At his words, cold fear slid through my bones.

From the dark tendrils of magic that snaked and curled around him, his pale eyes pierced the shadows, rooting me in place.

Don’t let him rattle you, Ruby.

I crossed my arms. “Do I run fast for a succubus? I don’t know many, considering men like you killed them all.”

Amusement glinted in his eyes. “Men like me? There are no men like me. I’m a god on Earth.”

Despite my fear, I rolled my eyes. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Have you seen anything that suggests otherwise?”

I examined my nails, hoping to convey boredom, even if my heart was slamming against my ribs like a war hammer. Could he hear it?

“Whether or not you’re a god,” I continued, “I am talking about men like you. You’re all the same, aren’t you? You see something you love, and you want to destroy the very thing that draws you in.”

I leaned down, gingerly plucking a violet corncockle from the undergrowth, careful not to mix it up with the Devil’s Bane. I crushed it in my fist until purple juice ran between my fingers. “You see a virginal woman, and you want to defile her. You see a beautiful woman, and you want to cover her up. You see a powerful woman, and you want to take her down a notch. So yes—I mean ‘men like you.’ I’ve lived for thousands of years, and you’re all the same.”

He cocked his head, the rest of his body so preternaturally still it raised my hackles. Given the shadows whirling in his eyes, I had the sense that I’d struck a nerve again.

“I’ve lived for thousands of years,” he said in a low voice. “And I know when a warrior holds back in a fight. I know better than anyone what it means to restrain your power, to clamp down on your most primal instincts. I know that when the demons attacked, you weren’t fighting at your full capacity. You’ve wanted to appear weak to us, when you are not.”

He didn’t ask why. He just let the accusation hang in the air.

My mind whirled as I tried to plan my next course of action. I wanted to interrogate Adonis about what his plans were, if he’d been to the Tower already, if there was anything I could do to stop it.

Instead, I let out a long sigh. “Well, I wanted to see what you pretty little angels could do, if you could actually fight with all those feathers weighing you down.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “And?”

I shrugged. “And I was impressed.”

He straightened. “Of course you were. I’ve been slaughtering for eons.”

I adopted a breezy tone, while inside, my blood raced through my veins. “Is that what you were doing today, also? Slaughtering? I heard a rumor that you spent time in the bar. Or was that Johnny? I get all of you confused.”

I knew very well he hadn’t been in the bar today.

“Maybe I was killing today. Maybe I was resting. What difference does it make to you?”

My heart clenched. “It’s just that I heard you were getting revenge on the humans, and I thought it sounded delicious.”

The oaky breeze toyed with my hair, blowing it in front of my face. Adonis took another step closer, brushing the strand out of my eyes. “If only I couldn’t hear your frantic heartbeat, I might believe that you’re truly as calm as you pretend.”

His words curled around my ribs like smoke. This close, his powerful beauty hit me like a fist. With Eimmal looming, I couldn’t be near him without wanting to touch him.

Talk about clamping down on your most primal instincts.

Adonis’s gaze flicked to the yew grove. “I’ll leave you now to—whatever you were doing here.”

I swallowed hard. “Just out for a walk.” I’d lost the conviction in my voice.

As he turned and slipped into the darkening forest, shadows whirling around him, I simply stared after him.

* * *

My footsteps crackled over the leaves and twigs. So Adonis was on to me, my cover had been somewhat blown, and yet I had no idea what he planned to do about it.

And what exactly was his interest in the yew grove—the one that happened to have a silver branch, a gift from the Old Gods?

I quickened my pace through the woods, desperately hoping I hadn’t been too late to save those in the Tower.

The sunlight slanted through the branches, flecking the ground with gold. I kept my eye on the trees’ long shadows, which told me how to stay headed north, and how much more time I had. As I walked swiftly, I mentally ran through Yasmin’s instructions to me.

Hellebore and cockle weeds by the mulberry grove.

While the shadows grew longer around me, I spotted them.

No wonder Yasmin had recruited me. Not only was glamour important, but only a fae would know what the hell all these plants were.

I glanced up at the sky through the trees, catching sight of a sentinel flying overhead, eyes on me. The chilly wind whispered over my skin, and I waited for the creature to pass.

