Bastien’s hand fit around my waist, and he pulled me against him. When our eyes met, I didn’t need to read his emotions to know what he was feeling. We thought we were safe inside Chastity’s hidden underground fortress. But now, it was clear her defenses were being breached.

  Bastien didn’t tell me to go hide in our room. He caught my chin and forced me to focus on him. “Save your magick until it’s absolutely necessary,” he reminded me. “You cannot draw them to you. You wait.”

  I nodded shakily. Now that I’d seen how battles worked, I knew I couldn’t expect to use my power and save us all. Because the other side had magick too.

  Metal groaned again, and the walls rumbled. Bastien took my face between his hands and kissed me as if he might never get the chance to again. It was a desperate kiss. One that brought tears to my eyes, because this was the very last thing either of us had expected. When we broke apart, I rested my head against his chest, trying to will the tears away. We hadn’t just brought warriors. We’d brought Tansy. And those children. If anything happened…

  Bastien kissed the top of my head and held me against his chest. “Take my dagger.”

  I went very still. I knew why he wanted me to take a weapon, but the words caused a rush of memories. Rabbits splayed open on wooden tables. Women screaming in birthing beds. I was too useless to cast spells, so I was expected to help. But there was always so much blood. I couldn’t. I’d faint, or nearly faint, then I’d be ridiculed and beaten for my reaction.

  My family never tried to understand why blood bothered me so much. They didn’t care. I was a burden, and that was all that mattered. Until the day Mama put a cursed necklace around my throat and sent me to become the sanguine partner of a fearsome vampire or die. Knowing either way, I’d be forced to face my biggest fear.

  Why did everything always come back to blood?

  “Take it!” Bastien said more urgently this time.

  I fumbled for his chest rig and found the smooth leather grip of his dagger. The same one he’d held against my throat in an attempt to save me on that balcony. When I pulled it free, the polished metal reflected a woman I did not recognize. She didn’t look like the girl who had once fainted at the sight of a cut finger. She was stronger.

  “Stab the neck of anyone who comes near you,” he whispered against my ear. “If you can’t reach their neck, slash an artery.”

  I nodded.

  He took my hand, and together, we ran through the dark and twisting corridors of Chastity’s Stronghold. I’d been unconscious when they brought me in and hadn’t had the opportunity to see just how elaborate the underground fortress was. But now it was my duty to defend it against the Witches of the Light.

  A strange, creeping sensation sat in my stomach as we rounded the next corner. A dread I couldn’t name settled in my stomach. I wrote it off as battle nerves. The last time we’d fought, we’d lost Devlinn and other brave soldiers.

  Shouts filled the air, along with the sweet aroma of dark magick mixed with the tang of sweat. Hundreds were packed inside an entrance hall with cathedral ceilings. Bastien’s warriors and Chastity’s witches working together to brace the massive metal doors with wood beams and magick spells.

  Natalia was giving an impassioned speech to a group of soldiers standing at the front with long pikes. Grunts and cheers went up in bursts.

  The guilt was back, choking me until I could barely stand it. Somehow, this all felt like it was my fault.

  “Claire!” I turned and found Tansy, sword in hand. She rushed over to me and threw her arms around my neck. I hugged her back fiercely.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked over the noise of the crowd, pulling back to see her bloodshot eyes and hollowed cheeks.

  “I’m here for Devlinn. He-he’d told me to find peace. And there’s only one way to do that.” Her voice grew stronger with every word. “I have to live.”

  There was a boom, and the metal doors groaned. I touched her cheek, memorizing her face. “Watch your back, okay? You’re the big sister I never had. I can’t lose you.”

  A weak imitation of her usual grin tugged at her lips. “I was raised to fight. Wand and blade. I’ll be fine.” She covered my hand with hers. “You take care of yourself. Do you hear me?”

  I nodded once. Bastien set his hand on my shoulder. “Come, Claire. This way.”

