Chapter Fifteen

Snuggled deep in my bed, I drifted on the edge of sleep. At first, I’d thought this bed was way too squishy to sleep on, but now that I’d gotten used to it, the cloud-like softness was the best thing ever.

I rolled onto my side and buried my face in the lavender-scented pillowcase. After dinner, Aaron and Kai—his black eye repaired by a healer—had discussed their plans for hunting the alpha wolf. We were scheduled to head out bright and early the next morning. Ezra had slept right through dinner, but he’d be joining us for the hunt.

The clack of a door handle broke into my sleepy stupor. My eyebrows scrunched as my bedroom brightened, then the door clicked closed.

Grumbling, I flopped onto my back, legs tangled in the blankets, and squinted my eyes open. The room was dark, a soft glow leaking between the drapes from a lamp outside. My vision was blurred, my eyes tired and dry, but I couldn’t miss the man ghosting toward my bed.

My breath caught. A stranger in my room would’ve petrified me, but I knew his silhouette as well as I knew my own shadow.

“Ezra?” I mumbled sleepily. “What’s wrong?”

He crossed the plush carpet, then the mattress dipped as he put a knee on my bed. I blinked my drowsiness away, confusion and a dart of anticipation firing through me. The dim glow from the window caressed his bronze skin; he wore only a pair of thin cotton pants. His torso was all curving muscle and hard planes, his scars softened in the darkness. He leaned over me, light catching in his eyes.

Panic ripped through me.

His hand clamped over my mouth in an iron grip, stifling my petrified gasp. He lowered his head, our noses almost touching.

“Tori,” he hissed.

Instead of ice-white and chocolate-brown, two crimson eyes glowed in his face, the deep red burning black in the center. This was Ezra’s body, but it wasn’t him.

Ezra can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message with his demon.

“It is time we have a little talk,” he crooned, his words lilting with a guttural accent. “Shall we talk? You must promise not to scream.”

My harsh breaths whistled through my nose. Terror gripped me like icy claws, visceral memories hitting hard. The inhuman, primeval hatred in those glowing eyes was exactly the same as it’d been that night six weeks ago—but this time, I didn’t have my fall-spell in hand to save myself.

He leaned down, putting his lips to my ear.

“If you scream,” the demon whispered, warm breath tickling my skin, “Ezra will die.”

My racing heart stumbled. He smiled at my frightened expression, then pulled his hand away from my face. I inhaled deeply, trying to think. He hadn’t killed me yet, so I just had to hang on until Ezra regained control. Assuming he could.

“Eterran,” I whispered hoarsely. “How are you controlling Ezra?”

Eterran slid onto the bed, lying on his side, head propped on one hand. We faced each other, inches between our reclined bodies. From a distance, we may have looked casual, intimate even, but I’d never been more tense in my life. As panic threatened to overwhelm me, I summoned anger to my defense.

“Answer me,” I ordered, praying he wouldn’t call my bluff, “or I will definitely scream.”

Eterran, for obvious reasons, wasn’t concerned. “You do not want to scream, payilas talūk. You might wake Ezra.”

“Wake him?”

The words didn’t make sense. My brain buzzed uselessly.

“It has been very difficult,” the demon murmured, vicious delight marring Ezra’s face. “I spent years, many careful years, learning this.”

“Learning what?” I asked shrilly.

“Shh,” Eterran breathed. “Do not wake him.”

I stared, cold horror rising up in my chest as though my lungs were filling with ice water. The last time I’d seen the demon take control, Ezra had been unconscious. If the demon was back, did that mean …

My throat spasmed with terrified disbelief. “Is Ezra asleep right now?”

The demon smiled. No, that couldn’t be it. Eterran could force himself into the driver’s seat if Ezra lost emotional control or passed out—but only if Ezra was already tapping the demon’s power. Ezra didn’t wield demon magic in his sleep.

“I was very careful,” Eterran repeated silkily, “to make sure he did not notice my attempts. Only in these past weeks did I increase my efforts …”

He brushed his thumb against my chin, the touch almost affectionate. I shuddered away from his hand. I wanted to fling myself off the bed and bolt from the room, but I didn’t dare move.

“And only because of you.”

My fear-logged brain wasn’t piecing it together, the urgent need to escape consuming too much of my computing power. “What are you talking about?”

“Even now,” Eterran replied with a quiet, contemptuous laugh, “you do not suspect.”

