Nearly an hour later, the cab pulled to a stop beneath a sprawling oak tree, gauzy with hanging moss. Helena looked up from the burner phone—no responses from Juniper yet.
The phone had been easy enough to get, but when Helena had called Aleksi, he hadn’t answered. So she had called for another taxi, and while she waited in the windy Walmart parking lot, frantically trying to remember the name of the place Dominic had said they were going. Jack something, something Jack—
“The Runaway Jack,” the driver said flatly when she asked him about it. “Biker bar. I know the place.”
But now they were parked on a dark street, everything wrapped in shadows. The streetlamp beside the tree was the only one still burning. There was no sign of a bar.
“All right, sweetie,” the cab driver said, leaning back in his seat. “I ain’t going any farther.”
“Excuse me?” Helena tried to look out the car window, but all she saw was her reflection in the dark glass. “Are we at the Runaway Jack?”
“It’s about a five-minute walk that way.” The driver pointed toward the front windshield. “I ain’t going any farther, though.”
Helena frowned. “Why not?”
“Neighborhood’s possessed,” the driver said matter-of-factly. “That bar you want, they call up the demons there. You looked like a nice girl, so I brought you this far.” He lifted his hands off the wheel, peered at her in the rearview mirror. “Don’t know what someone like you would want in a place like that, but I don’t judge none. Still, I ain’t getting my car any closer than I have to.”
Helena barely managed to suppress a smile. So this was definitely the place, then.
“I see,” she said carefully.
“Hey, on the street here, you’ll be fine. What you wanna watch out for is inside that bar.” He nodded, still staring at her in the rearview mirror. “Really shouldn’t have brought you here, truth told. Willing to take you back, half price, you want it.”
“Not necessary,” she said, tossing him a handful of bills—his payment, plus a sizable tip. She stepped out of the car, into the dark street. The air here was still and heavy and damp, like a rainstorm was lying in wait. Helena could barely see in front of her, the shadows were so thick.
“Straight ahead!” the cab driver called out, pointing. “It’ll be on your right. Bless you, sweetheart.” He made the sign of the cross on the air, and then the car shot backward, and Helena was alone.
She breathed deeply, drawing in the earthy scent of the oak tree, crackling with an undercurrent of smoke and frying oil. In the surrounding darkness, she could make out the faint outline of houses, their yards guarded by chain-link fences. The windows of some of the houses were illuminated, revealing homey snapshots: a kitchen table, a flickering TV, a bookshelf. But the light didn’t seem to reach to the sidewalk.
She threw the packaging of her phone into a trash can sitting on the curb, then shoved the phone deep into her pocket. If Aleksi called back, she’d already decided she wouldn’t answer. Just tell him she’d borrowed someone’s phone.
The lie sat uneasily in her chest. She told herself it was about keeping Juniper safe, about keeping herself safe. Something she’d have to do if she was going to be learning Infernal magic.
The wind picked up and the tree branches overhead scratched against each other. Helena shivered. There was still no sign of the bar, just tidy rows of residential houses—
Amber light flooded across the sidewalk.
Helena stopped. Across the street, nestled into the surrounding neighborhood, was a small ramshackle building with a single buzzing neon sign that read The Runaway Jack in lopsided cursive. Cars were lined up on the street; a couple of skinny guys with beards smoked cigarettes beside the entrance, which was lit by a yellow spotlight and covered in tattered stickers.
The door swung open, unleashing a swell of music. A couple of women tottered out, laughing and shrieking.
Any doubt she had that this was the place evaporated.
She walked over to the entrance. The two smokers ignored her. She yanked the door open and stepped inside. The music came from a band thrashing around on a tiny stage in the corner, guitar feedback guttering like a candle, but the place was mostly empty, just a few listless spectators, some people lined up along the bar.
“Hey, that’ll be five bucks.” A man stepped in front of Helena, tall and imposing, the sleeves of his black shirt sliced off to reveal heavily muscled arms wrapped in tattoos.