  I looked at Tansy one last time before Bastien, and I melted into the sea of bodies. The disorientation of being lost in the crowd escalated my anxiety. All the bodies pressing in around me. I held tight to Bastien’s hand until we found Chastity’s tall, hourglass figure standing beside Gorrath. They were shouting orders at a gathering of red-haired witches. When they saw us, they dismissed the group.

  I narrowed my eyes at Gorrath. Why hadn’t he knocked on the door and told us there was an invasion? At least the demon had the good sense to look remorseful.

  “What’s going on?” Bastien asked.

  Chastity glowered at him. “Somehow, the moon witches have found the hidden entrance to my stronghold. My scouts say a white-haired witch leads an army of weres!”

  I didn’t know if it was the anxiety or the choker, but my throat nearly squeezed shut once again.

  “And,” Chastity continued, eyes narrowing at me, “they tell me two werewolves snuck in with your force. When they tried to arrest them, they were stopped by your nephew, who said they came in with your host and were under his protection.”

  My wolves. She’d seen my wolves and thought they were werewolves. And Tyson had stood up for them. “Are you suggesting I planned this?” Bastien asked with a dangerous edge in his voice.

  Chastity crossed her arms. “You tell me? I extend my hospitality, and you bring werewolves into my home!”

  I went to say they weren’t werewolves, but when I caught Gorrath’s eye, I remembered what he’d said. He’d told me to put the moonstones on my wolves and ask for their names.

  My stomach churned again, mixing with the throat-thickening anxiety.

  “I tried to tell you,” the demon said.

  Bastien cut in. “Where is my nephew and the wolves?”

  “They are my prisoners.”

  The door groaned again. More dust rained down. Bastien shielded me with his hands, trying to keep it out of my eyes. “You imprison allies when the enemy is at your door?” Bastien raged while debris continued to shake loose from the ceiling.

  “He stood against my witches,” Chastity fired back.

  “He is my heir!”

  “He’s a fool!” Chastity shouted. “If he were my heir, I’d slit his throat and be done with it.”

  I’d heard Bastien call Tyson names. I knew that he hadn’t wanted him as his heir. I knew he’d wanted to rip Tyson’s head off when he caught him inside my room, drinking and playing Dépouiller. However, Bastien’s high expectations for his successor seemed at odds with his duty to his family.

  Mon sang, he called them. My blood.

  He glanced around at the chaos. At the doors. Then back to Chastity. “If I am your enemy, then I will recall my warriors.” Chastity’s hard exterior showed signs of cracking. “You have your demon. And besides, you’ve said you don’t need my protection.”

  Chastity let out a huff. “You think those creatures will spare you and your men?”

  “No. Of course not. I will pull them back, and we will leave.”

  Gorrath was silent. A shocking turn of events, considering he almost always had something to say.

  Bastien leaned in. “This is why peace is better than alliances with demons. He can’t fight your battles for you. He can’t even kill a single witch without terms.”

  “He’s been spreading disease to them. I paid him for a plague.”

  Bastien sneered. “And what did that cost you?”

  Fear flickered across Chastity’s face, and for the first time, she seemed to understand that she’d erred. Bastien was the ally she needed.

  And by the look on the demon’s face, he knew it too.

  “If you hadn’t spent an hour discussing the repercussions,” Gorrath said, unable to help himself. “We could’ve already been on the way to eliminate Shayla.”

  Spells were fired from the other side of the door, making it glow white like the moon and casting the entrance hall in an eerie light.

  “If you want my help, release my nephew and the wolves,” Bastien explained. He gave Chastity an honest look. “I don’t know how Shayla found your stronghold, but it wasn’t the fault of anyone in my host. I swear it.”

  For everyone’s sake, I hoped he was right.

  With a huff, Chastity snapped her fingers. “Release the prisoners.” She seized a fistful of Bastien’s shirt and hauled him down until they were eye to eye. “If you fuck me over, I will haunt your castle for the rest of your afterlife. You will know no peace.”

