Al crouched before the fire with the toasting fork, looking threatening somehow. His eyebrows were raised when he turned to face me, mocking. “Things have changed.”

Stifling a shiver, I scanned the room, but there was nothing here to help me. Damn, damn, damn! Why had I trusted him? “Please don’t tell me you’re making a pass at me,” I said, unclenching my fingers from the back of the chair. “It will make the next five hundred years really awkward. Besides, the last guy who said something like that to me while wearing nothing but a robe, I beat senseless with a chair leg.”

Al blinked, looking surprised as he glanced down at himself as if only now realizing the impression he made. But then he smiled. And that smile was cruel.

He stood, and I dropped back a step, heart thudding.

“That demon your familiar let loose? Ku’Sox?” he said softly, poised as I started to sweat. “He’s like nothing you’ve come up against. He wants to play with you. Take you apart slowly while you scream. The collective would throw me naked into the ley lines if I let you run about now. Pierce isn’t enough. You’re staying here.”

“Like hell I am! Is this because I have a shot at getting my shunning permanently revoked?” Angry, I came around the chair so I could glare at him straight on. “I just might win our bet, so you’re going to keep me here so you can win by default?”

“Willing to bet your life on it?” Al almost growled as he looked into the fire, his back hunched. “I’m not. Good or bad, my livelihood is connected to your continued existence,” he said as his marshmallow burned. “Call me selfish, but you’re staying here.”

“You might be scared of that thing you all made, but I’m not,” I snapped. “His sensitive bits are right where yours are. Ku’Sox is a demon, and I’m getting used to beating you guys off. I beat him off before. I can do it again!”

Al turned from the fire, his goat-slitted eyes landing on me with an unexpected intensity. I felt myself pale. He looked dangerous, crouched before the fire, his eyes glowing as the promise of violence drifted over him. A low sound lifted into the air, and my foot slid.

It was my undoing.

Al leapt for me, the toasting fork clattering, forgotten, to the hearth. Panicked, I turned to run. There was nowhere go. It was pure instinct.

I caught back my cry of terror as his fingers clamped on my shoulder. The world spun as he turned me around. “Al!” I managed, and then I felt myself lifted, shoved into a bookcase.

Hard thumps hit my shoulders and my lungs collapsed as I hit the tomes, little sparkles of energy pinging through me. My breath came in with a rush, and I stared at Al, inches from me, his bare ruddy hand gripping my shirt under my chin. I hadn’t even seen him move.