Tattoos that looked very, very similar to Aleksi’s.
“I’m just looking for someone,” Helena shouted over the music. “Aleksi Haakanen. He told me...” She faltered; the man’s eyes had narrowed, his jaw had tightened. “He’d be here,” she finished quickly.
“The fuck you want with Aleksi Haakanen?” The man leaned down toward her, and Helena caught a pungent whiff of his sweat. She took a stumbling step backward.
“He’s my—” She didn’t know what to say. “Look, we’re friends, okay? I just saw him like half an hour ago. I need—”
“Half an hour ago?” The man stepped back, looked down at her appraisingly. “Are you the Lineage chick Dominic was talking about?”
Helena’s cheeks burned. “Is Aleksi here?” she demanded.
The man laughed. “No.”
Something like despair swept over Helena. “They were here, though!” she cried. “You just said Dominic had told you about me!”
“He told me about a Lineage chick who’d helped them out,” the man said. “Still don’t know if that’s you.”
Helena threw up her hands. “Of course it’s me!”
The band finished their song with a screech of feedback and Helena’s voice ricocheted around the bar. “Dammit!” she shouted, her panic turning to anger.
The man laughed again.
“Look, you let me vet you, I’ll get in touch with Aleksi,” he said. “But I catch a fucking whiff of the C.O.A. on you, that’s it.” He leaned in close again, his eyes glinty and hard. “This place is laced to the fucking gills, you hear me? Ain’t no way that psychotic son of a bitch is getting through.”
“He won’t be anywhere near here tonight,” Helena said. “And you can thank this Lineage chick for that.”
The man laughed and jerked his head back. “I’m still vetting you. Come on. I ain’t doing it out here.”
The band let out a long, ringing chord that bounced around inside Helena’s skull. She followed the man across the empty floor, feeling numb. If she hadn’t stopped to get the burner phone, she might have caught them before they left—
No. She needed to keep in touch with Juniper. Let her know about Gavin and the C.O.A.
Not Aleksi, though.
The man led Helena into a long, narrow room behind the bar. The walls were lined with cases of beer and at the far end was a desk covered in loose papers, an ancient boxy computer monitor teetering dangerously on the edge.
“Stay there,” the man said. “And shut the door.”
Helena hesitated. “What exactly are you going to do?”
The man yanked open the desk’s drawer and pawed through it, his curved back covering up whatever it was he pulled out. “I told you. I gotta make sure you’re telling the truth.” He straightened up and looked over his shoulder at her. “And I want to hear myself think. Close the damn door before I kick you out of my bar.”
Helena sighed and pushed the door shut. Immediately the music was muffled and she could hear her heart pounding in her throat.
The man turned around, brandishing a switchblade and a plastic bag filled with some glittering black powder. “Need a drop of blood.”
Helena tensed. Even after the last few days, eighteen years of Lineage training dictated that this was exactly the sort of situation she shouldn’t be in.
“Well?”
Shakily, she held out her hand. The man pricked her finger with the end of the blade and tilted it up so that her blood ran down her palm in a thin red line. He dipped the knife into the bag, pulled it out. Energy crackled on the air. The black powder smoldered where it had mixed with Helena’s blood, releasing a cloud of thick gray smoke. The man breathed it in, rolled his eyes up to the back of his head. The smoke hung listless in the air like miniature rain clouds.
The man let out a long gasp. “Goddamn!” he shouted. “That’s Lineage blood all right.”
“Satisfied?” Helena asked.
“Almost.” The man gestured for her to step forward. Helena peeled herself off the door, wondering again if she should have just come straight here.
“One more test,” he said, fumbling around in the desk again. “Fucking C.O.A. has a lot of tricks up their sleeves.” He glanced at Helena over his shoulder, dark eyes gleaming. “I could see them roping in the Lineage.”
“Well, they didn’t rope in me,” Helena snapped.
The man laughed and extracted from the desk a smooth black stone, its surface etched with Infernal runes. Who the hell was this guy? He couldn’t be another demon. Aleksi acted as if he were the only one of his kind in this universe.
