not good. It isn’t bad. It just is. I became fire and soared high with the taste of freedom on my lips. I sought the soul of mega-demon—the center of his power—and set it ablaze, drowning him in flame from the inside out. A river of molten heat flowed through him, and laid him to waste. When the fuel had burned away and my power had nowhere else to go, I withdrew, snapping back into my body with a sudden, painful jolt that dropped me to my knees. I kneeled and poured all my remaining effort into staying conscious.
The smell of charred earth tickled my nose. I sneezed and felt someone place a coat over my quivering body. Stefan knelt beside me, his slanted smile the best thing I’d ever seen. Behind him, a small contingent of lesser demons crowded: the ones I’d charged with his safety.
“Hello,” I croaked.
“Welcome back. These guys won’t stop following me. You know anything about that?”
“Maybe.”
He cast his gaze to his right, and I followed it to where a sea of molten lava cracked and throbbed as it cooled. Mega-demons liquid remains. If he was a prince, maybe he’d come back from that. But not yet. “It’s not over,” Stefan said.
Beyond, where the netherworld yawned wide, came another wave of demons. “How many?”
“Looks like all of them.”
I wasn’t sure I had anything left to give. “Help me up.” Taking his hand, I leaned into him and shivered at the sight of battlefield. Dead demons. Dead people, the air stank of death, charred flesh, and the horrible netherworld burned-rubber smell that coated my throat. My ears rang, and my head throbbed. “Where’s Ryder? Is he okay?”
“He’s here. The idiot came around in the car and refused to let me take him to a hospital. Then the veil fell…and I lost myself for a while.” He met my weary eyes.
And Stefan came back for me. “Thanks.” That one little word didn’t do the depth of my feelings justice. Thanks didn’t cut it, but at that moment, it was all I could offer.
Stefan cocked his head and looked at me, into me. I might have thought it a predatory expression on his face if not for the slight widening of his eyes. “Don’t thank me. I came back as pure demon, looking for you. When the veil fell, I lost my mind. But when I found you on that street, draped in fire, I couldn’t lose you. You’re all I have left.” He smiled down at me with more in the hard lines of his face than any words could convey. “And you owe me a date.”
I blinked, words failing me. A demon brushed by, then another, bounding toward the gaping maw of the netherworld. Others galloped past us. Were they retreating? Some fought on the hardened lava field, attacking their own kind, and then I saw the reason why. On the edge of the lava field where the netherworld met Boston, stood a man. Even with his back to me, I’d recognize the proud figure he cut: Akil, arms outstretched. The demons closed ranks around him, hundreds of them, spilling in from all directions to bolster his line of defense. Beside him, stood a second man, bigger, broader, built like a wrestler, but not human. What had once been a second skin of tattoos danced around him like a shroud of moths. Those marks pulsed in time with the throb of power emanating from the netherworld. I’d felt that power before. From Dawn. Raw chaos. But from him, it was smooth, calm, like a cooling salve. Jerry turned and scanned the battlefield until he found Stefan and me. He offered up a salute, and then his human-guise burst apart. Muscles bulged, a double pair of demon wings spread far and wide, beating up a storm of dust, and a scaled tail lashed at the opposing demons, knocking them aside like bowling pins. He was beastlike. Primal. Devastating. Those elements were all I could see of him before the swell of his power demanded I look away from the King of Hell.
Stefan had pulled me close. His grip around my waist tightened. “I need to be there.”
“Go.” I nodded when he checked my expression. “I’ll be fine in a minute. Go. They need you. We need you.”
He pulled me against him, slanting his mouth over mine, drawing me into a desperate kiss. Already weakened, my legs buckled, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the very real taste