It seems they’ve acquired a taste for powerful witches.

Memnon lifts his eyes from mine. To the chasm in the earth, he says in Sarmatian, “Old gods below, you cannot have Selene. She is mine. Honor your oaths, and take my blood as an offering of peace.”

The sorcerer unsheathes the blade strapped to his side. In one sharp motion, he cuts his forearm and lets the blood pour onto the ground.

The shaking slows, then eventually stops altogether.

The room grows very, very quiet, save for the drip of Memnon’s blood.

My eyes meet my mate’s eyes, feeling exposed. “Thank you.” Whatever those voices are, they are boogeymen.

The glow in his eyes fades back to brown. “Est amage, you do not need to thank me for things that come with being your soul mate. We pull each other back from the edge.”

He wipes his blade and returns it to its sheath.

Memnon’s gaze drops to my stomach and my mess of a wound. He makes an agonized sound. “Est amage.”

Memnon’s hand covers my injury once more, his fingers splayed out across it, and I can feel the lick of his magic as it seeps in, the tingling warmth spreading through my flesh. He murmurs the Mochica curse-breaking spell, and I sense some inner darkness release and flitter away with it.

“As much as I love your ferocity, I cannot stand this part of it,” Memnon admits. His words are punctuated by the uncomfortable tugging sensation as his healing spell takes root and my innards reform. “Where is the demon?” Memnon asks.

“Where he belongs,” I say.

A smile curves his lips, and he tilts his head so he can see me better. “That’s my queen.” His eyes sweep over the mess of the room. “I notice the spell circle you mentioned is gone as well.”

“I really don’t like being trapped.”

Memnon laughs, the sound light and joyful. It’s at odds with the oppressive magic that saturates the very walls of this room.

“Of course you don’t,” he says mirthfully. “You are a Sarmatian queen, made to roam the boundless, open plains of the steppe. Your soul is made of vaster stuff.” He pulls his hand away from my midsection, studying the pink, newly formed skin. My mate lets out a shuddering breath. “How does your stomach feel?”

“Fine,” I say dismissively, staring up at his face. I don’t care about my stomach at the moment.

I grab the tattered lapels of his tux and drag him to me. His lips meet mine, and we’re kissing each other feverishly, as though the world is ending. It’s bruising, desperate. We are in Rome, we are in Bosporus, we are on the Eurasian steppe, and we are here.

We are eternal.

I feel my heart…give in.

I gasp into his mouth at the sensation.

Immediately, Memnon pulls away, his eyes returning to my former injury. He places a hand back on the skin and presses his power into me.

I grab his wrist. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” I say softly.

My scary, violent sorcerer takes a deep breath. “Little witch, there will always be a part of me that fears your mortality, and right now…I just want to hold you for a little longer.”

So the two of us stay there for another minute, Memnon holding me against him. I lightly grasp Memnon’s forearm and press a wordless healing spell into his skin. Almost immediately, the claw marks begin to seal up. I watch them mend, now knowing the creature that inflicted them.

“How did you get rid of your demon?” I ask.

“I beheaded the first and second. The third one, I stabbed in the heart.”

“You faced three demons?” I say, my voice hushed. One was hard enough.

“Leonard was determined to kill me off.”

I stiffen. “What happened to him?”

“Dead. He bled out from a nicked artery.” Memnon’s voice grows cold. “It was too quick and too clean for a monster like him.”

I shiver as I think about those old bloodstains on the floor.

There’s still one Fortuna left, and—shit, Sybil.

I stand too quickly, then sway a little.

“Easy, Empress,” Memnon says, rising up.

“We need to save my friend.”

He groans—groans! “Must you make me act honorably?”

“Memnon!”

There’s a gleam in his eyes. “I tease.” He reaches for my hand. “Let’s go save your friend.”

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CHAPTER 51

When we get to the auction floor, pandemonium.

The entire room is one seething, churning mass of aggression.

Lycanthropes swarm the place—many of them in their animal form—along with the guests from the midnight auction. Those individuals still wear glittering gowns and pressed suits. And everywhere my eyes fall, supernaturals are fighting.

The only people who are absent, it appears, are Politia officers. Go figure. I’m sure they’ll show up soon enough, given the carnage.

Blood decorates the walls and floors and even a few of the circular tables that fill the room. Not twenty feet away, I see the body of a man with his throat ripped out, and several more bodies lie slumped over the linen-covered tables or on the ground.

I scan the room, looking for Sybil and any other supernaturals who might’ve been captives, but it’s hard to make sense of the tangle of people. I don’t see anyone who looks like a captive, and I can only hope the lycans have already evacuated those supernaturals from the building.

Memnon strides forward into the mayhem, his hair beginning to rise. His eyes are fixed on a woman to our left. Her hair is now unbound and her dress is ripped, but it’s easy enough to recognize Sophia Fortuna from the haughty set of her chin and the glow of her eyes. A small army of guards encircles her, and she fights from behind them, lobbing spells at the lycans closing in on her. I hear one wolf yelp as a curse lands and its fur catches fire.

This sorceress tried to take you from me, Memnon says, unsheathing his dagger. I cannot let her live. His thoughts are as simple as that, now that his power has consumed him.

Whatever plan the two of us might’ve formed to locate Sybil, it’s just crumbled to dust in the wake of this battle.

Memnon strides forward and as soon as he hits the melee, he unleashes himself. The sorcerer spins and lunges, cutting through the fighters, stabbing and slicing when he needs to. He makes it look like a dance. What an awful thing, to think of killing as a dance, but there is a mesmerizing quality to it, even as blood arcs. The entire time, his attention remains riveted to Sophia, who hasn’t noticed him yet.

I take a step back, eager to search all sixty-some floors of this building if I have to, to find my friend. I’m about to turn when a cascade of pale blond hair catches my eye. It triggers some old, unpleasant emotion, and reflexively, my gaze moves to the individual’s ears, their pointed ears, then their eyes, which are the color of meadow-sweet grass, the hue too rich for human irises.

It’s not possible…

I’m staring at a ghost, one who haunts my old memories. She’s the fairy who nearly abducted my soul mate two thousand years ago.

Eislyn.

My magic immediately rises. She should’ve been long dead. Even the fae have expiration dates. How is she alive? And what the fuck is she doing here, in San Francisco, in this very building?

My power is unspooling out of me the longer I stare at her.

I feel her eyes catch mine, and I see her falter. And now she’s the one looking at me as though I’m the ghost. Did she not know I was here, alive?

Then her gaze moves like a magnet to Memnon. I realize belatedly that she’d been staring at him before she saw me.

Her expression is both fearful and covetous as she takes in my soul mate. Possessiveness rises in me at the look, along with the pressing need to end the fairy before she can be a threat to him once more.