Finally, I caught sight of the tall old factory building where Alia lived. The bricks on one side were painted white beneath a black script reading The Bottling Plant.

Creative name, that.

“Let’s head for the alley,” Lachlan said.

I nodded and followed him through the cold, dark streets to the narrow alley at the back. The brick buildings rose tall on either side of us, looming toward the pinkening sky. Fire escapes climbed the walls, rickety metal stairs leading to wooden doors. They covered the back of the building, zigzagging in rows down the side, which gave the wall the appearance of an old-school video game. The demon guards could be behind any of the doors, watching from the windows for intruders to approach.

“Demons,” he murmured. “Can you smell them?”

I shook my head. I’d never had proper shifter senses, and I certainly didn’t have them now that I’d spent so long relying on the fae magic I’d bought myself with potions.

“Four. Maybe five,” he said.

Damn. Damian had said only three or four.

He looked down at me. “Use those wings of yours to get out of the way.”

I bristled. “I can fight.”

“Do so from the sky. Out of range.”

Worry glinted in his eyes, and I frowned at him. “I didn’t expect you to be so concerned. You think I might be the murderer.”

“Just get out of the way.”

I scowled but nodded. I fought best from the air, anyway, where I had a good vantage point for hurling my potion bombs. I called upon my magic and felt my wings flare to life behind me.

Lachlan watched them, his gaze unreadable.

I took off into the air, hovering high above the alley.

A low shout sounded from the building where the demon guards were hiding. They knew we were here.

My heart jumped into my throat. I called on the bag that I stored in the ether, then plunged my hand in and grabbed a potion bomb.

In the alley below, Lachlan stepped away from the wall and approached the fire escape stairs. Why hadn’t he shifted yet? Surely he was safer in wolf form.

A demon stepped out onto one of the balconies about four stories up. With his pale gray skin, he would have looked almost human if not for the sawed-off horns and black claws. He raised a crossbow and aimed it at Lachlan.

Was the bolt silver tipped?

Fear rocketed through me.

Before he could fire, I chucked a potion bomb at him. The glass globe hurtled through the air, smashing against his chest and spraying him with brilliant red potion. He shrieked as the acid ate into him, dropping his crossbow and stumbling backward toward the brick wall.

While I’d been attacking him, four more demons had come out onto other fire escapes. Lachlan moved insanely fast, racing up the stairs and grabbing one of the attackers by the collar, then heaving him over the side. The demon screamed as he fell and crashed to the ground in a heap.

Now that Lachlan was on the fire escape, the other three demons couldn’t get a clear shot at him from their positions on the other staircases. They’d have to fire their crossbows between the metal slats of the stairs, and it would never work.

They had a great shot at me, though.

One of them turned his bow up toward me, and my skin iced. As he fired, I flew upward as fast as I could, narrowly avoiding the bolt. He swore and reloaded, and I dove back down, gripping a potion bomb tight. When I was close enough, I hurled my potion bomb at his head. The bottle flew through the air, smashing against his skull and coating him in a pale blue liquid that froze him solid. He toppled forward.

On the fire escape below him, Lachlan charged at the other two demons who were scrambling down the fire escapes in search of a clean shot. As he sprinted toward them, deep green magic swirled around him, and he shifted midstride. One moment, he was a man; the next, he was a massive black wolf, bigger than any I’d ever seen.

He was magnificent.

He reached the demons a half second later and tore out the nearer demon’s throat. The other demon tried to get a shot off, but Lachlan was too fast. He spat out the dead demon and lunged at the second, and blood sprayed as he went for the throat a second time.

I looked away, searching for more attackers, but there were none, thank fates.

The demons who’d fallen into the alley below were already starting to disappear. Unlike humans or other supernaturals, demons couldn’t really be killed. Technically, they weren’t even supposed to be out of the Underworld, though there were many ways around that rule. Once they were killed on earth, their bodies disappeared, and they woke up in whatever Underworld they’d come from.

It made cleanup easy, at least.

I flew down to Lachlan, who shifted back into his human form in the blink of an eye, the process hidden by a swirl of magic that matched his eyes. The older and more powerful you were, the easier it was to change forms. For Lachlan, it was as easy as breathing.

I landed next to him, and he turned to me, his chest heaving and his eyes still bright green with his wolf. His gaze flashed between my wings and my face, something unrecognizable in his expression. It was almost confusion, or perhaps recognition. Desire, definitely, like the heat of battle had warmed his blood as well as his fighting instinct. He stepped toward me. Heat flared in his eyes, and he looked straight at my mouth.

I gasped as I stared back at him , every inch of me prickling with awareness. His gaze never left my lips.

Was he going to try to kiss me?

Would I let him?

He stepped back abruptly, and I blinked. What the hell had that been?

“You did well,” he said. “We should head to the top.”

I nodded. “Of course. There could be more guards.”

He turned and climbed the fire escape to the next interior door, ignoring the disintegrating bodies of the demons. I followed him, my mind racing. I had no idea what had just happened, but it had been a moment of some kind.

Just what kind of moment, I couldn’t say.

We were halfway up the building when we reached the next level on the fire escape. The door was locked, but Lachlan gave it a swift kick, and we were in.

He held out a hand, indicating that I should wait while he checked the room.

His protectiveness was…weird.

I’d never had someone like that in my life. True, my friends wanted to protect me, but this had a different flavor to it. We protected each other. This felt decidedly one-sided. I gave him a second to check out the space first, then followed. I couldn’t stand around forever like a damsel in distress.

The hallway inside was dark and quiet, old and industrial. The entire floor felt empty, and smelled it, too, dusty and disused.

“I think only the top floor is occupied,” Lachlan whispered.

No doubt he was using his lupine hearing and super sense of smell.

Together, we quietly crept up the stairs, flight after flight. It was an easy journey, with no demons jumping out of the darkened corners.

Too easy.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, every instinct going on red alert as we reached the landing on the top floor. A dark door stood at the end, closed tightly.

The apothecary was on the other side, but there were no demon guards.

Ahead of me, Lachlan stepped forward, then stopped abruptly. I slammed into his back, letting out a whoosh of air. “What happened?” I asked.

“I’m stuck.”

“Stuck?” I frowned. “What do you mean?” I looked down at his feet.