“They found me as it turned out.” His brows dropped low. “We went there, to that building downtown—and I can’t explain it. I could scent you in the space, but I couldn’t see you. I walked around and around. I swear it was empty and I left . . . but then, all of a sudden, there was this clanging noise. And when I went back, the door turned into a window, into something that wasn’t there in the, like, normal sense.”

  As he cursed under his breath, she put her arm over his rib cage—which was so broad, she felt as if she were trying to embrace a sofa.

  “What if I hadn’t heard that sound, you know?” he murmured. “I want to shit my pants every time I think of it.”

  “I summoned you.” As both his brows arched in surprise, she nodded. “I used the same spell I used on the Book. At least the one for you worked.”

  “So that’s how . . . holy crap.”

  There was a period of quiet. And then Sahvage rolled toward her. “You know, she’ll go away if you give her what she wants.”

  “I’m sorry, you mean—the brunette?” When he nodded, Mae sat up. “How do you know that?”

  “It’s in the nature of those who covet. They acquire. You saw all those clothes.”

  Mae pushed her hair out of her face. “You’re saying I should use the Book for Rhoger, and then just give it to her?”

  “No, I’m saying to save your own life, you should just let her have it.” When she didn’t respond, Sahvage sat up as well. “Mae, think of where you’ve been. Think of what you’ve just survived—by a stroke of luck.”

  Between one blink and the next, she relived waking up in that crate. The panic of being trapped. The way it had felt being pressed up against that wall by the demon’s invisible power.

  She had been so terrified. So out of control.

  Exactly as she had felt at the deaths of her parents. At the death of Rhoger.

  “It wasn’t a stroke of luck,” she muttered. “I called you to me. And besides, I don’t have the Book, do I.”

  “Mae . . .”

  “No.”

  She wasn’t even aware of having spoken until Sahvage said, “No, what?”

  As Mae remembered feeling trapped and scared, she shook her head in the darkness. Then she turned to him. “I’m not going to let her win. She’s never getting that goddamn Book.”

  • • •

  Downtown, on the basement level of the old office building, Devina clipped down the corridor to her lair, her stilettos fucking off the concrete. She could have just projected herself home, but she didn’t feel like it. She just didn’t fucking feel like it.

  The fact that she was so enraged that concentration was impossible was a reality she refused to acknowledge. She was fine. She was just fucking fine—

  The smell registered about thirty, forty feet from her destination, but she was so up in her head, it wasn’t until she got to her door that she realized something was on fire somewhere close. And then, as she stepped into her home, there was smoke in the air. Looking around, she saw that the stupid fucking female vampire was gone—

  Devina screamed. “No, no, nonononono!”

  Falling to her knees, there was a cracking sound as she hit her polished floor, but she didn’t care about the pain. With trembling hands, she reached out and tenderly cradled the innocent that had been massacred.

  Her nearly priceless Birkin.

  Her Himalayan Niloticus 35 with the diamond hardware.

  Some absolute lunatic had burned the corner of the bag, ruining the crocodile skin, its delicate coloring and pattern of white, buff, gray, and black scales invaded by a cancer of oxidation from a flame.

  Ruined. Four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Hermès’s very best efforts, hours of work from a master craftsman, the very rarest and most expensive handbag in the world . . . ruined.

  Falling on her ass, one of her ankles cranked at a bad angle, but she didn’t care.

  Cradling the desecrated carcass to her chest, she looked across her collection through eyes that watered. The tangled mess of the dog cage in the far corner seemed a rebuke of so much, so she willed it away, disappearing the goddamn symbol of her fucking failure.

  What a night.

  Everything had gone wrong.

  And this was the problem with her life. When things went bad, you wanted to share the nightmare with someone who gave a shit. Somebody who could talk it all through with you, iron out the bumps, help formulate a new plan, a different approach.

  A better way of getting to your goal.

  Instead she was here, surrounded by beautiful things that could offer no advice or real support.

