Freaking on your boyfriend because he never admitted his demon heritage was important; however, even more important was the giant monster leering at me, his thick lips stretched wide, his teeth, two layers of them, jagged and I’d bet sharp.

Add in Morfeus clapping his hands and saying, “I brought the witch for you to dine on,” didn’t help.

Excuse me. I wasn’t anybody’s snack. I jumped to my feet, meaning to back away from the lake’s edge, in the opposite direction of the swirling whirlpool birthing the demon.

Morfeus darted behind me. A shove propelled me forward, and I whirled to glare at the bane of my existence.

“You are starting to piss me off,” I snapped.

Morfeus spat, “You have been a thorn in my side for weeks now, hearth witch. I look forward your death.”

“I’m not a witch, dammit.” At a time like this, I wished I’d invested in some kind of super sorceress outfit. I mean, that evil chick in Suicide Squad had it going on with her impressive smoky loincloth dress. All I had was a rather ragged-looking gown that no amount of dry cleaning would fix, and hair that had lost most of its lift and hung drunkenly over my left ear.

The leer on Morfeus’s lips met my fist.

I’m pretty sure I split it, given the blood smearing his mouth. “You filthy witch.”

“Again. I’m not a witch. I’m a sorceress. Which, in case you’re not informed, is better than a wizard.”

Morfeus laughed. “As if someone lowborn and common could aspire to that kind of—”

While I usually loved a good villain speech, I’d had quite enough of this pompous asshat. I grabbed Morfeus in a magical fist and lifted him.

He stopped what he was saying, and his eyes widened. “Put me down!”

“Me?” I batted my lashes, trying to ignore the fact that one still had the false webs and the other one didn’t. “How can it be me? You said I had no real magic.” I waggled him up and down, and he screamed—which was quite satisfying.

Lightning continued to crackle, and I tried to keep an eye on the water, the swirling hole having enlarged, almost reaching the lake’s edge. At least the monster seemed unable to yank his giant body out, but he was trying, pulling himself hand over hand, gripping the liquid as if it were solid.

“Release me!” yodeled Morfeus, his pale complexion quite red.

“Are you sure?” I smiled. “If you say so.” I tossed him. Let him completely go and watched as he sailed in an arc and hit the water.

The current immediately caught him and drew him toward the eye of the vortex.

Morfeus wouldn’t be calling me a witch anymore. I might have felt bad but…nah. The guy got what he deserved.

I turned to face Alistair. “You!” I jabbed a finger at him. “You lied to me. You said you weren’t a demon.”

“I’m not. Mostly. I don’t turn into anything, if that’s what you’re asking. My blood is purer than most.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t have time to explain right now.”

“Try,” I snapped.

“My family is one of the originals banished. Given our powers and even our appearance are affected by intermixed couplings, they were very careful to not mix our blood to the point where we lost our roots.”

“Why were you banished?”

“My people were bad, and that was their punishment.”

“Why are you here? Are you part of this plot to invade and take over bodies?”

He shook his head. “Not anymore.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not the person I was when I first got here. I don’t want what the legion does.”

“What do you want then?” I asked as the wind tugged at my dress.

“Do we really have to discuss this now?” he asked, flicking a glance over my shoulder.

“Don’t try to avoid the issue. Don’t think I don’t see what you were doing. You befriended me so you could get me to the ball and feed me to that!” I jabbed a finger behind me.

“No, I befriended you because you were connected to the case. I fell for you after that.”

Alistair had fallen for me? “So you don’t want the demon to eat me?” A hopeful flutter thumped inside my chest.

“Of course I don’t. You’re mine, Willow.”

Good grief, those were some sexy words. I batted my one thick lash and must have failed miserably at flirting because Alistair didn’t even smile.

“The colossus is almost out of the hole. Get behind me,” Alistair commanded.

Cute. “I don’t need you to protect me.”

“Protect you?” He snorted. “Perish the thought. I don’t like the way he’s ogling you.” Alistair scowled.

Sure enough, the monster leered at me. Not sexually, I might add, more in an I-want-to-crunch-her-into-little-bits stare.

