipped into his jacket, deploying the hood to keep from getting even wetter than he already was. If he were correct and Rhea was using the demons’ portal system, perhaps they’d run across her.

He rather liked the idea.

Chance meetings were every bit as useful as planned ones. No matter which, they’d be prepared to deal out maximum damage. He hesitated before stepping out of the protected nook between buildings. Should he pretend all was well—after he complimented Sorcha for having the foresight to leave a blood trail on the far side of the liminal border.

Tavin inhaled sharply; avoidance was the wrong approach. When too much bad water flowed under any bridge, trust dribbled away along with it. He and Sorcha would have to have words about what had happened. He felt like an ass because if she hadn’t gone off on her own—ignoring his directive—he’d still be demon-meat. The raven could have left anytime. It’s query about whether he could teleport suggested it wouldn’t have had any difficulty casting a spell to draw it beyond harm’s reach.

That it chose to remain with him when it didn’t have to spoke to its character. He strode to where Sorcha waited with a fold from her tunic draped over her bright hair. She was wet, probably down to skin level.

“You look cold,” he murmured.

“Yeah, but it’s a good contrast to where we were. Ready?” Her usually forthright gaze scuttled away.

“Aye. We need to talk, but we can wait until we’re inside the Renault. Where’s your bird?”

“Within. It’s not overly fond of getting drenched.”

“Convenient.” He started up a steeply canted cobblestone street for where he’d parked the car.

She made a snorting sound. “For the raven. Not for me.”

“How’d you come by him—er, it?” Tavin was curious, and he knew less than nothing about witches and their familiars.

“It’s the oddest thing.” She lowered her voice. “Once I escaped Hell, it was just there, waiting. It told me it had waited for me for a long time. When I asked what it meant, it said it would explain, except it never did beyond a basic primer on witches and their familiars.” She paused for a moment, maybe gathering her thoughts. “I never pressed it for exactly how it knew where to find me. The first few years were rough. I had bigger things to worry about.”

Tavin had questions, lots of them, but they’d keep. He didn’t want to divert their attention away from the gateway. It superseded his interest about witches and their familiars.

They passed several knots of passersby moving with purpose. He deployed a few experimental threads of magic, but the others were human through and through. He thought he’d aim for a positive note and asked, “Not that it wasn’t a brilliant move, but how’d you know to leave a blood trail?”

“Purely accidental. It felt weird enough the first time I walked beneath the fire, I turned around to look at the entrance from the other side. It’s an old trick I learned when I was on the run from…various things. Good to know what the route back looks like. It’s usually quite different from what lies ahead.”

He offered her points for intelligence. Before he hadn’t looked much deeper than her thick, curly hair, enticing curves, lush lips, and aquamarine gaze. He rolled his mental eyes. What kind of an idiot judged a woman—or anyone—solely on their appearance?

Several excuses jumped to the fore, like he’d spent most of the past few decades with horses, but it didn’t excuse him.

“So you turned around and—?” he prodded.

She licked rainwater off her lips. “As you’ve probably guessed, the portal had vanished. I couldn’t have been more than a meter from it, but it wasn’t there. I’ll admit it scared me, so I hurried back the way I’d come. I couldn’t go all that fast since I was stuck with the speed of the island I’d constructed to keep me out of the molten metal, but my three steps inside turned to more than twenty to leave.”

“But you did escape?” At her nod, he went on. “I’m impressed by your bravery, lass. Not many would have had the will to go back inside.”

“I didn’t. Not right away.” She rolled her eyes. “I waited like a good soldier. I suppose I was still nurturing the idea I could head for the car the minute you poked your beak out, and you wouldn’t be the wiser I’d broken our pact.”

“Except I never showed up. Did you try to reach your bird?”

Sorcha shook her head. “I had no idea what the two of you had gotten yourselves into, but I was afraid any magic might make things worse. Finally, I couldn’t wait any longer. I’d been hanging onto the blade the entire time. It slipped, and I cut myself. Watching my blood turn to steam gave me the idea it would work to mark my way once I was back inside.”

Sorcha withdrew his key fob and unlocked the car. She dropped the blade behind the front seat before sliding into the passenger side. He came around to the right and jumped in. Water sluiced from both of them, leaving puddles on the tattered floor mats.

“Doesn’t come natural to me to apologize,” she mumbled, “but I am sorry. I should never have agreed to remain here since I had no intention of doing so.”

He waited for an “I told you so,” one pointing out she’d saved him from his own stupidity. It never came. The ground they’d covered was good enough. “Takes time to learn to work together,” he said and offered her half a smile. “Mostly, I’ve spent my days with horses—or other birds.”

She chuckled. “I have no excuses. I’ve been a barmaid. Plenty of human contact, but so long as I didn’t pocket any of the money for myself, I got along well enough with the proprietor.”

“How’d you learn Gaelic?”

“It’s one of the few things Mother taught me, but even if she hadn’t, something about my demon half allows me to understand—and speak—most languages with little difficulty.”

“I’m jealous.”

“Don’t be. Not much is worth enough to sacrifice years growing up in Satan’s realm.”

He twisted, snapped up an old towel from the back of the car, and began wiping steam from the windows.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked.

Tavin shook his head. “I was. Fit to be tied, but I’m over it. ’Tisn’t wise to stand on ceremony after someone saves your life.”

“Awww. You’d have found a way out of there.”

“Your bird wasn’t convinced of that. It stuck with me, though. I needed something to stand on, so I could shift. I have to be human to teleport.”

“Have you tried it while you’re a falcon?”

“Aye. ’Tis how I know it doesn’t work.”

“Regardless, it all came together. We’re both still here and none the worse for wear. What happens next?” She was turned to face him, her unusual gaze trained right on him. The wet tunic clung to the curves of her breasts, and water beaded through her hair and across her face.

He didn’t realize he’d reached across, smoothed damp strands of hair off her face, until the touch of her skin beneath his fingertips sent jolts of desire racing through him.

“Aye, lassie. Did ye bewitch me?”

Sorcha shook her head right before turning her face up at just the proper angle for a kiss. He couldn’t have resisted if he’d tried, but he didn’t try very hard. It was awkward with the console between them, but he settled his mouth on hers. Soft, sweet, tentative.

She tasted of summers and every unfulfilled wish he’d ever had as she kissed him back, opening her mouth to his tongue. Leaning closer, she wove her fingers into his hair, threading them between his braids. The kiss deepened as they licked, bit, and sucked. He loved the way her mouth moved beneath his, all fire and heat and softness.

She pulled away, regarding him with an unreadable expression. “I am sorry. It wasn’t respectful to agree and then welch. Even if it ended well, the way it happened wasn’t right.”

“Ye doona have to apologize.” He’d switched to Gaelic. “We’re square with one another.”

Her mouth twitched into a grin, and she scooped the towel out of his lap and swiped it over the newly steamy windows. “Good because I liked kissing you, and I hope it happens again.”

A laugh bubbled from him, followed by another. “I liked kissing you too. We need to get moving, but we should try one more sample before we leave.”

Sorcha chuckled. “To make certain it wasn’t a fluke?”

“Something like that.” He pried the rag out of her hands, wrapped his arms around her, and closed his mouth over hers.

Nothing soft or tentative this time. Heat raced along his nerves. Years had passed since he’d held a woman close. Her scent, vanilla and herbs with musky undertones eddied around them. His long-neglected cock thickened, rising in a column against his belly. For once, he didn’t ride herd on it.

They needed to let Arlen and the Druids know about the gateway, so they could be on the lookout for others like it, but a few minutes one way or the other wouldn’t matter at all.