  Closing her eyes, she reminded herself that her therapist, that flabby paper bag of a woman, had told her it was okay to be upset. To be disappointed. She just needed to feel her feelings—and know that, however strong they were, however unbearable they seemed, they would fade. Emotions were never permanent.

  Except no, one of them was.

  Though hate and anger, happiness and gratitude, jealousy, optimism, paranoia, all of the others were subject to peaks and valleys . . . love was a constant.

  True love was immortal.

  And when you were a demon, when there was no exit ramp for your existence, you valued things that could keep up with your forever calendar of nights and days.

  Infinity was less fun than people thought.

  Swamped with sadness, Devina rearranged her legs, extending them out and putting the Birkin casualty on her thighs. Running her fingertips over the matte texture, she remembered buying it at the mother ship. Twenty-four Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. She had her favorite SA there, and after years of supporting the brand, and so many Kellys and Birkins bought and paid for, she had finally been invited to purchase the Holy Grail.

  And she had done it the right way. Not on the secondary market, but after climbing the mountain of earning that invitation.

  Four hundred thousand was what she could get if she sold it. But it hadn’t cost her that much. When you were welcomed into that hallowed group who got them legitimately? You didn’t pay anywhere near that reseller’s premium.

  But now, this symbol of everything she had achieved, of everything that she was, had been violated.

  Devina narrowed her eyes at where the busted-up dog cage had been.

  Payback was going to be a bitch.

  A red hot . . . bitch.

  Outside the Brotherhood mansion, Balz lit up another one of Vishous’s hand-rolls and leaned back against the still-winterized fountain. V had taken to supplying the cigs free of charge, no small giftie considering that not only was the prime ingredient very, very fine Turkish tobacco, it took a lot of fine motor skills to roll ’em up right. Lot of time, too.

  It was just one of the many blessings that had rained down on a thief ’s head since he’d come here with the other bastards.

  And he’d repaid the household how?

  Closing his eyes, he hung his head and exhaled. He’d brought that demon to them. Oh, God . . . he’d brought evil to their midst.

  How had it started? When had the infiltration happened? He wasn’t sure. Maybe it had been that electrocution, although why that had created an opening in his soul, he wasn’t sure. Yes, he had died . . . but plenty of people he knew had shaken hands with the Grim Reaper and not brought back a door prize from hell.

  Like, literally from Hell.

  As his antsy anxiety surged, he smoked faster, exhaling over his shoulder even though no one was around to secondhand smoke. He had been treated with nothing but respect by the Brotherhood and their community. Even, dare he say it, love.

  It was in the nature of thieves to steal, however.

  And apparently, he was so fucking good at the felony, he wasn’t even aware of doing it anymore. Because sure as shit, he had stolen the security of those wonderful people inside this grand old mansion, and that grift was going to lead to an even larger and more dire larceny.

  Somehow, it was going to kill them all.

  And everything was going to be his fault—

  “Let it go.”

  With a shout, Balz skidded around. “What? Oh, shit, Lass, what the fuck. Sneaking up on a guy like that.”

  On a night like this, he added to himself.

  Lassiter stepped forward from the shadows, his blond-and-black hair catching the moonbeams that fell from the cold sky above. Or maybe it was just the fallen angel glowing like a night-light.

  “Let it go.”

  Balz frowned. The male’s lips weren’t moving.

  Let it go.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Balz tapped the hand-rolled. “Now is not the time for some Frozen bullshit, okay? I’m not in the mood—”

  Over at the stone steps, figures appeared from out of the darkness, the Brothers and the other bastards returning from wherever they’d been, their strong backs to him as they faced their home.

  “Fucking finally,” Balz muttered.

  His impulse was to flick the stub, but he licked his thumb and pinched it out. And as he started off toward the other fighters, he tried to figure what pocket to put the remains in—and decided he didn’t want to crap up his leathers. So he ate the goddamn thing.