  Something close to a grin tugged at his mouth. “Understood.”

  The doors creaked open a fraction, iron dragging against stone, and a wave of nerves rolled through me. This was it. Bastien took my hand, the one that was holding tight to his dagger, and kissed the inside of my wrist. His breath cool against my raging pulse.

  “Remember what I said.”

  His gaze shifted to the dagger still clutched in my grip. I swallowed and nodded. “I will.”

  Lovingly, he set his hand on my cheek. “You are fire.”

  I turned into his palm and kissed it. “You are mine.”

  He lingered for a moment longer, our eyes holding, before his attention shifted to Gorrath. “Take care of her for me.”

  A stunned breath left me. He was going to leave me with the demon?

  Gorrath smirked. “I’ll take care of her for me.”

  “That dagger works just as well on demons as it does on werewolves.” Then Bastien raced off through the crowd. Chastity bristled and followed after him. Once he was gone, Gorrath offered me his hand. I stared at it, unsure what to think. Ten minutes ago, everything was different. Now I wasn’t sure if he was my ally or my enemy.

  “Let me show you that you’re more than just fire.” He tipped his chin toward a narrow stone balcony overlooking the entrance hall. “Come on. It’s time to learn how your magick really works.”

  Gorrath wasn’t proposing to protect me. He was offering to teach me. Which was something I wanted. If I could help at all, and not distract Bastien, then that’s what I was going to do.

  Bastien had his teeth and his strength and his sword. And I had this.

  Gingerly, I set my hand in his. And as soon as our skin touched, power flared inside of me.

  Chapter 33

  Interlude

  GORRATH

  Werewolves and white-haired witches poured through the doors. By Damien’s hairy dick, there were more of them than I anticipated.

  Claire looks over the balcony ledge, watching with her hands wrapped around that dagger.

  “So how do I help them?” she asks. “How do I use this power?”

  I place my hands on her shoulders. Her spine stiffens.

  “Close your eyes,” I whisper. “And imagine you’re the damp in the walls. The slow creep of mildew no one notices until it’s in their lungs. The fever that ends with mourners in black.”

  Her breathing deepens. “You want me to imagine I’m death?”

  I smile at the word. Death. Such a tidy little concept for something so expansive.

  “You’re more than death,” I tell her. “You’re the consequence they pretended wouldn’t come for all the hate in their hearts.”

  “I am the consequence,” she repeats.

  “But you need to want it. More than anything. Can you do that for me?”

  She hesitates. But she needs to understand this. “How do I do that?”

  The perfect question. The most important question.

  “I know exactly how your family treated you.” She shifts her attention toward me. A flicker of fear passes over her. “They treated you like a disease they couldn’t rid themselves of fast enough. They hated you for being a good apple in a bucket full of rotten cores.”

  Tears prick in her eyes. Good. She’s getting it. “If they thought you were a disease, then be the disease.”

  I take her wrists and lift them into the air.

  “Don’t I need a wand?” she asks.

  “You are the wand. Now focus. Feel your connection to the disease.”

  I drop her hands and leave her there to reach into the bodies below. Standing just far enough back to watch. The calm that settles over her face is not innocent. She’s the fighter. She’s the justice. The sword. The ghost she had to become to survive.

  I watch as she begins to sow devastation. One by one, the werewolves begin to fall. The black pustules I planted in them earlier begin to erupt into fountains of rot.

  Her eyes open slowly as she takes in her handiwork. “Is this me?” she asks. “Or you?”

  “That’s all you, love,” I say, and I mean it. “I opened the door. You walked through it.”

  I don’t tell her it’s taking an incredible amount of my power to hold the door open. She might be a living relic, but the want in her is endless. It draws from her well of power too fast.

  She lifts her hands higher. A werewolf howls in pain. I smile. “That’s my girl.”

  “Bastien and I were going to say yes. Before this.”

