“Stop it,” she commanded. “Intentions . . .”

Bracing herself, she bit her lip—and cut her palm, right over the lifeline. The blood came out fast, dropping all over the place as she picked up the candle and tilted it to the still-burning purse.

The flame caught quick.

Even though Mae’s heart was racing and she didn’t really think this was going to work, she put her dripping wound and the burning candle over the dish. Then she closed her eyes and tried to calm her mind. Picturing Sahvage walking through the door, she—

No. If this was some kind of fucked-up, other existential plane, she didn’t want to get them both trapped here.

She pictured Sahvage straddling the two planes. One foot in the realness, one foot in wherever she was.

With total concentration, Mae recalled every single thing about the fighter. She pictured his cropped hair. His beautiful, harsh face. His obsidian eyes. His lips . . .

But as she drew in a breath, she couldn’t feel him. Even as she pictured him, it didn’t go far enough: It was a photograph, not a sculpture. Definitely not a person.

Mae popped her eyes opened and looked around. “Think of him, think of him . . .”

Refocusing, she tried to quiet down again, and put herself inside the memories of them together—

In the bathroom. At Tallah’s.

All at once, it clicked: She was so close to Sahvage, their lips nearly meeting, their eyes locked. She could scent him in her nose and feel him inside her body even though they weren’t touching, her blood racing, her senses alive, the precipice she was about to jump off of leading not to a hard fall . . . but a soaring flight.

With that in her mind, she now imagined that he had one foot on the far side of the door, and one foot on her side, whatever that was. He was reaching out to her, extending his hand to her. And she was putting her palm on his. And he was pulling her . . .

Sahvage. I’m here.

She thought the words at him so hard that she began to strain, and she kept repeating them until she felt like she was going to burst. Exhaling on a great explosion, with her lungs burning and her heart skipping beats, everything went wonky.

Gasping, Mae opened her eyes and—

Nothing had changed.

Sagging in her own skin, she looked around and felt a despair that went further than even the pain she’d been carrying around about Rhoger—and that was because everything that had happened to him was wrapped up in the piercing agony now marking the center of her chest.

And she was going to lose Tallah, too.

Everything was gone. Her life as she had known it, her life as she had wished it would be.

And she would never, ever know where Sahvage’s kisses would have taken her.

She was going to lose him as well.

Tears rolled down her cheeks as she regarded this strange, unholy prison she was trapped in—and the horror that there was nothing to do but wait for the demon to come back.

Which would be both a beginning and an ending.

All hope lost.

In the midst of her sadness and regret, Sahvage’s face came to her mind once more, from back when he’d shown up at the cottage and they’d fought that shadow. The image of him was from after the attack, when they’d been in the kitchen. He’d been joking with her, a sly smile on his face, his black-blue eyes sparkling.

Under different circumstances, maybe they could have had a life together—

“I could have loved him!” she yelled at no one.

With a swipe of her arm, she backhanded the silver dish, the stupid, go-nowhere bullshit in it going flying—and hitting the steel-reinforced door on a splash that stuck. On account of the fucking true-blue birthday candle.

All at once, the lights flickered . . . and went out.

While an older security guard was sent off with no memories of three vampires showing up in his building’s basement, Sahvage was going insane as he walked through some kind of storage place.

That was four-thousand-plus square feet of absolutely, fucking empty.

But Mae was here.

Stalking around the pylons that were holding up the ceiling, he couldn’t explain what he was scenting, what he was sensing. Mae was here. He could almost feel her. And yet his eyes were telling him that he was alone in this concrete four-walls-and-not-a-damn-thing.

“I don’t get it,” he gritted out.

Butch, the Brother who’d volunteered to tour guide him, shook his head. “This is how it was for me and V, too. We were tracking the demon on GPS, but . . . we couldn’t find her even though she was at this location.”

“Mae’s here.” He breathed in and smelled smoke, too. Along with his female’s scent. “I can . . . she’s here.”

Faster and faster, he kept walking around. But like that was going to change anything?

“Fuck this,” he said as he marched back to the steel door. “I get the fucking Book. Then I make a deal with her. She wants it, and she’ll do anything to get it.”

The pain of remote faces looking back at him were a loud-and-clear he was not having.

“Sorry, Mae comes first.”

Tohr shook his head. “We’ll get your female back. But the Book and that demon can’t be reunited. It gives her too much power.”

“Just so we’re clear”—Sahvage leveled his stare—“I don’t give a shit whether that brunette blows up half of Caldwell, the only thing I care about is Mae.”

“We have other resources. We can help you.”

“All I need is that fucking Book. I’ll take it from there.”

As Sahvage faced off at the Brothers, he recognized the screaming in his head. It took him back to all those fun-filled nights looking for Rahvyn. Goddamn, how had he gone from glancing at Mae in the crowd at that fight to this . . . hollow despair . . . at not being able to save her?

He was a simp.

“I’m coming for you, Mae,” he said loudly. “You stay alive, I’m coming for you.”

As his voice echoed around the gray-and-black concrete, he knew he was insane. But there was no getting off this train.

He turned and stalked out of the storage unit. Closing the door behind himself and the Brothers, he looked up and down the corridor as the other fighters continued to give him all kinds of no-go hairy eyeball.

When he walked away, he felt like he was peeling off his own skin. And the only way he could keep going was by promising himself . . . he was somehow going to find his female.

Not that she was his.

For fuck’s sake, he should have listened to his gut and not gotten involved—

The clanging clatter rang out in the hallway, like something metal had hit . . . something metal. Spinning around, he frowned at the nothing-happening.

“What is it?” Tohr demanded.

“Didn’t you hear that?”

“No. There was no sound.”

Butch shook his head. “There was nothing, my guy.”

Sahvage ignored them. But when there was no repeat and no . . . fucking anything at all . . . he knew he was just being an ass.

“Motherfucker.”

He turned away—and that was when he heard the weeping. Soft. As if from a distance . . . yet the sound was unmistakable.

Gripped with focus, Sahvage walked back to the steel door, even though he didn’t expect to see anything.