It had to be us. Zylas and me. And that meant he had to go through the portal.

I drew in a deep breath. Another. Then another. Inhaling until I was steady again. Then I reached up, curled my fingers around the back of his neck, and drew his face down.

A slow kiss. Building. Intensifying. My lips parted, inviting his tongue, and his mouth fitted over mine.

I pressed against his chest, losing myself in the kiss. Losing myself in him, in this moment.

His light touch ran down my back, then he pulled my towel away. It dropped to the floor. His hands slid across my damp skin.

I unzipped his jacket and pushed it off his shoulders. He shrugged it off his arms and tossed it away. His hands returned to my body. As he touched and stroked me, I found the buckles on his chest plate. It came free in my hands. I let it fall to the floor with a thud.

Piece by piece, I removed his gear and clothing, all while his exploring touches grew more urgent. Finally, I loosened the laces on the sides of his shorts and pushed them down.

Now my hands were running over him. Exploring the dips and curves of his muscles. Sliding lower to take him shyly in my hands, my heart pounding and belly fluttering with heat.

This time, he didn’t pin me down and take control. This time, he let me explore him. Let me push him to the bed so he was sitting on the mattress’s edge. Let me climb onto his lap, press my hips into his, rock against him until I burned for more.

This time, his hands on my hips didn’t grip hard or steer my movements. He held me, steadied me, as I slid myself down onto him, gasping as he filled me. A husky rumble vibrated his chest.

We moved together, holding each other, and we didn’t need an infernus or a telepathic connection or a magical bond to be in perfect, breathtaking harmony.

We didn’t need anything but each other.

Chapter Twenty-Six

I sat on the living room floor, surrounded by papers and notes. The Athanas grimoire, atop its case with my notebook, lay untouched on the sofa. The Vh’alyir Amulet lay beside the grimoire, its secrets revealed—over three thousand years later than intended.

Anthea and Myrrine had both called the amulet the “key,” but it was more like a demonic grimoire than an artifact.

Its first spell: magic that could block demon contracts, likely to ensure Zh’rēil could never be enslaved. Its second spell: the vision of the past, created to show Anthea’s descendant how summoning had come to exist. And its third spell: instructions for the magic that would end summoning.

Near-silent footsteps padded toward me, then Zylas appeared. He crouched at my side, and together we studied our work—our task. We knew what we needed to do. Accomplishing it was a whole other matter.

The two-part spell that needed to be performed from either side of the portal was reasonably straightforward. Zylas had already memorized his part: a complex array he could instantly cast in his glowing magic, to be accompanied by a long incantation in the demonic language.

My part was simpler but more difficult to pull off. I had an incantation to recite too—also in demonic, which I was working to memorize—and an Arcana array to add to the portal spell. Anthea had left a spot for it: a node near the center, the geometric lines already in place. All I had to do was add the correct runes in the right spots before reciting my incantation.

It wouldn’t be easy, but it was doable. Our biggest obstacle was the portal itself. Arcana Fenestram required time, space, materials, and skill I didn’t possess.

I looked down at the paper I held. The torn corner of Xever’s map.

We didn’t have the ability to open a portal—but Xever did. He’d already done most of the work. At dawn four nights from now, his portal would be ready—and we could use it to end summoning.

All Zylas and I had to do was find it.

I smoothed the crinkled paper, then rolled it up to pack into my suitcase. Everything needed to be packed.

Amalia and I had decided that three days was the maximum amount of time we could spend in one location while we were being hunted; lingering was too dangerous. This was now my fourth day in the safe house apartment, and I couldn’t delay leaving any longer.

Quiet grief rolled over me. Once we left, the chance that Amalia would return shrank to zero.

“What is wrong, amavrah?”

I looked up, surprised to find Zylas watching me. “I wish Amalia were here. We started this together, the three of us, and … she should be with us.”

But she’d left because my habit of hiding my feelings didn’t apply only to Zylas. I hadn’t told Amalia how I felt about him. I hadn’t shown her Myrrine’s journal entries. I hadn’t confided in her.

I heaved a sigh. “I need to apologize, but I’ll probably never see her again.”

Zylas’s tail swished. “I know where she is.”

His words took a moment to sink in. “You … what?”

“The night she left.” Another tail swish. “I followed her to a building. Last night I checked and she is still there.”

“You went out by yourself?”

He frowned. “Not for very long. I do not like leaving you.”

“Then why did you go?”

“Because Amalia is important to you.”

I looked from the grimoire to the amulet then back to Zylas, my throat tight. I’d thought Amalia was gone for good, and the sudden revelation that Zylas had known where to find her all along left me mentally reeling.

“Let’s get everything packed,” I said, making up my mind.

We stuffed all our things into my suitcase except for the Vh’alyir Amulet, which went around my neck, hanging beside my impello artifact.

While Zylas dressed in his human disguise, I stood at the window, peering out at the street below. My thoughts drifted to Tori and Ezra. It’d been almost a week since we’d attempted the summoning ritual to separate Ezra and Eterran. Beyond the walls of this building, they were being hunted—or they’d been captured already.

And if I wasn’t careful, I’d be captured or killed as well. If I was lucky, word had already gotten out that I’d fallen to my death, but that didn’t mean the bounty-hunting guilds would just give up.

I slid the burner phone out of my pocket. Zora had tried to reach me for three days before giving up. My gut twisted guiltily, but I reminded myself I was much safer as an illegal contractor who was presumed dead.

As Zylas pulled on the hated shoes, I coaxed Socks into her carrier, then we ventured down the stairs and out onto the street. Cold rain fell from the dark sky, the air unpleasantly damp and chill in my lungs. I pulled my hood up, my suitcase rolling along behind me. Zylas carried Socks, the kitten’s complaining meows loud and insistent.

We headed straight north, passing two blocks of small businesses in short, worn-down buildings. Crossing the street, we continued past a block of construction, then hurried through another intersection.

Zylas turned into the parking lot of a two-story motel painted a garish green, probably to distract from its rundown siding and disintegrating roof. He stopped at a door halfway down the strip, an empty parking lot across from it.

“This?” I muttered. “Amalia is here?”

He nodded.

Three blocks away. She’d been three blocks away this whole time.

I tightened my grip on my suitcase handle, then rapped my knuckles on the door. Nothing. I knocked louder. The door had a peephole, but it was so grimy maybe she couldn’t see out of it. Or had she left? Had I missed my chance?