Before Sahvage joined her, he put his hands to the front of his hips, and as she flushed and had to swallow hard—he simply removed his gun holster and placed it close by.

The entire mattress tilted as he sat on its edge, and she moved over to make sure he had enough room. But as he stretched out, she suddenly wasn’t thinking about space. She was thinking about proximity.

His and hers.

Before she thought too much about anything, she curled into him, and his heavy arm pushed under her neck. When she hissed, he froze.

“No, it’s fine,” she murmured. “I just have a bump on my head.”

“From the car accident?”

As she settled in, she said with exhaustion, “I don’t know. It could have been. I don’t remember a lot.”

“How did it happen?” he asked right by her ear.

“The accident?” Mae thought back to the radio report she’d been listening to. “I got distracted and hit the brakes. I was rear-ended—oh, God, she killed that nice man. Who was going to call nine-one-one for me.”

As she moaned, he took one of her hands in his own. “Try not to think about it.”

“I was so scared,” she said as she went deeper into her memories. “In that place. She had a cage—I was in . . . a cage.”

“Mae . . .” Now he sounded like he was in pain.

She lifted her head and looked into his dark blue eyes. “How did you know where to find me?”

“One of the Brothers knew where the brunette was.”

“Did you call them for help?”

“They found me as it turned out.” His brows dropped low. “We went there, to that building downtown—and I can’t explain it. I could scent you in the space, but I couldn’t see you. I walked around and around. I swear it was empty and I left . . . but then, all of a sudden, there was this clanging noise. And when I went back, the door turned into a window, into something that wasn’t there in the, like, normal sense.”

As he cursed under his breath, she put her arm over his rib cage—which was so broad, she felt as if she were trying to embrace a sofa.

“What if I hadn’t heard that sound, you know?” he murmured. “I want to shit my pants every time I think of it.”

“I summoned you.” As both his brows arched in surprise, she nodded. “I used the same spell I used on the Book. At least the one for you worked.”

“So that’s how . . . holy crap.”

There was a period of quiet. And then Sahvage rolled toward her. “You know, she’ll go away if you give her what she wants.”

“I’m sorry, you mean—the brunette?” When he nodded, Mae sat up. “How do you know that?”

“It’s in the nature of those who covet. They acquire. You saw all those clothes.”

Mae pushed her hair out of her face. “You’re saying I should use the Book for Rhoger, and then just give it to her?”

“No, I’m saying to save your own life, you should just let her have it.” When she didn’t respond, Sahvage sat up as well. “Mae, think of where you’ve been. Think of what you’ve just survived—by a stroke of luck.”

Between one blink and the next, she relived waking up in that crate. The panic of being trapped. The way it had felt being pressed up against that wall by the demon’s invisible power.

She had been so terrified. So out of control.

Exactly as she had felt at the deaths of her parents. At the death of Rhoger.

“It wasn’t a stroke of luck,” she muttered. “I called you to me. And besides, I don’t have the Book, do I.”

“Mae . . .”

“No.”

She wasn’t even aware of having spoken until Sahvage said, “No, what?”

As Mae remembered feeling trapped and scared, she shook her head in the darkness. Then she turned to him. “I’m not going to let her win. She’s never getting that goddamn Book.”

• • •

Downtown, on the basement level of the old office building, Devina clipped down the corridor to her lair, her stilettos fucking off the concrete. She could have just projected herself home, but she didn’t feel like it. She just didn’t fucking feel like it.

The fact that she was so enraged that concentration was impossible was a reality she refused to acknowledge. She was fine. She was just fucking fine—

The smell registered about thirty, forty feet from her destination, but she was so up in her head, it wasn’t until she got to her door that she realized something was on fire somewhere close. And then, as she stepped into her home, there was smoke in the air. Looking around, she saw that the stupid fucking female vampire was gone—

Devina screamed. “No, no, nonononono!”

Falling to her knees, there was a cracking sound as she hit her polished floor, but she didn’t care about the pain. With trembling hands, she reached out and tenderly cradled the innocent that had been massacred.

Her nearly priceless Birkin.

Her Himalayan Niloticus 35 with the diamond hardware.

Some absolute lunatic had burned the corner of the bag, ruining the crocodile skin, its delicate coloring and pattern of white, buff, gray, and black scales invaded by a cancer of oxidation from a flame.

Ruined. Four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of Hermès’s very best efforts, hours of work from a master craftsman, the very rarest and most expensive handbag in the world . . . ruined.

Falling on her ass, one of her ankles cranked at a bad angle, but she didn’t care.

Cradling the desecrated carcass to her chest, she looked across her collection through eyes that watered. The tangled mess of the dog cage in the far corner seemed a rebuke of so much, so she willed it away, disappearing the goddamn symbol of her fucking failure.

What a night.

Everything had gone wrong.

And this was the problem with her life. When things went bad, you wanted to share the nightmare with someone who gave a shit. Somebody who could talk it all through with you, iron out the bumps, help formulate a new plan, a different approach.

A better way of getting to your goal.

Instead she was here, surrounded by beautiful things that could offer no advice or real support.

Closing her eyes, she reminded herself that her therapist, that flabby paper bag of a woman, had told her it was okay to be upset. To be disappointed. She just needed to feel her feelings—and know that, however strong they were, however unbearable they seemed, they would fade. Emotions were never permanent.

Except no, one of them was.

Though hate and anger, happiness and gratitude, jealousy, optimism, paranoia, all of the others were subject to peaks and valleys . . . love was a constant.

True love was immortal.

And when you were a demon, when there was no exit ramp for your existence, you valued things that could keep up with your forever calendar of nights and days.

Infinity was less fun than people thought.

Swamped with sadness, Devina rearranged her legs, extending them out and putting the Birkin casualty on her thighs. Running her fingertips over the matte texture, she remembered buying it at the mother ship. Twenty-four Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. She had her favorite SA there, and after years of supporting the brand, and so many Kellys and Birkins bought and paid for, she had finally been invited to purchase the Holy Grail.