It coalesces with unnatural speed, forming the shape of a woman in a tattered wedding dress, her face a vortex of silent, screaming despair. The temperature in the room plummets. This is not the wispy, easily-managed specter from the textbooks. This is a roiling cloud of pure misery, and it is drifting directly toward me. My tactical bravado evaporates, replaced by the primal, lizard-brain certainty that I am about to be ghost-eaten.
“Get back!” Esme commands, stepping between us.
She throws a web of shadows at the wraith, the dark tendrils of her magic reaching out to bind it. But the wraith passes through them like they’re nothing, its form dissolving and reforming, its chilling aura undiminished. Esme grunts, trying again, her magic splashing uselessly against the spirit’s ancient grief. It’s working. Her sole power isn’t enough against this level of putrefied, tightly wound ghost-emotion, and she didn’t bring any backup—no talismans, no charged glyphs, nothing preloaded for a fight like this.
She glances back at Dayn, jaw clenched with a fear-laced desperation that says she’s about to do whatever it takes to keep me breathing. And honestly? The look on her face is priceless—pure, unfilteredoh gods my nerd sister is about to become ectoplasmpanic.
It’s almost… sweet.
Only I (or Mom and Jax) have the power to scare her like that.
Honestly, it’s progress. The first step toward her showing something resembling real emotion instead of being the chronically emotionally constipated witch she usually is. And bringing Dayn into the mix while she’s in this state? Perfect.
But before a single word can be spoken, before my masterplan can even take its first glorious step, the entire coven is ripped apart by the scream of the assault alarm.
Red light strobes from the enchanted sconces, painting the dusty archives in blood. A voice, amplified by magic, booms through the stone walls, laced with pure panic:
“DRAGONS! DRAGONS AT THE WEST GATE! ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS!”
Esme freezes, her head snapping toward the strobes. Every ounce of her focus, every tendril of her magic holding the wraith at bay, vanishes in an instant of pure, horrified shock.
The wraith lunges, a silent, shrieking projectile of cold and hate aimed directly at my throat.
Time seems to stretch, to warp. I see Esme’s eyes widen as she realizes her mistake. I see Dayn move, a blur of gold and black. But a different shadow moves faster.
Chad explodes from between the bookshelves, moving with a pounce no human could make. His form twists, seeming to elongate, his skin darkening, his eyes flaring with a furious crimson light. A low, guttural roar rips from his throat as he slams into the wraith—then his arm clamps around my waist and he yanks me against the iron-hard plane of his chest.
His clawed fingers dig into my hip, bruisingly tight, his thumb grazing the strip of sensitive skin just beneath the hem of my shirt. His breath hits my throat—ragged, wild—hot enough to burn, and a gasp slips out of me before I can stop it. My back cracks against the bookshelf, and for a heartbeat his body cages mine there—hisdemonpinning me flush, his thigh wedged between mine, my pulse skittering to places that suggest I might need a professional and a priest.
His heartbeat slams against my chest, syncing with my own frantic rhythm, and the world tilts—dizzy, drowning in the scent of him: smoke and cinnamon and something darkly,dangerously male. Every inch of him feels coiled, lethal. Hungry.
And then he tears himself away—an animal unchained—his eyes locked on mine for one searing moment before he turns, unleashing something that isn't darkblood magic at all. Something raw. Demonic. A power that feels like it was never meant to see daylight.
A wave of reddish-black energy envelops the wraith, which lets out a shriek that I can almost feel in my teeth. The energy compresses, crushes, and then shoves the spirit back into its locket with a final, violent snap. The containment field flares back to life, glowing with a renewed, angry light.
I stare, stunned.What. Was. That.
I knew his demon was strong, but I had no idea it was capable ofthatwith his bare hands. If that’s his level of power, then he must’ve been playing nice by allowing Corvin to keep him in a cell.Holy hell.Is that the kind of strength he can just call on command?
He stands over me, too close, too powerful, too everything—a dark, impenetrable wall of muscle and demonic heat—and my brain short-circuits. He’s panting, his chest heaving, eyes still burning crimson at the edges, sweat gleaming on his throat in a way I absolutely pretend not to notice. The demonic features melt back into his skin like hot wax, leaving behind his paler, angular face. His chest rises and falls in heavy surges that make the muscles in his corded forearms flex. There's something primal in his expression—fear for me, yes, but also a fierce triumph that makes my stomach flip. I've never seen him like this…thisraw…thisunleashed.
Esme stares, her hands slackening at her sides. Her gaze darts from me, to the locket, and then fixes on Chad with a look of stunned, cutting suspicion. “Chad? What were you doing there?”
But the alarms are still blaring, like a frantic heartbeatechoing the one in my own chest. Shouts and the distant roar of dragon fire are filtering down the corridor.
“No time,” I gasp, scrambling to my feet. “Dragons. Plural. That seems like the more pressing issue!”
The suspicion in my sister’s eyes doesn’t leave, but it is shoved aside by the greater threat. She gives a sharp, jerky nod. Side by side, the four of us—a shell-shocked witch, a furious dragon king, a half-demon with ridiculous abs, and me—sprint from the archives and into the heart of the chaos.Because nothing screams “romantic progress” like a full-blown dragon invasion.
24
ESME
We burst out into the western courtyard, and the world is screaming. The air is thick with the smell of scorched wood. Above the dark canopy of the forest, three silhouettes circle against a sky bruised with twilight and alarm-light.
They are smaller and leaner than Dayn, their movements more erratic, their roars higher-pitched and laced with a seemingly youthful, arrogant fury. One is a venomous green, another the color of rust, the third a mottled, sickly gray.
“Stay back,” Dayn snarls, his voice deepening. His amber eyes are already blazing, no longer human. “This is my affair.”