When the skies above me were clear of all movement, I summoned a powerful glamour. Magic rushed and buzzed over my skin as I cloaked myself in the form of a fox.

I wasn’t a shifter. When glamoured, I still moved like myself, still had the same speed, same gait, same body. But to anyone who happened to observe me, I’d look like a little red fox. A glamour was like an illusory bubble around me.

Unlike my succubus guise—a subtle shift—this extreme glamour took effort. Already, my muscles burned. On top of the physical strain, remembering how to keep up the appearance of a four-legged creature was taking up most of my mental energy.

Still, I kept walking, moving northward through the forest until, at last, I reached a dark cave, carved into a rocky surface. Pine trees flanked the cave’s mouth, just as Yasmin had said. I ran inside, and under the cover of the cave, I dropped the exhausting fox glamour.

As I did, the sound of a striking match echoed off the cave walls, and a burst of flame illuminated Yasmin’s handsome features. She’d dressed in simple black clothing, a bow and arrow slung over her back.

I loosed a sigh of relief. “You’re alive.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Humans and demons attacked the castle last night. The angels are blaming a nefarious organization known as the Order. They’re sending Adonis to kill you all. I’m surprised he hasn’t done it already. Apparently, he has the power to break through your wards.”

Her face paled in the warm candlelight. “When is he coming?”

“I don’t know. I just saw Adonis in the woods, and I couldn’t get him to tell me anything. Also, I’m pretty sure he and Johnny are on to me.”

She was already pushing to move past me. “I need to get back.”

“Hang on. You just got here. I have questions.”

“I don’t have time for questions. I need to warn the others. And while I’m doing that, I need you to distract Adonis. Keep him here. Do whatever it takes, do you understand me?”

I clamped my hands on my hips. “Adonis is on to me. Everything I do, every time I see him, he tells me that he thinks I’m hiding something and that I’m not who I say I am. Everyone here is terrified of him, and I don’t even want to know what these angels will do to me if they learn I’m spying for you.”

She clenched her jaw. “Do whatever it takes. You need to find Adonis now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the planned attack?”

“We had a servant uprising planned half a year ago, but we lost contact with that cell two months ago, and we haven’t been able to find them through scrying. I thought they were all dead. I had no idea they were still planning to attack.”

“So you failed to tell me about all your agents dying in the castle. And by the way—why did it take you so long to get here?”

Her eyes flashed. “I had things I needed to take care of. No one else is willing to make this journey anymore, and I can’t just run out of the Tower on short notice.”

I stared at her, my irritation rising. I was risking my ass to help her, and she was only feeding me crumbs of information.

Still, I realized why she was so desperate to get home—the little girl I’d met when I’d stayed in the Tower. “You want to get back to your daughter, don’t you?”

Her expression softened. “She’s only three. Every night before she goes to sleep, she asks me if I’ll protect her. I tell her I will. What else can I say? I don’t know if I can, but I will do everything in my power to try. We both watched her father die, torn to pieces by dragons in front of us, and I couldn’t do a single thing about it.” She wrung her hands together. “She was having an asthma attack this morning. I couldn’t get out of there until her lungs sounded clearer. No one else can look after her like I can.”

I nodded. “Okay. Evacuate the Tower, and I’ll try to keep Adonis from leaving before the night is over.” I shivered at the thought. “But I need you to do something else for me. I need you to contact my sister, Hazel. Tell her she needs to glamour herself as a succubus. Kratos is sending people to look for her, and he has no idea she’s a fae.”

“Are you sure you want me to risk it?”

“It’s the only chance I have.”

She started for the cave entrance, but I grabbed her arm. “Wait. The angels suspect me now, all of them except Kratos. Is there an exit plan for me? How am I getting out of here if they turn on me?”

“I sent you here because you’re resourceful. I trust you to figure it out. Listen to what the Old Gods are trying to tell you.”

Are you kidding me? “I haven’t found anything but the Devil’s Bane.”

“There must be something else.”

I shook my head. “I found a silver bough in the forest, in a yew grove. That’s it. It doesn’t look like it comes with instructions about how to use it to kill angels.”