The man pricked his own thumb, let some blood dribble onto the stone. The runes glowed, a dark, eerie purple.
“Hold this.” He shoved the stone at Helena.
“What?” Already Helena’s sinuses were prickling. Yet another reminder that she was not in a good situation.
“Hold it.”
Helena took a deep breath and accepted the stone. It weighed less than she expected, as if it were hollow. Its surface was smooth and cool, and she could feel something inside thrumming against her skin.
“Congratulations!” the man shouted. “You passed.” He swiped the stone away from her and dropped it in an empty vase sitting on the floor beside the desk. “Name’s Ian.”
“What?” Helena blinked up at Ian, still massive and imposing even though he was now grinning at her. “What happened?”
“You passed the test.” Ian tilted his head toward the stone, still glowing at the bottom of the vase. “That’s a Saggoth stone, straight from the quarries of Asmodai, Second King of Hell. Well, Queen, last time I was there.”
Helena’s throat went dry. A Hell-stone. She had actually touched a Hell-stone. She curled her fingers into her palm and hoped that the old Lineage stories about your skin rotting off weren’t true.
Everything seemed fine so far, at least.
“You would have burst into flames if you’d been lying about your identity.” Ian gestured toward the door. “I need to get back out there. You can have a drink on the house.”
“The last time you were there!” Helena shrieked. “What—you are a demon! Why didn’t Aleksi—”
Ian’s grin widened. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly a demon? Then what are you?”
“I’ve been around a long time,” Ian said. “And I’ve been a lot of fucking places. Let’s move it.”
Helena fumbled for the doorknob, not taking her eyes off Ian. He looked human. But then, so did Aleksi. Except Ian didn’t look perfectly human. His skin was rough, his hair brittle. His tattoos, as similar to Aleksi’s as they were, had faded into the texture of his skin.
“Out,” Ian said.
Helena pushed the door open. The band had stopped playing; now hip-hop was piping in through the sound system. Helena drifted back out into the open and Ian brushed past her, swung himself around the bar proper. The bartender, a pretty girl with bleached hair done up in a long braid, nodded at him.
“Make my friend a drink,” Ian said. To Helena, he called out, “What’re you having?”
Helena’s head buzzed. The Runaway Jack compressed around her.
“What’ll it be, honey?” the bartender asked.
“Shot of whiskey,” Ian said. “Top shelf. She needs it.”
“Got it, boss.” The bartender reached under the counter and pulled out a jar of Suntory whiskey. Helena moved forward, still trying to comprehend everything that had just happened. She hopped up on the nearest barstool, caught the shot of whiskey when the bartender sent it sailing down toward her. She picked up the shot glass and stared down at the amber liquid glowing inside of it.
“That shit’s twenty dollars a shot,” Ian said. “Bottoms up.”
“Are you going to call Aleksi?” Helena asked.
“Already texted him.” Ian grinned at her. “He’s on his way. Should be here in about ten minutes.”
Helena studied him, trying to see the truth of who he was behind the harsh lines of his face. Not a demon, he’d said. But what else could be here?
“When did you do that?” she said.
“Just now, while you were watching Kelly there.”
The bartender glanced over at them, made a face at Ian.
“That was fast,” Helena said.
Ian pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and tossed it down beside her. A column of text messages:
Looks like your Lineage friend is here. Vetted her. She’s looking for you.
On my way. From Aleksi Haakanen, time-stamped a minute ago.
“I can do a lot of things fast.” Ian leaned over the bar. “Take the fucking shot before I tell Aleksi you bailed.”
Helena glared at him, but she picked up the shot glass and threw the whiskey down her throat. The heat of it burned a trail all the way into her stomach.
“Good girl.” Ian slapped the bar. “Kelly! Another round. Two this time.”
“I really don’t—”
“Dom and Aleksi told me what you did to get them past the C.O.A.,” Ian said. “You need it.”