  He was chewing the wedge—and grimacing at the musky, burned taste while wondering why, assuming it was biodegradable enough to shoot into his digestive tract, he hadn’t just pitched it on the ground and let nature run its course—as he came up to the Brotherhood.

  Everyone was chatting at the same time.

  “. . . working with us.”

  “I can’t believe he’s actually alive—”

  “—the hell he’s been all these years?”

  “I know where the Book is.”

  As Balz spoke the words, the turnaround on the stairs was such a Bob Fosse–oner, it might as well have been choreographed: Every single fighter was suddenly looking at him, and as he swallowed the wad of tobacco-flavored paper-gum, he prayed he was not making everything worse.

  And not with what he’d just put into his gut.

  Glancing behind to get some more atta’boy from Lassiter—

  He frowned. The angel was not there.

  Whatever.

  “I know where the Book is,” he repeated to all of them.

  Tohr shook his head. And came down the steps. “This is why you told Fritz to shutter the house?”

  “Yeah—and . . .” Balz took a deep breath—and coughed a random tobacco flake out of his esophagus. “I can’t live here anymore. I’m infected with . . .”

  Over on the left, Butch leaned in as if Balz wasn’t speaking loud enough.

  “You’re sick?” Tohr asked as the wind blew in from the north.

  Shit, what if what he was saying didn’t translate again?

  Balz glanced around, and there, in the back of the lineup . . . “Rehv. You can read my grid, right? I want you to tell them what you see. I’d tell them myself . . . but I’m worried she won’t let me.”

  As the Reverend stepped around the others, the symphath’s amethyst eyes narrowed. “Who’s she?”

  “Just tell them what you see.”

  There was a long moment, that odd wind whirling around as if it were searching for a way through clothing to direct skin. Or maybe that was what Balz was sensing as the symphath entered his emotional landscape.

  “He’s got . . .” Rehv seemed to search for words. “There’s something wrong. His grid has a locking pattern across it.”

  Xcor descended the steps and stood right beside Balz. “Whatever it is, we are with you. We shall fix whatever is wrong.”

  “I’m dangerous,” Balz said roughly. “I don’t know how it happened—but I can’t be here anymore.”

  “Then we find you a safe place.” Xcor grabbed Balz’s shoulders. “We do not desert our family.”

  “That’s right,” someone said.

  “Fuck yeah.”

  “We gotchu.”

  The next thing Balz knew, all the bodies that had been at the mansion’s grand entrance were down around him. And the warmth he felt was about so much more than that cold wind getting blocked.

  As Xcor’s heavy arm reached across his shoulders, Balz wiped off his face. Not that he was getting teary. He was a stone-cold bastion of tough guy over here. Stone. Cold.

  “Tell us about the Book,” Tohr said. “We need to know.”

  He coughed a little to compose himself. “I, ah, I went to do a little of my side hustle. Just my regular thing. I was walking through the place after I—” Did some hustle on the side with that wife. “Anyway, that’s when I saw it. A book that commanded my attention in ways I couldn’t—I still can’t—understand. It’s ancient and it smells bad, and it’s like it’s alive. I didn’t know exactly what it was the first time I saw it, but when Syphon told me about what you were seeking, I had to go back and see if maybe . . . there’s no question. It’s the Book. I know it in my soul. And I tried to get it tonight, but it’s protected by the brunette that Butch saw. The woman who is the new evil.”

  The fact that he didn’t know whether his words were being heard as he intended them to was terrifying.

  “Sahvage,” Tohr pronounced. “We need Sahvage. Whatever metaphysical protection shit is going on, he’ll handle it. And he’s agreed to help.”

  Balz looked around at the faces that were so open, so trusting. For a thief and a liar to find this kind of love?

  Well, in anyone other than a stone-cold tough guy, it would have brought a person to their knees.

  “I need a cigarette,” Balz muttered.

  V’s black-gloved hand pushed through with a hand-rolled. “Me, too,” the Brother said.