Her eyes brightened. “A silver bough. Now that is worth investigating. It’s a gift from the Old Gods. I’m sure of it.”

“Okay, I’ll investigate.” I grabbed her arm. “Before you run out there, let me check for sentinels. A woman wandering around with a crossbow isn’t exactly inconspicuous, and Adonis has seen me around here already.”

“Fine.”

I summoned my fox glamour once again, magic flickering and sparking over my skin. Fully disguised, I crept from the cave. An icy rain had begun to fall over the forest.

When I scanned the skies, I spotted a murmuration of sentinels swarming by the forest’s edge.

Shit. Clearly, they’d seen Yasmin. And they were waiting for her.

I stepped back into the cave, dropping the glamour again. “They saw you. They’re curious about you. And they’re probably going to follow you back to the Tower, reporting to the angels the whole time. You don’t want their eyes on your daughter, and you don’t want them connecting us when they realize someone screwed up the angels’ attack plans.”

Her eyes looked frantic. “I can’t stay here.”

I held out my hands like I was calming a wild animal. “I understand. But we need to get them out of the way. I need a few of your arrows.”

“What do you plan on doing?” she asked doubtfully, but she was already pulling a handful of arrows from her quiver. “Shooting all the sentinels?”

“Just wait here.”

I glamoured myself as a fox again, disguising everything to outside observers—the arrows, my bright red hair—and stepped out into the rainy forest.

The Old Gods will give us everything we need.

Standing before one of the pine trees, I reached for my sweater, tearing a fat strip off the bottom. I ripped this strip into more pieces. I wrapped each of the arrow tips in wool, fighting hard to think clearly through the mental fog in my brain. Then I lay them gently on the ground.

I reached for the knife strapped to my thigh. Fighting through the glamour-fog, I began hacking away at the bark on the tree, penetrating the pine wood with the blade until, at last, a thick stream of sap began to trickle out. Shivering in the chilly rain, I carefully slid my blade back into its holster.

Dizzy from the glamour, I snatched the arrows from the forest floor. Now a sharp pain pierced my temples. Dark dots swam in my vision as I dabbed the arrowheads into the pine sap, trying to maintain my focus. I needed to get this done before I passed out in front of the cave.

At last, with each arrowhead coated in pine sap, I hustled back into the cave, grunting at the searing pain in my head. I dropped the glamour immediately, then hunched over on my knees while the pain and dizziness subsided. I clutched the bunch of arrows tightly.

“Care to fill me in on what you’re doing?” asked Yasmin.

“Like I said, I’m going to create a diversion. I need the bow and your matches.”

As she handed me the bow and matchbox, the idea of the Old Gods burbled in the back of my mind. We had everything we needed here in the forest, didn’t we? Food, weapons.

And pine sap, as it happened, was extremely flammable.

With the weapons in hand, I crossed to the cave’s mouth, then scanned the skies. The sentinels still swarmed by the very northern edge of the forest, waiting for Yasmin.

I stepped back into the cave, then ignited the arrows, letting them burn on the rocky floor. I nocked the first arrow and loosed it to the south. I watched it soar at least two hundred yards into the air before arcing downward again.

With all the fallen leaves blanketing the ground, it shouldn’t take long for the deadfall to ignite at least a little. But the icy rain would ensure nothing spread too far.

From the cover of the cave, I loaded up the next arrow, then unleashed it into the air. That one slammed against my forearm, bruising it badly. I grimaced, regretting my lack of arm guards.

Then I refocused on my task. One after another, I loosed the arrows into the same spot. After the fourth arrow, the sentinels took notice.

I watched their pattern shift, their movements growing sharper. In the distance, where the arrows had hit, smoke curled into the air as some of the leaves ignited.

From my spot in the cave, I watched the sentinels soar overhead toward the thin tendrils of smoke until, at last, the entire swarm had cleared the northern tree line.

“Go.” I handed Yasmin her bow again. “Fast, before they come back.”

She pulled the bow from me. “Thank you. Just—please find a way to keep Adonis here.”

“I will. Go.”

She launched out of the cave in a swift sprint, the desperate rush of a mom determined to get back to her little girl.