Two more shot glasses came sliding down the bar. This time, Ian caught them, pushed one over to Helena. He lifted his own. “To the Lineage,” he said.
“Seriously?” Helena picked up her own shot glass.
Ian’s eyes glittered. “Used to be a member myself. A long-ass time ago.” He knocked back the shot.
For a moment, everything in the world went still.
“You were in the Lineage?” Helena squeezed her fingers against the shot glass.
“Sure was.” Ian grinned, braced himself against the bar. “I’ll tell you more if you drink that shot.”
“You’re trying to get me drunk.”
“If I’m understanding this whole situation correctly, you were supposed to go back to your little Lineage life but, instead, you wound up here.” Ian spread his arms, taking in the breadth of the bar. “Looking for my dear friend Aleksi.” His eyes bored into Helena. “That sound right to you?”
Helena nodded, breathless. Her hand trembled.
“So here you are, choosing a demon king over the Lineage. And that—” Ian reached under the bar, pulled out another bottle, poured himself another shot “—is something we have in common. So let’s drink to the motherfucking Lineage.”
This was all too much. Helena knocked back the whiskey, closing her eyes against the shuddery burn of it. When she opened them, Ian was smiling at her.
“Feel better?” he asked. “I mean, you made the right decision, you ask me, but—” He shrugged.
“Who are you?”
Ian leaned forward, his hair brushing across Helena’s shoulders. She tried to pull away but he reached over and slapped his hand on her arm, holding her in place. When he spoke, his breath was hot and damp and smelled of whiskey. “A defector.”
Helena’s glared at him. “That doesn’t answer my question.” She paused. “And I wouldn’t exactly call myself a defector.”
Ian laughed. “And why’s that?”
I didn’t want to leave. But she doesn’t want to confess this to Ian. “None of your business,” she muttered, before shoving away from the bar. She stomped out of the Runaway Jack, pushing out into the damp, balmy night. The smokers were gone. She pressed herself up against the side of the building and pulled out her phone.
There was a message from Juniper. Call me.
Helena took a deep breath and called up Juniper. The phone rang once before she answered.
“What the hell is going on?” she said. “Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”
“No,” Helena said—too loudly, in the quiet night. “No,” she said again, softer. “It’s not safe for you.”
“Not safe for me? You’ve been kidnapped by a pair of blood mages—”
Helena’s chest squeezed; she’d wanted to tell Juniper the truth about Aleksi’s identity face-to-face. If she wanted to tell her at all.
“This cult,” Helena interrupted. “The Children of Adrasteia. They’re the ones you need to be worried about.”
“I never even heard—”
“Then research them,” Helena snapped. “Find out what you can. I’ll text you every hour, okay?”
She knew she should tell Juniper about Aleksi. About Byleth. But for all her intentions, it was easier to say nothing.
“Helena, this doesn’t sound like you,” Juniper said. “Just tell me where you are.”
“No! You’ll run into the C.O.A. and you won’t be prepared. You need to find out what you can about Gavin Vargo, okay? He’s the one—”
“Hellie, just tell me—”
A pair of headlights swept across the street, momentarily blinding Helena. She lifted up her hand, squinting into the darkness.
She recognized that van.
“I have to go,” she said. “I’m safe. I’ll text you.”
“Hellie, I swear to—”
Helena hung up, switched the phone to silent, and shoved it into her pocket just as the van parked. She strode over to it, her heart pounding. The passenger side door swung open and Aleksi bounded out.
“Helena!” Before she could reply, he ran up to her and threw his arms around her shoulders, pulling her in close to his chest.
“What are you doing here?” he breathed into her hair.
“I changed my mind.” Helena’s voice trembled. She could feel the phone vibrating in her pocket—Juniper calling back. She ignored it. “I’m staying. To help you get rid of Gavin.”
She looked up at him and her entire body flooded with an overwhelming sense of calm. And then she felt her magic crackling inside of her, that power that had been locked away her entire life.
“I wanted to ask you to stay,” Aleksi whispered, his nose still buried in her hair. “But I didn’t want to hear you say no.”
