I sucked in a shaky breath, unable to reply when she was voicing my fears.

“If the fact that he’s a creature—a creature—from another world isn’t enough, this isn’t a game you want to play with a demon.” She gave me a brief shake. “Don’t you realize what he can do to you? If you don’t shut that shit down now, you might not get to later. He can overpower you, with or without the infernus.”

My throat closed as I sensed the fear behind her revulsion.

“This isn’t like roleplaying with a guy because you’re into horns or something. He’s from another world. His body is part magic. I know you believe he won’t hurt you, but have you imagined what he could do to you by accident?”

As I bit my lower lip to hide its trembling, Amalia’s expression softened.

“I don’t want you to get hurt … or worse,” she whispered. “Just keep your head on straight until we can send him home, okay?”

Humiliation, remorse, uncertainty, and a sickening pain in my chest overwhelmed me, but I didn’t cry. I wouldn’t cry.

Tightening my hold on my emotions even more, I nodded. Keep my head on straight. Keep my heart safe.

And send Zylas home.

I stared at the ceiling, the blankets pulled up to my chin. Sweet smokiness tickled my nose—Zylas’s scent, clinging to the fabric from the last time he’d reclined across the blankets. Each inhalation was a reminder of his closeness, his arms around me, his mouth against my throat.

My stomach churned. Being caught like that with a guy would’ve been embarrassing. But with a demon …

It went beyond taboo. Forbidden didn’t encompass it. Intimacy with a demon was beyond incomprehensible—to everyone but me, it seemed.

Demons were monsters. Seven-foot-tall beasts with horns, manes, scales, wings, tails, or spiny protrusions on their limbs. They were killing machines that thrived on violence. They were merciless, bloodthirsty, and brutal. To mythics, they were less than beasts. They were puppets to be used and discarded.

Zylas was more human in appearance and—after months in my company and with access to my thoughts—more human in temperament. His emotional landscape was different from a human’s, but it was no less complex and nuanced.

Yet, despite that, he was far more closely related to the bestial demons of other Houses than he was to me.

Pulling my arms from under the covers, I pressed my hands to my face. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t drawn to him—but what drew me? Where did my fascination end and attraction begin?

Amalia’s words echoed in my head. I didn’t know what to think, what to feel, but the last thing she’d said rang with truth. With finality.

I’d promised to send Zylas home.

If he was going home, if he was leaving my world and never returning, then there was no question—I needed to keep my head down and get through this. But if his desire to leave had changed …

He’d hesitated at the portal, staring into the demon world’s sky as though immobilized with indecision. That glimpse I’d gotten of his drowsy thoughts taunted me—his memory of his own world … and his memory of coming home to me, but I didn’t know which he longed for.

I flipped the blankets aside and climbed out of bed. My closet doors creaked faintly as I slid them open. Grabbing an oversized sweatshirt and baggy cotton pants, I pulled them on over my pajama top and shorts.

In the living room, the glow of a streetlamp through the balcony’s glass door cut across Zylas where he sat beside it, a narrow slice of his face illuminated as he turned his head toward me. I padded across the carpet and stopped two long steps away.

He watched me sink into a crouch so we were on eye level.

“Zylas,” I whispered. My throat tried to close and I swallowed. “Do … do you want to go home?”

His mouth shifted in a frown.

“We found the portal array in the grimoire,” I added. “And we have the amulet now.”

His dark pupils, dilated in the dim light, flicked side to side as he studied my face. “You promised to send me home.”

My throat bobbed with another swallow. “I just wanted to check that you still want to go, since you can’t be a Dīnen anymore.”

He would return not as a king but as Ivaknen—“the Summoned.” As he’d explained it, he would have respect but nothing else. No home, no people, no purpose.

His gaze was still roving across my features as though trying to read my thoughts. I wondered if he could hear my mind. The way it was spinning, even if he could, he might not discern much.

Lips parting to speak, he hesitated. An uncomfortable pressure tightened my chest, a flicker of unexpected, inappropriate hope.

“I do not belong here.”

The spark of hope died as quickly as it had formed. Pain followed, a swift, cutting line across my heart. He didn’t belong here. Not in my world.

Not with me.

“Of—of course,” I said weakly, trying to smile. “I understand. You should be in your own world.”

He said nothing.

I twined my fingers together and squeezed, the dull ache cutting through the clouds of emotion in my head. “Zylas, I also wanted to say I’m sorry for earlier.”

His eyes were pools of crimson mystery, giving away nothing of his thoughts.

“I don’t know how to explain,” I began awkwardly. “For some humans, being … uh … being really close to someone—the way we were, I mean—that’s a special thing for, um, for—”

“You do not choose me.”

“What?”

“A payashē gives a male her food when she chooses him for her bed. You gave me food. But you do not choose me.”

All moisture evaporated from my mouth. I couldn’t speak.

“You would like a hh’ainun male, na? A male who belongs here.”

“I …” The word came out in a whisper. “I just—just don’t know how to explain. It’s complicated and I … don’t …”

When I trailed off, he turned toward the glass and the night sky beyond. “The reason does not matter.”

Because it wouldn’t change anything. Because nothing could change. Because he was leaving.

The seconds ticked into a minute. He didn’t turn, watching the sky the way he’d stared at the expanse of stars on the other side of the portal. My mouth opened, then closed. My fingers twisted together even harder.

Rising to my feet, I walked back to my bedroom, the silence between us thundering in my ears.

Chapter Five

“Shouldn’t that be south? ‘Pros mesembrian’ is south.”

At my correction, Amalia peered at her notes, then swore and crossed out the erroneous direction.

“South alignment,” she grumbled. “No wonder this wasn’t making any sense. Okay, then we have a directional reversal—so this array is basically a mirror image of a normal summoning.”

“Except half the anterior nodes are different,” I added with a sigh, tapping my pen against my notebook. “And it’s paired with another array, and those are both inside another array.”

She swore. “This is way more complicated than regular summoning. No wonder demon mages are so rare.”