“Don’t you even think about it,” I snapped. “I’m busy having a conversation with my boyfriend.”

Alistair snorted. “You do realize he doesn’t care.”

Obviously not, because the oversized demon hissed at me.

“Don’t you sass me.” I pulled at the power pulsing in the air all around and lobbed magic at it. A great big ball of sizzling power. The damned thing opened his mouth and swallowed it. Kind of demoralizing.

The giant demon—possibly the granddaddy of demons—was halfway out of the swirling morass and bulging in places that shouldn’t bulge. He seemed bigger now. His reach had definitely gotten longer.

I lobbed another ball of magic at him. The demon caught it mid-air and popped it into his mouth.

Alistair yelled, “Stop feeding him.”

Um, good plan given the demon had just bumped up a size. His arms, especially, got longer, the fingers swishing overhead.

I should take Alistair’s advice and get out of there.

Run from the huge menace to this world. The coven didn’t have many codes. Heck, I didn’t have a ton either, but there was one thing I did believe in.

Doing the right thing.

That involved dealing with this monster before he could fully come into our world. The good news? My magic bulk-up of his body had wedged him in the hole.

The bad news?

Giant freaking demon.

“How do we kill it?” I asked, running left to avoid the slap of a hand on the shore. Water sprayed.

“Cut off its head.”

I peeked at the giant head, which required us crossing water, and… I shook a negative. “That ain’t happening. What’s plan B?”

Alistair opened his mouth to reply. I never heard the answer seeing as how I kind of had a problem.

Dodging hands was all well and good, except for the fact that Granddaddy Demon also had a tail. I didn’t expect one to come snaking out of nowhere to curl around me, a tight vise that squeezed the air from my lungs.

The damned thing was strong. It lifted me off the ground, and no amount of kicking could dislodge me from its grip. Despite the futility of it before, I tried magic again. This time, the demon didn’t bother eating it. He let it hit him in the shoulder, where it fizzled on its skin before being absorbed.

He grew.

The big monster cackled, his low rumbled, “More,” very chilling.

Alistair was losing his shit, which was kind of hot. He had out his big sword—the glowing kind, not the one between his legs—and he waved it around, slicing into the monster’s flesh, and I might have been more optimistic about my chances if those wounds didn’t immediately heal over.

Alistair didn’t let that small setback stop him. He swung over and over again. I’d never seen a man more intent on saving me.

Hopefully, it would count as points in his favor when my family found out that Alistair was descended from demons because…guess who was charging down the lawn?

I couldn’t help but mutter, “Stupid, meddling family.” But, sometimes, intrusive could be good.

Mom, wearing the robe she usually kept hidden—one woven of silver unicorn hair that I suddenly coveted because she looked damned impressive—led the charge with an orange kitten clinging to her shoulder.

My dad trotted at Mom’s heels, holding, of all things, a mega-sized wrench—spelled to act kind of like Thor’s hammer.

Then you had my six brothers, their faces more serious than usual, ready to kick the ass of the demon bugging their little sister.

Damn, I loved my crazy family.

A few yards before the water’s edge, they linked hands, a coven of seven, with my dad standing guard, ready to whack anyone, or anything, that tried to disturb them.

I felt compelled to yell, “That thing eats magic to get bigger.”

“Not all magic,” my mom countered. She closed her eyes and pulled. I could almost see the esoteric forces in the area siphoning in her direction, pulling it away, even from the monster, enough that he shrank a bit.

The demon noticed and let out a yell as he slipped a bit into the hole.

The pulling continued, my mother’s voice the drawing spindle that wound magic around it like a fine thread.

Despite the dancing spots in front of my eyes, I watched what my mom was doing. Could see the tendrils of magic spinning out from her spool and weaving into something new as she began to sing, each note dragging and shaping the power in the air, multitasking, pulling magic and shaping it.

But the demon wasn’t about to give in easily. He lifted a hand and something dark shot forth, tangling the skeins of magic. The spool stopped spinning as Mom fought to regain control. She tugged. The demon pulled back, an invisible tug of war that saw my mother straining, even with the aid of my brothers.