Helena tilted her head and caught his lips with her. She melted into the kiss, winding her arms around his shoulders. He gripped her waist, squeezing her close to him, his kiss deep and urgent, as if he were afraid she would change his mind.
“It didn’t feel right,” Helena whispered, her lips brushing his skin. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.”
She pulled away from him and cupped his face. He was gazing down at her with an expression almost like wonderment. She flushed with desire. With happiness.
But it was all cut through with an undercurrent of guilt. Because what she was feeling, she shouldn’t be—
So why did it feel right?
Dominic sped down the highway, racing the dawn light creeping up on the horizon behind them. Helena leaned her head into the crook of Aleksi’s shoulder and watched the landscape zipping by the window, the trees ghostly in the gray loam of early morning.
She tried not to think of the danger they were driving toward, the Children of Adrasteia bound up in vines for only a few hours more. Every few moments she surged with a panicked joy: she had just upended her life the way she had when she walked out of her parents’ house eleven years ago.
Dominic’s phone dinged for the fourth time since they’d left New Orleans. He glanced up at the rearview mirror. “That’s Corina. We’re takin’ too damn long.”
“The C.O.A. is still secure, right?” Aleksi asked.
“She says we need to hurry our asses up.”
“We’re almost there.” Aleksi tightened his grip around Helena and peered out the window. “The turnoff is close.”
Dominic hunched over the steering wheel. The engine roared; Helena suspected he was pushing it to its limits. She was glad; she didn’t want Corina to be hurt because they’d spent time doubling back for her.
They arrived at the turnoff for Corina’s house. Dominic parked the van in its spot in the woods, and they climbed out and distributed the packages from their trip. Most were not magical ingredients, but bags from Walmart with food and toilet paper and some new clothes for Helena—they’d stopped there after picking her up at the Runaway Jack. Fortunately, it was a different store from the one where Helena bought her burner phone—no chance that any of the clerks might recognize her.
Helena slid the plastic bags up the crook of her arm. She could smell the magic of the Sleeping Beauty spell: crackling, laced with the metallic scent of blood.
Helena shifted the weight of her bags as they stomped through the thick underbrush, everything wet with dewy moisture. Sweat beaded on her forehead, dripped down her spine. Even this early in the morning, the air was thick and oppressive—with humidity, with the lingering exhalation of Dominic’s blood magic. It was making her tired.
A few minutes later, they stepped into the clearing. Thick, unnatural vines curled around the bodies of the C.O.A., still revealing a few wayward feet or limbs. Muffled cries rang out; there was a faint thrashing up in the trees. A shower of leaves.
Corina stepped out of the shadows.
“Finally,” she said. “The goddamn blood magic is wearing off. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold it.” Her eyes moved over to Helena and she broke into a weary smile. “So you changed your mind. Glad to see it.”
Helena smiled thinly and tried to ignore the weight of the phone in the pocket of her shorts.
One of the C.O.A. let out a piercing shriek. Helena jumped, her bags rattling.
“Shit,” Corina said. “Get back to the ward barrier. I’m not joking. They’re starting to get loose.”
Dominic shot off into the trees. Aleksi glanced back at Helena. “Quick!” he said. “I don’t want you trapped out here.”
Helena looked back at the vines. They seemed thinner, more brittle. Something snapped.
She took off, the bags swinging wildly from her arms. Branches slapped across her face; her feet slipped on the mud. She ducked her head against the flying greenery, gasping for breath—
And then the sharp tingle of the wards sparked against her skin. She slowed to a stop, gasping. Aleksi nudged up against her. “We made it,” he said.
“Yeah.”
The lights from Corina’s trailer glimmered through the trees. Aleksi and Helena trudged side by side until they reached the bridge; then they cut across the yard. Helena followed Aleksi into the house and sighed when the blast of AC hit her sweat-soaked skin. She tossed her bags on the sofa and leaned up against the wall.