A moment where that sick horror in my chest quadrupled—then an involuntary gasp scraped my throat as I finally figured it out.

“You’ve been causing Ezra’s insomnia?” My head spun nauseatingly. “You’re the reason Ezra hasn’t been able to sleep? You—”

He leaned close, a cruel smile on his lips. “Good girl. Now you understand.”

My teeth clenched so hard that pain flared through my jaw. This bastard demon had been trying to take control of Ezra while he slept, and each time, Ezra had woken in a panic, sensing the danger but not realizing its source.

But, judging by the demon reclined in front of me, Eterran had now figured out how to slip past Ezra’s defenses.

“You—” I began, rage joining my terror.

His eyes brightened eerily. “If Ezra discovers this, he will die. You don’t want him to die, do you, Tori?”

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. “Why would he die?”

“I warned you that they have not told you everything.”

“Everything about what?”

“Ezra knows his body and soul are destined to be mine. If he finds out what I can do, he will tell his friends, and his friends will kill him.”

My muscles locked down. No. Never. Aaron and Kai would never—could never kill Ezra. Even if … even if …

Darius’s voice murmured in my memory. “If Ezra had ever seemed like a danger to anyone in the guild, we would have taken the necessary steps.”

Necessary steps. One of those had been removing Ezra from the guild and getting him away from other people. The next step, the obvious fallback, the only possible option … was to kill him before his demon took full control.

If I told Aaron and Kai, they might end Ezra’s life. If I told Darius, he’d take that “necessary step” and eliminate the danger. If I told Ezra … he wouldn’t hide it. He didn’t want to put others at risk. That’s why he’d told Darius he was a demon mage before joining the Crow and Hammer.

“But you,” Eterran crooned, “you do not want Ezra to die.” He pressed a finger to my lips. “So this is our secret, yes?”

Sick to my stomach and every limb trembling, I glared at him, hating him more than I’d ever hated anyone. “You’re a disgusting, despicable monster.”

“Ezra thinks so too.”

“What do you want with me? Why are we having this little talk?”

“We want the same thing, Tori.”

“Like hell we do.”

He shifted closer again and I shoved back, dragging the blankets with me. “Stay away.”

In a flash, he grabbed my wrist. He pressed my hand against his bare chest, my fingers splayed across the three round scars where, six weeks ago, a demon had impaled Ezra with its claws.

“This is your desire,” Eterran purred. “To touch him. For him to touch you.”

I tried to tear my arm away, but he was too strong. He held my hand against his hot skin—too hot. Feverish. Unnatural.

“You are not Ezra,” I ground out.

“This body is the same.” He smirked. “This body is what we must discuss, payilas. I am trapped within it, and as long as I am, it belongs to me. You and I want the same thing: my freedom from this karidris hh’ainun—this human flesh that is my prison.”

I stopped trying to pry his hand off my wrist. “What?”

“The amulet,” he breathed. “Vh’alyir’s amulet. You stole it from Dīnen et Lūsh’vēr, didn’t you?”

“From … what?”

“He recognized me. Twice he tried to give me the amulet, but Ezra would not allow it.”

My heart pounded. The winged demon. Eterran was talking about the unbound winged demon we’d fought six weeks ago.

“But the third time,” I whispered, remembering that violent, terrifying night in the park, “he was already tapping your power, and you …”

And Eterran had wrested control away. Ezra had been so upset, his emotions running high—because of me and my stupid mouth.

The demon’s eyes blazed scarlet. “Do you understand what the amulet is?”

“It … it frees a demon from his contract?”

“Yes. It can free me from this prison, this death sentence. Ezra will be freed from the same. Give me the amulet and you can save us both.”

I sucked in air. Calm, I needed to stay calm. “Will it save Ezra, or will it give you full control of his body? I was told you could never be separated from him, no matter what.”

Eterran considered me, the seconds stretching out. “I am not certain.”

“Not certain about what?” I asked suspiciously.

“If I will be freed from his body or gain control of it.”

My mistrust deepened. “Why would you admit that?”

“Demons do not lie.” His fingers caught my chin, forcing my eyes to his. “I am not certain, but there is a chance. If you do nothing, Ezra will be mine. I will take his body, destroy his mind, and consume his soul. That I promise you. But with the amulet, there is a chance Ezra can be freed from me and survive.”