They needed help, and Alistair noticed. He joined my family, actually placed his hand inside Oak’s, and damned if he didn’t add his own magical voice to the mix. It added an interesting resonance to the pattern, one that provided a shield to what Mother did. The spool began to spin again, pulling in the threads to weave her other spell.

Yet their combined actions didn’t stop the tail from dangling me over the water, pulling me over the eye of the maelstrom where I got a close-up view of a giant maw filled with teeth. Please let my death be quick. I didn’t want to know what it felt like to be chewed. I closed my eyes because I really didn’t want to see myself digested.

Hope seemed futile. A partial coven of eight, while powerful enough for most things, would not be enough to combat this.

What if that eight were multiplied?

More voices suddenly joined the mix, and the air filled with sound. High and fluting notes, low and timbered. My skin prickled with the intensity of the building magic.

I dared to open my eyes to see people moving down the lawn, arms open wide, joining their voices to my mother’s.

I knew many of those faces, people I’d met over the years, from elves to fairies, even the troll whose bridge I’d helped rid of crack-smoking transients.

All of them using their own skills to pull all the magic they could muster into the spool, feeding my mother’s spell. Helping. Helping me.

It made a witch who wasn’t a witch feel loved.

It made Granddaddy Demon angry, especially because some of the magic they inhaled came from him. He began to lose more of his size. The beast shuddered and bellowed as smoke rose from his bubbling skin. He heaved and strained to get out of the hole, but the whirlpool kept pulling him down. Which meant I was getting yanked.

I dangled over the whirlpool in the middle of the lake. Could look down and see past the eddying current, past the bobbing head of Morfeus at the bottom end of the cone. I could see into Hell itself.

One visit was enough.

The singing on shore faltered as one voice broke off.

“Willow.” Alistair called for me, disrupting the siphon of magic.

As soon as he did, the whole spell wobbled, and the demon found his balance. He began to climb the water again. Freakier, I could still see below him, and another giant figure beginning to rise.

They had to close this hole before we were overrun with giant, hungry demons, but they wouldn’t while I dangled over it.

I did the only thing I could do. I yanked the one pin left in my hair free, sending it tumbling, and stabbed the tail with it. Over and over again. The demon bellowed, but the appendage loosened and dropped me, plummeting me into Hell.

Alistair yelled, “No!”

My family screamed, too.

I closed my eyes, waiting to be digested, only…

Something hit me, grabbed me in furry claws, and jerked as it fought to rise with my weight.

Fur with a hint of spice and milk brushed my face, and I wondered what strange creature caught me. A beast not strong enough to pull us out of the vortex.

“Give it magic, Willow,” someone yelled. I wondered at the odd instruction yet listened, pushing some magic at the thing holding me. The jerking motion evened, and the sucking lessened. The body with me in its grip stopped moving with a hard jolt. Opening my eyes, I first noted the orange chest, the fur on it thick and soft. Then the size of that chest.

It took a few blinks to take in the fact that my itty-bitty kitty was an interesting mix of gargoyle and cat.

Glowing yellow eyes perused me from a face with flatter features, more teeth, and a tuft of orange hair between the ears. Leathery brown wings projected from the back. The torso was covered in fur, even the long tail.

My kitten was a demon…who’d saved me.

“Someone is getting a great big can of tuna to himself,” I said, hugging him. I got a rumbling purr in reply.

Granddaddy Demon roared, and I peeked over Whiskers to see him scrabbling at the whirlpool’s edge.

That was when the spell my mother wove slapped him. It slammed down like a shield, a lid covering a simmering pot.

It crushed the demon’s fingers, bonked him on the head, and he couldn’t hold on. The monster lost his grip and fell. The spell shield kept pushing down, filling in the hole, causing the whirlpool to wobble, the spinning becoming uneven.

The chanting and the magic didn’t stop there. It kept building, stronger and stronger overhead, tugging at the forces causing the rift, using the rip’s own power against it. I saw crackling light snapping from the hole. Electrical currents and winds buffeting the air around.

Strong arms scooped me from behind. “We need to move away, now.”

Alistair took off running, but I knew we’d never make it far enough.