“Good to be safe again, huh?” Aleksi dropped his own bags on the dining table. Helena peeled herself away from the wall.
“This feels like the safest place I can be right now.” Just like she told Juniper.
“Definitely safer than a bus stop.” Aleksi wound his arm around her waist. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said softly. “Seeing you at the Runaway Jack like that—” He nuzzled against her hair. “It’s like coming home, every time.”
Despite all her exhaustion, Helena felt a jolt of heat. Of desire. She pressed herself closer into him, her breath tight, her heart pounding. He kissed her forehead, the side of her face. Her mouth.
The front door slammed. Helena jumped away from Aleksi as Corina and Dominic stumbled inside.
“I’m exhausted,” Corina groaned. She threw herself across the sofa. “Dom, you and Aleksi go reinforce the wards. I need to rest.”
Aleksi shot Helena a rueful glance. “Go,” she said. “I’ll stay here with Corina.”
“Thank you,” Corina said. “God, my head is killing me. I’ve got feverfew and calendula in the cabinet. And rum. That should take care of this shit.”
Helena ducked into the kitchen while Aleksi and Dom slammed back outside of the trailer. Her skin was tingling from his kiss, but she was grateful to have some time to herself. It would give her a chance to respond to Juniper’s texts, which were still vibrating at steady intervals in her pocket.
She flung open cabinets until she found the stash of dried herbs, all labeled in a neat hand. Then she set some water to boil on the stove. As she waited for the water, she tucked herself into the corner, out of Corina’s line of sight, and pulled out the phone.
Twenty-eight new messages. Six phone calls. All from Juniper.
“Jesus,” she whispered.
The messages were what she expected: entreaties to tell her where she was, what was going on, promises that Juniper was more than capable of extracting her from a couple of blood mages. Only one is a blood mage, Helena tapped into the phone. Then she erased it.
The pot of water rattled on the stove; Helena poured it over the herbs, the grassy steam billowing up around her. I’M FINE, she typed. IT ISN’T SAFE FOR YOU TO RESCUE ME. Then: I’ll call you when I can.
“Do you have that brew ready yet?” Corina called in from the living room.
Helena shoved the phone back into her pocket. “Almost!” she called out. “Where’s the rum?”
“Counter. Behind the coffeepot.”
Helena scanned the kitchen until she spotted neat rows of liquor bottles lined up behind a set of appliances. She grabbed the rum, added some to the tea, then carted it into the living room.
Corina had turned the lights off and drawn the curtains; she was curled up tight on the couch, her head tucked under her arm.
“Are you—are you okay?” Helena knelt down beside her.
“I’ll be fine,” Corina mumbled. “Set the drink on the table.”
Helena did as she asked. A few beats later, Corina unfurled herself and took a deep drink of the tea. Then she knotted herself back up.
“Let me know if you need anything,” Helena said softly. Corina grunted.
Helena darted back into her room, her heart pounding. She had, of course, received another angry text from Juniper. Helena shut the door and slumped down on the bed.
And then she typed out everything she knew about Gavin and the Children of Adrasteia. She told Juniper about the Subita Incrementum and blending it with blood magic—she didn’t mention Infernal magic. Or Byleth.
The blood magic was bad enough.
You WHAT! Juniper texted back. Immediately, the phone buzzed—Juniper calling her.
Can’t talk now, Helena said after rejecting the call. Please, tell the Lineage about the C.O.A. If you want to help me, that’s the best way to do it.
Then she threw the phone onto the bed, not waiting for a response. It was too exhausting to explain this to Juniper, over and over.
She closed her eyes and felt the urge to sleep wash over her. Her adrenaline was slowly wearing off.
Helena grabbed the phone, hoisted up the mattress, and set the phone on the bed frame, as deep in as she could reach. Then she dropped the mattress and crawled into bed, closed her eyes, and passed into darkness.
Helena woke up with a start, the fragments of a dream evaporating away from her. For a moment, she blinked up at the dim ceiling, trying to place herself. She was not on a bus back to Houston, but in Corina’s trailer. She had decided to stay.
