“Let her kill him,” Jenks was saying over the sound of his kids. “We’ve got the graveyard right out back. Humans are like Jell-O. There’s always room for one more.”

“I didn’t have to come here,” Nick gasped, and Ivy tightened her grip until he gagged. “The coven didn’t give me a choice! They yanked me across state lines and threatened to give me to the FIB. I had to tell them something. They were going to put me away!”

“Better me than you, huh?” I leaned heavily on the table, tired.

“I knew you’d escape,” Nick said, spittle at the corners of his mouth. “You’ve got a foolproof get-out-of-jail-free card. Rachel, you took a demon’s name? Why?”

My breath caught at the accusation in his rasping voice, and my anger dulled to shame. I had a demon’s name. He’d used it twice to summon me. “Let him go.”

Jenks spun in the air to me. “Rache …”

“Let him go!” I exclaimed, and Ivy took her fingers from around Nick’s throat. The man fell into a tangle against the fridge, hand over his neck and coughing. Head down, he mumbled to Jax, hovering by his face, his words indistinct. The imprint of Ivy’s fingers showed red and clear. Ivy turned away, shaking as she worked to bring herself down. Great. This was exactly what I needed. A jacked-up, hungry vampire and a traitorous ex-boyfriend in the same room.

Jenks wasn’t happy, and with an earsplitting whistle, he chased his family out—all but a defiant Jax and a heartbroken Matalina, now perched on the fridge. Her face was riven with tears. Jax’s homecoming had turned ugly.

Moving with that vampiric smoothness that gave me the willies, Ivy yanked my charm cupboard open and plucked an invoked amulet from my cache. Her eyes were still dangerously black as she strode across the kitchen and extended it. My shoulders eased as the smooth disk of redwood met my fingers. It was one of my own, and the relief from the pain was a blessing.

I’d been an earth witch long before I started dabbling in ley-line magic, and though the amulet didn’t completely block the pain, it helped. Dropping the cord around my neck, I snugged the disk under the orange jumpsuit where it could touch my skin. A puff of nasty air came up and I winced. Jenks wasn’t kidding. I needed a shower. “Thanks,” I said, and Ivy nodded, still trying to gain control over her instincts. Me being stinky probably helped.