“Hard to end me when you’re dead,” he said.

Her laugh was throaty. “How many glasses of that grape tea have you drunk? Enough to bring down a small elephant, I’d wager. You can already feel it, can’t you? The dwindling supply of power, the sleepiness? That elixir was a special concoction, gifted to me by a sorceress. It was in your food, too. Night, night, my handsome prince. You’ll wake up refreshed and won’t remember your little Soul Stealer at all. Maybe then you’ll rethink my suggestions regarding the way we should pass the time.”

He huffed out a laugh. “You think you can hold me? Break me?”

“Not at all. I paid a handsome fee to the Wicked King in order to grant me attendance with one of his court. You’ve heard of the Wicked King of the dark fae, of course. He was expensive—nearly broke my operating budget—but to get a Soul Stealer, it was worth it. With her, I can rebuild my dynasty.”

“You would try to keep Magnus’s daughter?” Kieran asked. “You’d pit yourself against him?”

“What’s the saying? You break it…you bought it?” She laughed. “What they did to the last Soul Stealer was highly effective. The blueprint is laid out—I only need to apply the practice. Once she is bound to me, he will have no claim.” She tsked at Kieran. His eyes drooped and he swayed. He shook his head and straightened up. Her smile grew. “No one ever expects a woman. Play nice, pretend to be the peacemaker or the doormat, and men will believe the candied lies. No woman could ever outsmart them, after all. Well, now you know that some of us were made to be villains.”

“They weren’t lies in the beginning. Your surprise and embarrassment at being caught in my territory was genuine, we both know that. You must’ve known at that time that you had no chance to get Alexis. What changed your mind?”

“Yes, true. I must admit, I was surprised to be found out that day in your garden. I did not fully appreciate what a Soul Stealer could do. Legends only paint part of the picture. To answer your question, speaking to Magnus greatly enlightened me.” Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward. The cloud of violet around her intensified. She was pulling more power—clearly the energy draw was conscious when she wanted it to be, and she was managing all the connections just fine. “When I sought information, he treated me like a dog begging for scraps. He offered to help me acquire her, but the benefit would’ve been all his. His offer was nothing short of condescending, the arrogant prick. He needs to be taken down a peg.” She sat back again, and her power gathered around her. “So I decided to take a chance. A gamble. I was a good gambler back in the day. It’s how I climbed high in the social ranks. Who is removed from our magical laws? The fae, of course. And who would gladly accept money without caring that their customer intended to demean a Demigod and enslave his beau? The Wicked King of the dark fae court, obviously. And now you come full circle. Go ahead and sit down. I can see you’re struggling, as surely as your men are ailing next door. And yes, by demean, I mean that when you are temporarily stripped of your mind—that is how the fae get at the memories, I gather—I will have you for my plaything. You are quite a prize. I don’t think there is a handsomer Demigod. I am fertile for these next few days—you will give me a Demigod baby. It will join us together. My empire will be as it once was.”

Kieran’s power built even as he staggered. “The fae operate with tricky words and misleading contracts. Dealing with them is risky, at best. Even if you managed to navigate their courts, you’re not smart enough to pull this off. Mark my words, you have just cemented your ruin. And I will never, ever lie in your bed.”

Air slammed into Lydia, but she was already up and moving, hitting back with spirit and magically induced fear. The walls around us shook as he battered her. I suspected he was trying to pull the water from the pipes, but nothing was happening. Even the air slicing across her barely left a mark. Whatever the elixir was, it was having a devastating effect.

Fear such as I’d never known stopped my heart. The fear of losing him was so much more powerful than any fear I might have for myself. If Lydia won, he’d forget me. All our memories, all the time we’d shared, gone. The feel of my body would be removed. The evidence of his love, his mark…

I froze as understanding dawned.

My spirit friends piled onto Lydia, sucking at her energy, some of them clawing at the violet strings. She laughed delightedly, and I knew they wouldn’t be enough. Not without something to distract her.

“Remind Kieran of my mark,” I yelled at Jack. Although my voice still didn’t work here—the words were soaking into his awareness through spirit—it felt like my physical ears could hear sounds. “Tell him to remind her that even if he forgets me, he’ll still see his mark sparkling across my skin. He will feel me deeply inside of him, connected by our souls. She can break me, but she cannot tear his mark from my flesh. She can strip me from his mind, but she cannot tear down the evidence of our love, because it is written within us. As soon as we meet, we’ll fall in love all over again. I am his, and he is mine. We will always be one, and no amount of damage to our minds or physical bodies will ever change that. Tell him!”

Jack relayed the message to Kieran, yelling over the building magic and the screaming and shouting of spirits trying to suck the energy Lydia was stealing from others.

The door burst open. Zorn sprinted into the room, and the cats bounded in right behind him. One cat roared—so similar to a big cat cub on the African plains that it was startling—sending out a shock wave of spirit. It crashed into my soul and sent me careening to the other side of the room, still caught in Lydia’s web but more distant from that creeping violet thread. The other cat launched onto Lydia as air from Kieran continued to batter her. Its claws sprang from its large paws and raked down her face. Huge gashes opened up and blood immediately pooled in them before dripping down her cheek and onto her neck.

She screamed. My spirit friends continued to pile onto her. Zorn reached her and picked her up before tossing her across the room. Her back hit the wall before her head and she slid down to the floor. Her hands flung outward and a huge blast of magical fear doused the room. Zorn froze, his knees wobbling but not buckling. He moved a leg forward, his exertion obvious.

“Guard Alexis,” Kieran yelled, waving Zorn out. “Forget about me. Find Alexis’s body and guard her. Set Thane loose.”

The first cat jumped onto the coffee table, knocking away the food and drinks. It hunched, watching me through eerie, glowing bronze eyes—the female cat. She roared again, and another shock wave of spirit pounded into me. Lydia’s invisible web hung on to me for a moment, reluctant to let go, but the cat’s calls finally sent me hurtling from the room.

I punched through a wall and sailed out into dead silence. The bright desert sun beat down on me, and a bird lazily sailed through a blue sky. In the distance, a storm brewed, building quickly. Lightning would come with it, I had no doubt.

Panicked, hanging out in nothingness, I floated through the sky. I had to get back to my body. I felt it calling, and Harding had taught me how to pull myself back. There was only one problem: the shortest path to my body would take me past Lydia. I doubted I’d be allowed to escape twice.