She knelt beside the bed and pulled out the phone. Juniper’s tirade of messages had finally subsided, ending with one that made Helena let out a long sigh of relief:
Look, you win. I’m taking this Gavin Vargo guy to Mom and Dad. BUT YOU SHOULD NOT BE STAYING WITH A COUPLE OF BLOOD MAGES.
Blood mages. Helena could only imagine how Juniper would react if she found out that Aleksi was a demon. A demon king.
Helena sent a thank-you back to Juniper and assured her that she was safe. Then she shoved the phone back under the mattress.
She didn’t feel like trying to sleep. Whatever that dream was, it left the edges of her thoughts sharp and unsettled, and sunlight was creeping around the blinds, falling in daggers across her eyes. So she pulled on some shorts under her sleeping T-shirt and padded into the living room.
The trailer was flooded with afternoon sunlight and the lingering whiff of magical wards. Bits of dust drifted past the windows, catching the light and glittering. Helena yanked the curtains shut.
“You should be resting.”
Helena turned around, her heart pounding. Aleksi lounged in the kitchen doorway, mouth curved into a faint smile.
If only he were just a blood mage.
“I could never sleep during the day,” Helena said.
Aleksi laughed and walked over to her. “Make sure you sleep tonight.” He put his hands on her shoulders, and his touch made her skin tingle. He peered down at her, his dark eyes serious. “All of you need to rest. For the next few days, at least. Regroup. Get ready.”
Helena nodded, looking at him.
“I’m so glad you decided to stay,” he said, after a pause. There was a huskiness in his voice that made Helena’s stomach flutter.
“I’m glad I did, too,” she whispered.
Aleksi smiled, then leaned down and kissed her, his mouth warm against hers. She leaned into him, winding her arms around his shoulders, pressing her body into his. For a long time, all they did was kiss, and it felt—right.
Aleksi kissed her forehead, the side of her face. Her mouth. “I keep thinking about the lake in my holdings,” he whispered, his voice rough.
“The one where you were—born?” Her lips brushed against his skin, salty with his sweat.
“Mmm.” He trailed kisses down her throat. “You smell like it.”
Helena trembled beneath his touch.
“You taste like it.” He kissed more strongly, pressing her up against the wall. A soft moan rose up inside Helena, her hands pushing up inside Aleksi’s shirt. His hips tilted against hers, and she felt his hardness pressing into her.
Part of her worried Dominic could wake up and see them, and part of her knew he would say something if he did, and part of her didn’t care.
Aleksi broke the kiss. Helena cupped his face in her hands. He looked tired: paler than usual, with dark circles under his eyes. But he also wore a hungry expression and a sly smile, and he scooped her close, his hands on her hips, his mouth against her ear.
“I want to take you with me to Hell,” he murmured. “And bathe with you in my lake every morning.”
Helena was dizzy. She felt very aware of the demon claw scar around her heart, a pulsing reminder of what demons were capable of. And then there was Aleksi, whispering suggestively in her ear, telling her she smelled of his home—in the Infernal realms!
But she liked it. Even though she’d bought the burner phone to keep in touch with Juniper—Juniper, who would disown her if she knew that Helena was kissing a demon king, severing the last tie Helena had back to the Lineage, back to her family—she didn’t want to stop.
Aleksi kissed her deeply again, his hand curling protectively around the back of her head. Helena dissolved into the kiss, her hesitation evaporating.
She peered up at him. “What’s the lake like?” she whispered. “In your holdings?”
Aleksi brushed his lips against hers. “Crystal clear,” he murmured. “You can see all the way to the black stones at the bottom. And cold.” His eyes burned with something like hunger. “I would have to keep you warm.”
Helena could hear her blood pounding in her ears. She could feel the breath caught in her lungs. “And—and how would you do that?”
Aleksi ran his hands down her arms and squeezed both of her hands in his and pulled her closer against his body.
“Something we could do here,” he whispered into her ear.