  As they lit up together, Balz stared at the front of the battened-down mansion and thought about the brunette. “Sahvage and I go alone. I don’t want backup. If things are going to get bad, losing me won’t matter.”

  “That is not true,” Xcor interjected.

  Syn, Balz’s other cousin, and Zypher, his fellow bastard, spoke up as well on that one.

  But all he could do was shake his head. “It is true. And what’s protecting it is . . . we can’t take chances with that demon. Trust me.” He met all the sets of eyes, one by one. “If Sahvage and I can’t get the Book and bring it back, it’s not get-able.”

  Xcor spoke up. “But how do we cure you?”

  Rehv answered that before Balz could. “The Book. We use the Book to get him clean.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking, too,” Balz said on an exhale as he went back to looking at the mansion. “Or at least . . . that’s what I hope.”

  Lying in the dark, holding Mae in his arms, Sahvage was about as calm as he was before a bareknuckle fight: He was knife-edged aware, eyes moving ceaselessly around the shadowed contours of the room, ears primed for any sound, senses reaching out. While beside him, his female—

  No. She was not his.

  This female, he amended, was safe. For now.

  “Sahvage?”

  “Yeah?” He hoped she wanted something to eat so he could do something. “You hungry? I can get you a little food?”

  “I feel like I should apologize.” She pushed herself up on his chest. “I feel like . . . I wish I could stop myself. But I can’t. I’m hoping you can understand that, especially because you know what the loss feels like.”

  Without thinking, he brushed a strand of her hair back. Then touched her face. As her breath caught, he did not approve of where his mind went.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I’m so grateful you’re still here. Still with me.”

  “I’m not leaving until this is over. For better or for worse.”

  A ghost of a smile played over her face. “That’s a human thing.”

  “What is?”

  “For better or for worse. It’s what they say when they’re getting mated for life.” She looked away. “Anyway, I’m grateful you’re here.”

  “Loyalty is pretty much my only virtue.” His voice grew wry. “And even so, I’ve managed to turn it into a sin.”

  They stared into each other’s eyes. And then she said, “When I was trapped in that place . . . I was so angry. I felt totally cheated. I had tried to do so many things right over the course of my life, but there I was. I knew as soon as the brunette got back, she was going to kill me—and I was going to miss out on everything—which is pretty rich considering I live with a dead male and I work from home.”

  Sahvage thought of the wasteland of his life. “At least you know you have an end.”

  “The Fade again,” she said with resignation. “You really need to leave that alone.”

  “So that advice is a one-way street with you, huh. You expect others to drop shit, but you don’t have to.”

  “Yup.” She sat up. “Kind of like you refusing to respect boundaries. No matter how many times you’re told to lay off. ”

  Abruptly, she glanced at the door like in her mind she was walking through it. And then she let her head fall back and started muttering curses toward the bedroom’s ceiling.

  “If you’re going to yell at me,” Sahvage remarked, “you might as well let me in on the lovefest. Seems only fair—and hey, I can always use pointers on how to properly use the word ‘asshole.’”

  She shot a look at him. “Actually, I’m yelling at myself.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t believe you were one of the things I was angry at.”

  “Oh, come on.” He laughed out loud. “That’s not a news flash. You’ve been pissed at me since you met me. Which is pretty rich considering you distracted me in that fight—”

  “Do not bring up that whole cut thing again.”

  “Cut?” He sat up as well so they were on the same level. “You’re calling that arterial bleed a cut? Just out of curiosity, what do you consider a wound. Total evisceration?”

  “You lived!”

  “I always live,” he said roughly.

  “Right, because you’re such a hard-ass.”

  “Wasn’t that what you were going to put on my name tag?”

  “Actually, ‘badass’ was what I was thinking. And that was only because ‘asshat’ was already taken.”

  Sahvage started to smile. He couldn’t help it. “I get under your skin, don’t I.”

 

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