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“Then Salios committed the murder through Daemon,” he says finally. “And Daemon has no recollection of it. Either way, your bargain is forfeit. You needed to prove Daemon’s innocence to save yourselves, and technically Daemon isn’t innocent if his magic committed the crime.”

My heart sinks.

Soul-crushing disappointment wells inside me, the weight of it dragging me down. In Daemon’s bedroom, we discussed this possibility, and now it’s finally come to fruition. He was always going to be Salios’s fall guy; the only difference now is I get to be tortured with him.

I guess the silver lining in all this is that we’ll still be together forever, even if it is in this twisted place.

“Come on,” Sylrin says, pulling me from the bed. “It’s almost sunrise. We need to get you to Minerva’s portal.”

“You’re still going to help me?” I ask. “Even though Daemon—”

“I owe it to my son to protect his witch. Let’s go.”

He drags me through the door, his thick tail slinking around my waist. “Remember, I’m your master until we get outside. It’s the only way I can keep you safe.”

I give him a mocking two-finger salute, absolutely ready to put him and this stupid club behind me. Minerva was right—studying spells would have been a much more efficient use of my time.

Tucking the list into my pocket, I let Sylrin pull me deeper into the never-ending corridors and watch as the light above Julia’s door flashes green once again. We pass by at least a dozen more rooms. Most of the curtains are shut, but some aren’t. In the bedroom closest to the elevator, a woman lies naked and asleep on a dark blue mattress, her back arched in imaginary bliss. A demon stands watch at the foot of her bed, smiling as the woman’s hand slips between her thighs.

“How does the magic work?” I ask Sylrin, lowering my voice to keep from being overheard.

“In the bedrooms?” He places his hand on my lower back, urging me forward. I hadn’t even realized I’d stopped, my bare feet glued to the cold linoleum tiles in front of the writhing woman’s window. “Sometimes we like to savor our feeding experiences and share them with others. The rooms do both. And it makes the sleep-feeding process easier for younger demons. I trained Daemon up here.”

The way he says it makes me shudder. Imagining Daemon forcing some human into one of those nightmares, feeding on her—I shake my head, refusing to think about it. But I can’t quit thinking about it. There’s something gnawing at the back of my head, telling me I need to keep pressing, that it’s important.

Not the back of my head, I realize. The tattoo.

My infernal mark is urging me to go on.

“How does sleep-feeding work?” I ask. “You said it was hard?”

“For younger demons,” Sylrin clarifies. “It’s more involved than sex. An incubus needs to know a person well enough to slip inside their mind, and then distort their dreams enough to get them off, but not enough to wake them up. Most aren’t any good at it. These rooms bridge the gap. They take a known person with a known memory and…”

He keeps talking, but I don’t hear him. My ears are ringing, and suddenly this cool hallway feels entirely too hot. “How would someone know if an incubus fed on them in their sleep?”

How would I know? Is the question I don’t ask.

My words cut Sylrin off, and he glares at me, perhaps realizing for the first time that I’d stopped paying attention. “A dream orgasm would be a pretty good indicator. The human would feel a bit weaker in the morning, maybe a little too tired, or with a headache. The incubus would be stronger, like with any feeding.”

Strong enough to teleport a person twice in a row?

“Yes,” the tattoo whispers—Salios whispers.

I shake my head.

“Yes,” he repeats, his voice laced with cruelty. “Daemon fed on you the night you met your mate. That’s why he had the strength to get you home.”

The words slice through me as good as any knife, and even though I despise the message and the messenger, I know in my heart what he’s saying is true. And I hate myself for not realizing it sooner. How many dreams has Daemon planted in my head over the years? How much of our love is real, or fabricated by his illusions? If he could feed from me without asking, what else is he capable of?

It’s the last question I linger on the longest.

All this time, I’ve been defending him from my father, my coven, Salios. But what if they were right? What if Daemon did murder Martha and all of this—the list, the club, the pet play, and on-stage humiliation—has been him toying with me all along?

Incubus. Not real.

When did I stop reminding myself of that fact?

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