“I don’t want you to be sorry!” said Alec. “I’m not sorry. I wanted to do it. I wanted all of it, with you. The only thing that bothered me was when you were in trouble without me. I want us to be in trouble together. I want us to be together, no matter what. That’s all I want.”

Magnus waited in the silence. After a moment, Alec said quietly, “I’ve never loved anybody like this before. Maybe I’m not saying it right, but it’s what I feel.”

I’ve never loved anybody like this before.

Magnus’s heart seemed to break open, spilling love and desire through his veins. “Alec,” Magnus whispered. “You said everything perfectly.”

“Then is anything wrong?” Alec knelt up on the bed, his hair deliciously mussed, his cheeks flushed.

“It’s your first time,” Magnus said. “I want it to be perfect for you.”

To Magnus’s surprise, Alec grinned. “Magnus,” he said, “I’ve been waiting for this for so long. If we don’t do this literally right now, I will jump out the window.”

Magnus started to laugh. It was odd to laugh and feel desire at the same time; he wasn’t sure he’d had that with anyone but Alec. He reached out across the space between them and pulled Alec toward him.

Alec gave a sharp gasp as their bodies collided, and very quickly neither of them were laughing anymore. Alec’s breath came short as Magnus drew off his shirt. His touch was hungry, exploring. He found the collar of Magnus’s shirt and ripped it open, pushing it off Magnus’s shoulders. His hands smoothed down Magnus’s bare arms. He pressed kisses to Magnus’s throat, his bare chest, his flat navel-less stomach. Magnus wound his fingers into Alec’s wild dark hair and wondered if anyone had ever been this lucky.

“Lie back,” Magnus whispered at last. “Lie back, Alexander.”

Alec stretched out on the bed, his beautiful body bare from the waist up. His eyes fixed on Magnus, he reached back, grabbing the headboard of the bed, the muscles in his arms standing out. The sunlight from the window fell on Alec, bathing his body in a faint luminescence. Magnus sighed, wishing for magic that could stop time, that would let him stay in this moment indefinitely.

“Oh, my love,” Magnus murmured. “I am so glad to be home.”

Alec smiled, and Magnus bent his own body over Alec’s. They moved and curved and fitted together, chest against chest, hips against hips. Alec’s breath stuttered and caught as Magnus’s tongue found its way into his open mouth, and Magnus’s hands rid Alec of the rest of his clothes, and they were skin to skin, breath against breath, heartbeat against heartbeat. Magnus trailed his rings down the line of Alec’s throat, up to his lips; Alec licked and sucked at Magnus’s fingers, the stones of his rings, and Magnus gave a shiver of shocked longing as Alec bit gently at his palm. Everywhere they kissed and everywhere they touched felt like alchemy, the transformation of the commonplace to gold. They progressed together, starting slow and moving to sharp urgency.

When movement had stilled and gasps had turned to soft whispers, they lay holding each other in the fading light of the sun, Alec curved in against Magnus’s side, his head on the warlock’s chest. Magnus touched Alec’s soft hair and looked up in wonder at the shadows above the bed. It felt like the first time anything like this had happened in the world, felt like the start of something shining and impossibly new.

Magnus had always had a wanderer’s heart. Over the centuries, he had adventured in so many different places, always looking for something that would fulfill his restless hunger. He never realized how all the pieces could fall together, how home could be somewhere and someone.

He belonged with Alec. His wandering heart could rest.

THE PORTAL OPENED JUST OUTSIDE the worn hongsalmun near the top of the hill. The red paint that had once brightened the wooden gate had peeled away a century ago, and choking vines had crawled up its poles and bars.

Shinyun stepped out of the Portal and breathed in the crisp mountain air. She surveyed her domain and its impassable wards. Only a fox had trespassed here, long ago, starving and searching for food. It had found none, and only its skeleton remained.

She followed the winding trail of broken stones and undergrowth as it snaked up the hill. Her family’s old home in Korea was known to the locals as a cursed, haunted place. Shinyun supposed, in a way, that it was. She was the ghost of her family, the last one. She had been abandoned here and she could never truly leave.

As she walked into her home she waved the house alive. A fire burst in the fireplace. Her two Nue demons, red eyes and razor teeth shining in their monkey faces, started from the hearth and came toward her with their snake tails waving in the air.

The two demons followed close behind their mistress as they walked down the main hallway to the back of the house. They reached a dead end, and then the wall flickered and disappeared. Shinyun and her demons passed through, and the wall became whole again behind them as they descended the hidden staircase.

At the back of the cellar, there stood a rusty metal cage reinforced by powerful wards. Shinyun’s demons were not pets. They were guardians. They kept intruders out. They also kept things in.

She slid the bolts free and walked into the cage. The demons hissed at the pile in the corner, and the filthy, green-skinned warlock raised his head. His face was almost obscured by a snarled mass of hair that had once been white as snow, but was now gray with grime.