For a second, I didn’t understand. Then I did. So did Ereshki. Her sobs became frenzied, and she looked at me with a bleakness that transcended despair.

She expected no mercy. I certainly owed her none. Dagon didn’t merely slit my throat before claiming he was the one to raise me from the dead when I came back to life later. No, Dagon had all the flair of a showman combined with the ruthlessness of his ambitions. The more prolonged the suffering, the more grotesque the method of execution . . . the godlier Dagon looked when I came back from the dead, thus the more power he derived from his worshippers.

And I’d loved Ereshki so much, I begged Dagon to make me the object of his cruelties instead of her. When he did, I was relieved for her sake because until the day Tenoch rescued me, I thought Ereshki loved me as a sister, too. But on that last day, I recovered from a beating faster than my captors anticipated and overheard Ereshki laughing with Fenkir and Rani over how easily she’d deceived me. She wasn’t a helpless captive. No, Ereshki was Dagon’s willing demon-branded acolyte, there only to keep me loyal to him through her deceit.

Finding that out had hurt worse than anything Dagon had done to me.

Now, I could finally get my revenge. In many ways, I needed to, not only for myself, but for all her other victims, too. But even as my hands shook with the urge to choke the life from her, I couldn’t. The Ereshki who’d betrayed me and all those other people wasn’t here. Only this one was, and she couldn’t remember her many crimes.

Murdering this Ereshki wouldn’t be justice. It wouldn’t even be vengeance. It would be cruelty for cruelty’s sake. That’s why I couldn’t do it. If I did, I wouldn’t be much better than the monster Ereshki had been back then, and I was better, dammit! She’d taken a lot from me, but she wouldn’t take that.

“I’m not killing her,” I said.

Ian shrugged. “If you’re too tired, then I’ll do it.”

“No.” Now my tone was steel. “We’re taking her with us.”

Chapter 32

I’d never argued with someone while teleporting before. I can’t say I recommend it. Whenever Ian didn’t want to hear what I was saying, he’d blink us another hundred kilometers or so over the expanse of the ocean. Between that, we flew. Or, more accurately, Ian flew while toting me, Silver, and Ereshki because I was still too weak to carry myself, let alone anyone else.

I’d never heard such a litany of curse words in different languages during the hours it took us to fly, teleport, rest, and repeat before we finally reached the mainland, which turned out to be the coastline of Santa Monica, California. Many times, I expected Ian to leave Ereshki behind to drown, but despite his clearly stated objections, he kept her with us. In the end, I wasn’t sure if that was out of respect for my wishes or because of my colder assertion that Ereshki was worth more to us alive.

That’s how the four of us stumbled into the first gorgeous beach house we saw after swimming the last couple hundred meters to shore. It wasn’t empty, but a few flashes from Ian’s gaze later, the rich middle-aged Caucasian couple was all too happy to host us as their unexpected guests. Demons couldn’t enter a private home unless invited and we were well into midday, so for the next several hours of daylight, we were safe.

I took a long, grateful sip from the husband’s wrist while his wife busied herself asking Ereshki if she wanted something to eat. Ian, to my surprise, went straight to the couple’s phone and started dialing.

“Crispin,” he said moments later. “Something urgent has come up. Need you to meet me at my favorite house tonight, and I know you like to keep her close, but whatever you do, do not bring the girl with you.”

I heard Bones’s snort through the phone. “You know Cat won’t agree to staying behind—”

“Not that girl,” Ian interrupted.

A tense silence followed, then Bones said, “See you tonight,” and hung up.

I was intrigued. Was Ian finally asking his friends for help to take Dagon down?

Ian put the phone down. Then he sprawled onto the nearest sofa without care that he was still soaking wet. Ereshki scrambled to get as far away from him as the stunning ocean-view room allowed. I caught her glancing at the side door that led to the deck and its stairway to the beach as if estimating her chances of reaching it in time.

“You’re safer with us than on your own. Dagon will rip you apart to get what he wants from you.” I couldn’t kill her in good conscience, but I wasn’t about to coddle her, either. “All we’ll do is be rude and keep you confined. Be wise, Ereshki. Take rudeness and confinement over death.”

“He still wants to kill me,” she said in a shaking voice.

The grin Ian flashed her said she wasn’t wrong.

“He won’t,” I replied, ignoring Ian’s challenging arch of the brow. “You’re the perfect bait. Dagon has clearly found a way to track you; Yonah’s destroyed island sanctuary is proof of that. We arrived less than twelve hours before the earthquake, and a spell that powerful would’ve taken much longer to implement, so Dagon followed you there. Not us. But Dagon’s not at full strength yet. Plus, he’ll be struck with crippling pain as soon as he’s near Ian, so we’re going to finally set a trap for him that he can’t escape from.”

We only had the element of surprise and the results of whatever my father had done to Ian to combat Dagon’s wild-card ability to burn through souls to increase his power, but it would have to be enough.

“Why will being near Ian harm him?” Ereshki asked at the same time Ian said, “Do go on,” in a dangerously silky tone.

I stiffened. Had I not mentioned that to him before? From Ian’s darkening expression, I hadn’t. I sighed.

“My father put a spell on you that only activates when Dagon is near. You saw what it did when Dagon crashed our date at the amusement park. He dropped to his knees screaming.”

The memory warmed my heart, but Ian’s fingers began to drum against the armrest of the sofa hard enough to send bits of fluff from its inner stuffing into the air.

“Once, I thought the most awful thing I’d heard was Vlad’s witchy wife cursing me to fall for someone who insisted on monogamy.” Ian’s tone was deceptively jovial. “I must not have heard the part where she added that the object of my affection would also have an enraging set of scruples combined with insane protective instincts that led to repeated suicidal tendencies!”

I must not have drunk enough from the rich husband. If I had, I might have known what the hell Ian was talking about. “Is this your way of saying you don’t want to be monogamous?”

An end table went sailing through the window. Glass shattered and the wife let out a frightened squeak that Ereshki echoed. Ian was in front of me before I could speak, those strong fingers now digging into my shoulders.

“No.” His voice was harsher than a growl. “It’s my way of saying I can’t believe you avoided me for weeks for my supposed protection when all the while, doing so put you in more danger because I was spell-bound into being a bloody Dagon-repellant!”

“I wasn’t thinking about my danger,” I snapped, weariness turning to anger. “I wasn’t much thinking at all, as I’ve tried to explain to you over and over. Yes, I handled things badly, but after you hold my dead body in your arms, you can react with all the cool rationality you want. Until then, excuse me for not acting with my best cold logic right after holding yours!”