Helena’s heart beat as fast as hummingbird’s. Her life was unspooling wildly away from her. Eleven years ago, a demon had almost killed her and she realized, gasping for breath as she bled on the concrete, that she could never serve the Lineage the way her mother wanted. And so she left. She went to college and studied accounting; she returned again and again to the music that had brought her so much comfort when she couldn’t stand to listen to another round of her parents’ criticisms. But always the knowledge of that other world, of monsters and magic, tainted everything she did.
Eleven years ago, a demon had almost killed her and now, dizzyingly, she wanted to fuck one.
“I—I’d like that,” she whispered.
Aleksi pulled her away from the wall. “Come on. Let’s get as close as we can.”
He pulled her toward the front door.
“Outside?” Helena said.
Aleksi shoved the door open, letting in a swell of damp air. Everything was bright, the sun stained green from the thick growth overhead. The marsh water glittered fiercely as they walked around the side of the trailer. Around to the conduit.
“I can’t take you home.” Aleksi spun her around as if they were dancing. A wind blew around them, smelling like soil and flowers. “But I can take you here.”
He pulled her up to him and for a moment just gazed down at her, unspeaking. There was a gentleness to his expression and Helena knew he was giving her the opportunity to step away. To say no. To go back.
She thought about the phone shoved under the mattress, the messages to Juniper.
She loved her sister. But did not want to go back.
Helena nodded, just once.
Aleksi pulled her into a deep kiss and they stumbled together toward the conduit. He lay her down on the blackened grass, trailing kisses along her neck. She drew her hands up the firm sides of his body, sliding them along his narrow waist, pulling him into her. She was inflamed, every part of her burning from his touch. She kissed him with a furious, hungry strength, desperate for the magic she’d thought she’d lost forever.
Aleksi pulled away. “I can give us privacy,” he said, and then he began to speak in the Infernal tongue, his eyes boring into her. Helena breathed deeply, Infernal magic settling around them. She didn’t care that it made her eyes itch. She didn’t care that the Infernal words burrowed into her, left sparks of heat in their wake.
The air glimmered like an oil slick. The veil.
Helena slipped her hands up under Aleksi’s shirt and pulled it upward; he sat up, peeled the shirt away. The tattoos seemed to throb. Helena traced her fingers over them, felt a flush of power.
“They’re for protection,” he murmured, one hand slipping up inside her own shirt. “And to hold the glamour.”
She met his gaze and felt her own power roiling inside her, colliding with the magic from the veil. It made her feel wild. It made her feel strong.
“You don’t have to hold the glamour.” It came out before she could stop it. And she could hardly believe that it was true.
When Aleksi grinned, it was feral and animalistic, his teeth sharp.
And then he was kissing her again. He rolled her over and she straddled his waist and sat up, pulling away her shirt, unlatching her bra. The humid air dewed across her scar, brazen out there in the open. Aleksi lifted his hands, but stopped, hesitating.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, even if the scar was throbbing a little. “It’s okay.”
He cupped her breasts and massaged them gently. He took care, she realized, not to touch her scar.
And then his mouth was on her, licking, biting, sending jolts of sensation up her spine. Her body ached and when she couldn’t stand it anymore, she yanked down on his jeans as he fumbled to kick off his boots. She took him slowly in her mouth as he groaned and arched his back.
“Fuck me,” he gasped, his voice strained, and when she looked up at him, his face was dark with the impressions of his true form. The shadow of his arm stretched out across the conduit; his eyes flashed red.
He was terrible and beautiful all at once.
Helena pulled away her underwear and straddled him. Insects trilled and birds cried out to each other. The veil shimmered around her and beyond it, the swamp rose up, the trees dark and insubstantial as ghosts. Somewhere in those trees a cult was regrouping itself after having been bound from vines she had conjured out of the soil. And in all the verdant light of this dangerous place, Helena only wanted to be here, in this conduit, atop this man.
Aleksi’s hands slid over her thighs. She reached down and took him inside herself and found the magic again.