Doran. Safe, worried, but safe.

Calliope, the young unicorn I saved from Orion. She was bursting with excitement and what could only be described as joy.

Deanna and Will. Safe, strong.

Blaz. He was still with Deanna and Will, and they were flying. But he was fine and that eased my heart. I reached for India, the child who saw spirits, the first salvage with Liam. My heart stuttered. She had the pox, her life slowly slipping away, but she hadn’t given up. She was fighting for all she was worth.

Tentatively, I reached for Kyle, my hacker who’d helped me break into the FBI files, who’d helped me find missing kids for years.

His threads were empty. He was dead. I clutched Alex tighter to me, spun the threads of my family and loved ones around me. Those I could breathe in, and they gave me the strength I needed. I wished I could reach my daughter, Erik, and Coyote. The ones I’d left behind . . . somewhere safe.

Carefully, I sent the next thread. To Pamela. She was healthy, wide awake . . . and happy. My heart bucked against that and I turned my head away. No more. I could do this no more. The one I’d avoided was Faris.

One last thread, I sent toward him, touching on his emotions. Scared, the vampire was scared and uncertain. I almost sat up to see what was wrong. What the hell could scare him?

There was only one thing he was scared of that I knew about. Before I thought better of it, I sent a thread looking for my heart.

For Liam.

There, in the back of the barn his soul burned bright, a wash of love and strength rolling over me. A sigh slipped out of my lips and I relaxed into that familiarity, the strength of his love wrapping around me was almost as good as his arms. “Goodnight,” I whispered, and fell into oblivion.

Being stuck in a vampire wasn’t his idea of a good time. But it kept him close to Rylee and that was all that mattered.

“You can’t have her again,” Faris said softly.

You don’t know that. Maybe there is a way for me to come back.

The vampire slumped against a stack of hay bales, as far from the rest of the group as he could get. Liam knew he was freaked out. The fact that he knew was enough to set Faris off, so he kept his peace.

She isn’t going to fall in love with you.

“Then stop making me feel like she is the only thing I damn well live for,” he hissed.

Liam couldn’t shrug, couldn’t do anything other than peer deeper into the vampire’s mind. Not my fault. I was ready to move on, knowing I would see her on the other side at some point. You called me forward to use my abilities. This is karma.

Faris linked his hands behind his neck, fingers intertwined. “Don’t remind me.”

What are we going to do if my soul doesn’t leave when the veil opens? That question burned in his mind. As much as he wanted to stay with Rylee, the other side of the veil called to him, pulling at his soul.

“I don’t know. What I do know is the longer you’re here, the harder it is for me to think for myself. My thoughts are colored with your memories, my actions tinged with yours. I don’t know how long I will stay myself if you don’t leave.”

You mean you don’t know how long you will be an asshole without me tempering you?

“Survivor. That’s what I am. There are days it makes me an asshole, I’ll give you that. But you aren’t a survivor. You’re a martyr. And it lost you everything you ever loved. That’s the difference between you and me. I wouldn’t have given up my life; I would have found a way that didn’t involve breaking my woman’s heart into a million pieces.”

That stung more than he wanted to admit, and he retreated into the darkness that was the body he was stuck in.

He knew, at the time, it was the best decision he could have made. It kept Rylee and their daughter safe. What man wouldn’t have traded his life for them?

The answer was simple. The man whose body he now shared.

Faris shook his head. “You have no idea what you’ve done to her. No clue.”

That, though, was maybe the biggest lie of all. Liam did know. He could feel it in her soul, bound to his until the end of time. There was a crack in her that had healed over, and she was stronger than she’d ever been.

You don’t know her, you never did. That’s why she’ll never fall for you.

Faris didn’t answer and Liam went quiet. There was nothing left to say. For now, he was close to her. The vampire wouldn’t let anything happen to her. Not with Liam’s love for her coursing through his veins.

CHAPTER 12

Pamela

Yvette circled a large mansion, the gleaming white structure almost blinding in the bright summer sun. I shaded my eyes with one hand, hanging on to Peta with the other. “Frank, do you know where we are?”

He leaned around me and adjusted his glasses. “No. Other than somewhere on the east coast.”

Even I knew that much. The ocean stretched out to the left of Yvette, a beckoning blue roll of waves. “But where?”

“I don’t know.”

It does not matter where you are, puny witch. You go where the master says. You do what he says. You kill who he says. Yvette didn’t look back at us, just kept dropping in a circle until she landed on the green lawn of the mansion. Her claws dug deep furrows into the lush footing. Stiff from the long ride, I slid down her side. My feet hit the ground and I let out a strangled cry as the tingles raced up my legs. Peta leapt from my arms and sniffed around me as I struggled back to my feet, failing and ending up on my knees. At least the grass was soft and cushiony. My feet hurt like I’d stepped onto a thousand tiny hot tacks. Frank jumped down beside me, his face tightening with the pain I knew was dancing along his nerves. But he handled it better than I did.