Edden was silent for a moment, and I jumped when I felt his fist hit my bubble. “Rachel!” he exclaimed, then swore as his knuckles met my bubble again. “Get out! Now!”

But I couldn’t stop and I didn’t want to. Almost having forgotten, I touched my finger to my oozing neck, and, using the blood, I scribed a figure on the unlit black candle. I still didn’t know what the figure stood for, and now I never would. Silence ached through me when the EMTs knelt before Ivy, their heads bowed as they slowly put their things away.

Tears spilled, and I started to get angry. I touched the interlaced circles, willing energy to fill them. I didn’t even need to use my trigger word—it happened just as I willed it.

Edden swore again as the tainted bubbles rose about me, and I wondered if he knew that the arcs of gold where the circles intersected were what my aura was supposed to look like.

“Will it kill her?” Trent whispered.

Let’s find out, I thought bitterly, not believing I could hold the power of a demon curse. And when they killed me—which they would for working demon magic inside a public building in front of credible witnesses—the power of the curse would die with me. Problem solved.

Except a small part of me really wanted to live. Damn it, hope is a cruel god.

Fingers still shaking, I knelt in my tiny space and clasped my hands, willing the trigger words back into my memory. They came. Exhaling, I said harshly, “Animum recipere.”

Quen’s breath hissed, and he pulled Trent back.

The power of the curse flowed into me, warm like sunshine. I stiffened as the scent of burnt amber coated me, tasting bittersweet, like dark chocolate. It felt good. It tasted sweet. My thoughts wailed in despair. What in hell have I become?

Jaw clenched, I knelt under the table, my unseeing gaze lifting upward and my breath held against the sensations. It felt good, and that was wrong. The power of creation coursed out of the focus and into me, familiar and welcoming. It sang, it lured, it whispered behind my eyes of the lust of the chase, the joy of the capture, the satisfaction of the kill. Within me stirred the need to dominate. I remembered the feel of the earth beneath my paws and the scent of time in my nose, filling my memories, making me want more.

And this time instead of denying it, I accepted it. “Non sum qualis eram,” I said bitterly, angry tears spilling from under my closed lids. I would take the curse into me, and I would keep it. It would end everything. There was no reason not to.