  I lean against the balcony beside her. A half smile on my face. As much as I want that deal to happen, there is something I want even more. It has nothing to do with sex or disease. Maybe I’ve been inside her head for so long. Maybe it was the way she called me disgusting. But right now, the thing I want most of all is for her to be free. Free in the way I never would be.

  “Let’s talk about that later,” I reassure her. “I want you sowing rot, not sowing a good time.”

  She laughs. And damn her, it makes me laugh, too.

  “Why sex and disease? I don’t get how those things go together.”

  “Really?” I say. “Disease is the most intimate thing in the world. Next to sex.”

  She doesn’t say anything. She just keeps feeling into her power. Spreading more rot. I try to temper her as well as I can, but I have to pull from my own reserves just to keep her going. But I don’t really mind. Not when she’s got this smile on her face.

  “I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

  She’s becoming the consequence. She wants to make them suffer. And I love seeing it. “You’re damn right you are. I knew there was a good reason why my power went to you.”

  She glances my way. “Didn’t you choose me?”

  I shake my head. “Once I spilled my seed inside that Kemp witch and gave her line the gift of my power, the magick took on a life of its own.”

  “So you didn’t pick me for your revenge?”

  Chuckling, I shake my head again. “It believed you were worthy to hold it. All on its own.”

  A beat of silence passes between us. Metal clangs and werewolves howl in pain.

  “You’re different from what I thought you’d be.”

  I bare my teeth in a grin. “Don’t ruin my reputation.”

  Her lips twitch.

  I rest my hand on her shoulder to stop her. We’d gone through more power than I’d realized. “Enough,” I tell her. “You’ll burn yourself out.”

  Reluctantly, she lowers her hands. The air is choked with the stench of rot.

  When she glances back at me, I am part of her. I can see myself through her eyes. And I see the witch I used to be. The one who was so demonized by his coven, he started to believe he should become one. Who wanted to bring back the goddesses just to find a little joy in his life.

  Who looked across the fire at Bastien and recognized something in him.

  Just like she had.

  We are not so different, she and I.

  My attention settles on her throat. On the cursed choker. And even though my vision is blurring around the edges, I know she still needs a spell to be free of it. Because while my mother is dead and buried, hers is still after her.

  And she’s much closer than she realizes.

  Chapter 34

  Adieu

  CLAIRE

  Gorrath suddenly shoved me behind him.

  Weak from channeling so much power, I nearly lost my footing on the uneven stones. “What are you doing?”

  “Protecting you.”

  Footsteps raced up the stairs, and that familiar sense of dread sat in my stomach. The one that I couldn’t seem to release. After staring into Mellie’s eyes, into Devlinn’s eyes, there was nothing left that could break me. I’d seen the worst—smelled death—and I was not going to crumble now.

  “I protect myself,” I told the demon.

  He smirked. “Of course you do.”

  A face appeared in the doorway that I’d known as well as my own, but I couldn’t believe it. She shouldn’t be here. She couldn’t. But… she was. Mama looked exactly as I remembered. Except everything had changed.

  Her long white hair was braided tightly against her scalp, woven with thin leather cords. Runes were painted in ash across her forehead and down the bridge of her nose. The symbols I recognized. They were protection symbols. Against demonic influence. Against disease.

  Against… me.

  “You—” The word broke apart in my mouth. I was five years old again, huddled on the kitchen floor with my back pressed against the cupboard, cradling my right eye while spilled potion ate through the hem of my only skirt. The air had smelled like fresh lemongrass and thyme and the salty tang of my tears.

  By the age of five, I knew I was wrong. Not just for making mistakes, but because I wasn’t the daughter she’d been promised.

  Gorrath moved before I understood what was happening. One moment, he stood at my shoulder; the next, his arm was around her throat and his fist was buried in her braids, wrenching her head back so hard I heard the leather cords strain. His body pressed against her spine, all heat and fury.