Someone screamed, “Take cover.” Since there was nothing in sight, I improvised and spun a shield, one big enough for two people and a, once again tiny, kitten.

The world exploded. At least that was what it felt like. The ground vibrated. My teeth chattered. Whiskers yowled as lake water rained all around us, and Alistair hugged me tightly.

Kept holding me even when the ground stopped trembling and cheering erupted. We’d won the evening.

We’d shut the hole to Hell.

And I was being hugged by a demon.

A demon who’d tried to save me at the cost of himself.

A demon my family was advancing on, hands raised in possible violence.

I pushed out of Alistair’s arms and popped to my feet to stand in front of him, hands on my hips. “Don’t you even think of touching him.”

Oak didn’t take his glare off Alistair. “He’s one of them. I felt it in the circle.”

“He’s nothing like those other demons,” I protested.

“He’s not human.”

“He doesn’t have a tail,” I supplied, trying to be helpful.

“No tail, no horns, and yet he’s right. I am not human,” Alistair supplied. “I am from that place you’ve been calling Hell, brought over a few years ago by my aunt who was one of the first to discover a rift back when they were rare. We thought her lost until she returned after a few decades.”

“This has been happening for decades?”

“The worlds have been aligning slowly, the holes rare until now. It’s why you’ve seen so few incursions until recently.”

“But she managed to go back and find you.” I still tried to understand.

“My aunt returned to find allies. She brought me and a few others over to help stem the invasion.”

“Brought over!” her brother interrupted. “You’re a demon, unable to live in our world, which means you killed someone to stay. Took over their body.”

“Actually, this is my form. I managed to complete the ritual required to walk this plane.”

“Because you sucked some witches dry,” Rowan snapped.

“I did.” Alistair did not deny it, nor did he sound apologetic. “Blood, a lot of it, is needed to transform us enough to be able to walk the Earth.”

“Like a vampire,” I interjected. “And I don’t see anyone lining up to kill them all.”

“They’re not trying to take over the world,” Ash argued. “We should kill him and her hell-spawn kitten, too.”

Whoa, now they were just getting silly. I crossed my arms. “No one is killing Alistair or my cat. In case you hadn’t noticed, they both saved my life.”

“They’re demons.”

“They’re mine”—I wagged a finger—“and I love them, so if you want to see them dead, you’ll have to go through me.” I narrowed my gaze and balled my fingers into fists.

For a moment, my oldest brother held my gaze, and then he smirked and held out his hand. “Told you she was in love with the wanker. Cough it up.”

Only as money exchanged hands did I realize they’d fucked with me. “Does this mean you’re not going to kill him?”

“We don’t kill allies,” Banyan said with a snort. “But we will expect him to spill everything he knows.”

Manipulated by my family. I glared at my mother. “Aren’t you going to do something about this?”

She clapped her hands. “Indeed, I shall. I’ll get started on the wedding menu right away.”

“Wedding?” I repeated.

“Daddy will take care of the limo for you, or would you prefer something more old-school like a carriage with horses?” she said, tapping her chin. “I’m owed a few favors. We might be able to get some with wings.”

“What wedding?” I yelled. “A second ago, these idiots were talking about killing Alistair.”

“You know we were just teasing,” Rowan interjected. “Just making sure he has good intentions toward you.”

“Which is why he’s going to marry you,” Sylvan added. “Or else.” A fist met a palm with a meaty smack.

“Better wed you soon or there will be an issue with him defiling our little sister.” More glares all around aimed at Alistair.

“What they all said.” Father tapped his wrench against his thigh for emphasis.

A sigh escaped me. “Stop it. All of you. This is so embarrassing. My love life is none of your business.”

“Marry me.” The words came from Alistair, and I whirled to see him looking amused.

I scowled. “You’re only asking because my brothers want to murder you.”

“No, I am asking because I find myself in love with you and determined to make you mine.”

I might have thrown myself at him. I certainly gave my brothers, who thought it funny to make gagging noises as I kissed my fiancé, the finger.

My fiancé.

Eek.

I was going to be a bride—which, of course, sent Kal over the moon with dress shopping plans, and my mother made the mother of all Costco runs for supplies.

But that was later. First came the interrogation.