Ian untangled himself from the lockers, then threw the mangled mess aside to check on me. “I’m fine,” I assured him, even though my arm felt like it was paralyzed from holding the diamond while all that magic funneled through it.

“Then let’s get the sod.” Blood practically dripped from Ian’s tone. “The spell your father put on Dagon should have him on his knees from being this close to me—”

“I am not on my knees,” a familiar voice hissed.

Both of us turned.

Dagon was at the top of the staircase connecting the second floor to this room. His blue eyes gleamed with malice and his pale blond hair swirled from the residual waves of magic, but as described, he wasn’t on his knees. He did lean heavily on Ereshki, though, and she looked like she wasn’t enjoying being his version of a pair of crutches. That could be because she looked exhausted. Whatever she’d been doing the past three days had taken a toll on her.

“What do you think you accomplished with that spell?” Dagon continued in the same snakelike tone.

“Consider the doors on this place locked,” I replied with deep satisfaction.

Ian gave the demon a brilliant smile. “Used the blue diamond I stole from you to anchor the spell.”

Dagon didn’t look afraid at hearing he was locked in with us. I hoped that was overconfidence and not something more ominous.

Ereshki appeared rattled, though, which was cold comfort. “You broke your vow,” she said. “Dagon told me you would.”

“He was wrong,” I replied. “I’m not going to kill you, Ereshki. Ian, however, has other intentions.”

Ian’s smile made ice roll over my skin despite it being aimed at Ereshki, not me. If death indulged in foreplay before getting to the final act, it would start with that smile.

“Shall we, poppet?” he purred at her.

Ereshki shuddered. Dagon spat. “We’re all trapped in here for however long your spell lasts, so if you want me, here I am!”

He was taunting me to charge him. Doing anything that Dagon wanted me to do would backfire, so I stayed where I was. Ian must have thought it was a trap, too. He put a hand on my arm.

“Don’t move,” he said through newly gritted teeth. “I feel something building . . .”

I pulled the pin on my other nature, trusting that more than whatever the demon was about to do. Power flooded me, blacking out my vision while sending my other senses into overdrive. I sent that power toward Dagon, seeking every drop of liquid in his body. Then I tightened my power around them and yanked. He couldn’t hurt us if he was too dehydrated to move.

Dagon’s fluids hit the floor in a wide swath of red I felt rather than saw. The crash I heard was Dagon crumpling to the ground, Ereshki unable to bear the full brunt of his weight any longer. Then the multiple satisfying thumps must have been his body hitting the steps as Dagon fell down the stairs.

I had an instant to savor the sound before Dagon’s magic slammed into me with such force, all of my senses blinked out.

Chapter 40

I opened my eyes, revealing that I was now crumpled in the same spot where my vampire half had stood. I rose to my feet, noting with detached surprise that everything hurt. I couldn’t see a wound, so there was no obvious source for the pain.

Ian was across the room, his outstretched arm almost touching Dagon, who was in a heap at the foot of the stairs. I grasped my bone knife and started toward the demon—only to have an invisible wall stop me. Agony shot through me as a wide circle around me flared into view. Then it vanished, showing only the warped wood floors and carpet of trash.

“’ull me . . .’way . . . from him,” Dagon rasped.

Ereshki hurried down the stairs, giving Ian wary looks as she stepped around him. He still looked unconscious, but she was careful not to touch him as she grabbed Dagon’s arms and hauled him away from Ian. She kept away from me, too, making a wide berth as she dragged the demon to the entrance of the ski lodge.

“Far enough?” she asked with a grunt of exertion.

“’or . . . now.”

I tried to yank any remaining fluid out of Dagon, but felt my power smack against the walls of the circle that imprisoned me. The circle didn’t merely trap me inside its invisible circumference; it also succeeded in trapping my abilities, too.

“Clever,” I said. My vampire nature howled; her form of agreement, I supposed.

Dagon’s smile split his severely cracked lips, but he didn’t have enough blood left in his body for them to bleed. Then he said something too garbled for me to translate.

“Don’t bother talking until you heal enough to speak intelligibly. It appears I have the time to wait.”

Dagon held up his middle finger. No translation required there. Then light burst from his chest, briefly blinding me. A few blinks later, the flashes were gone and I could see again.

The demon’s skin was now as hydrated and vibrant as a youth in full vigor. He tapped his lips as if admiring their plump smoothness, then smiled at me with boyish charm, as if that detracted from the new, ugly spark in his eyes.

“How do I sound now?”

In reply, I hurled my power at him. It hit the walls, lighting them up. In the same instant, another full-body ache made me wish I could rip my bones out because they felt as if they’d caught fire. My vampire half howled in pain, too. And rage.

This isn’t helping! I felt/heard her snap.

Did she think she could do better? Very well, then! I wasn’t the one who’d fallen victim to the demon’s clever trap. Let her deal with its repercussions. At least she’d earned them.

This situation is all yours, I thought, and fell back into the cage she’d long ago forged for me.

I slammed back into the mental driver’s seat with a gasp that made Dagon’s grin widen. Hatred flooded me along with the pain that had made my celestial nature decide to take a vacation day. I bit back my next gasp, gritting out a curse instead.

“How the fuck did you heal so quickly?”

Dagon tilted his head in a friendly way. “Burned through my last extra soul, of course. I used the others to give Ereshki the raw magical material to formulate these traps. What do you think she’s been doing for the past three days? The circles are linked to each other, and they were both set to activate as soon as my blood touched them. I knew you couldn’t resist using your blood-ripping powers on me, and I wasn’t wrong.”

I wanted to scream with frustration, but that would only delight him. I had to think up a way out of this. Quickly, before Dagon tired of gloating and got down to murdering us.

“Your extra souls?” I clucked my tongue in a disapproving way. “Have you been collecting on your demon deals before their expiration date to get so many, so fast?”

“No, you stupid whore,” he replied in that same cheery tone. “While you were busy scouring the globe looking for the other resurrected people, I was slicing open their new bodies and taking back the power they stole from me. Acquiring their souls again was equally easy. People will agree to anything to make very creative torture stop.”

I closed my eyes. Those poor people. “You used a spell to trace your power in them from the very start.”

His snort opened my eyes. “I didn’t have to. They rose from their graves, and I already knew where those graves were because I’m the one who killed them. I only left you the ghoul in Mycenae as a trap. Who do you think uploaded that video of him screeching in ancient Greek?”