“Don’t let it touch me!” My voice was high-pitched. I could hear the hysteria in it.

“Rachel,” Nick soothed as he knelt beside me. “It said it won’t hurt you. Demons don’t lie. It was in every text I copied.”

“They don’t tell the truth, either!” I exclaimed.

Ire flickered behind the demon’s eyes, smothered in a wave of false concern for me before Nick could see. It came forward, and I struggled to push myself back. “Don’t let it touch me!” I cried. “Don’t make me do this!”

The fear in Nick’s eyes was for how I was acting, not from the demon. He didn’t understand. He thought he knew what he was doing. He thought his books had all the answers. He didn’t know what he was doing. I did.

Nick gripped my shoulder and turned to the demon. “Can you help her?” he asked it. “She’s going to kill herself.”

“Nick, no!” I shrieked as the demon knelt to put its grinning face next to mine.

“Sleep, Rachel Mariana Morgan,” it breathed, and I remembered no more.

Twenty-Six

“What happened? Where is Jenks?” Ivy’s voice penetrated my daze, close and worried. I could feel myself moving forward in a rocking motion. I had been warm, and now I was cold again. The smell of blood was thick. The memory of something more foul lingered in me: carrion, salt, and burnt amber. I couldn’t open my eyes.

“She was attacked by a demon.” It was terse and soft. Nick.

That’s right, I thought, starting to piece everything together. I was in his arms. That’s what that one good smell was, all masculine and sweaty. And that was his bloody sweatshirt pushing against my swollen eye, rubbing it even more sore. I started to shiver. Why was I cold?

“Can we get off the street?” Nick asked. “She’s lost a lot of blood.”

There was a warm touch on my forehead. “A demon did this?” Ivy said. “There hasn’t been a demon attack since the Turn. Damn it, I knew I shouldn’t have let her off the grounds.”

The arms about me tensed. My weight shifted forward and back as he stopped. “Rachel knows what she’s doing,” Nick said tightly. “She isn’t your child—in any sense of the word.”

“No?” Ivy said. “She acts like one. How could you let her get mauled like this?”

“Me? You cold-blooded vamp!” Nick shouted. “You think I let this happen?”

My stomach clenched in a wave of nausea, and I tried to pull my coat over me with my good hand. I cracked my eyes, squinting in the glow of the streetlight. Couldn’t they finish their argument after they put me to bed?

“Ivy,” Nick said slowly. “I’m not afraid of you, so save the aura crap and back off. I know what you’re up to, and I won’t let you do it.”

“What are you talking about?” Ivy stammered.

Nick leaned toward her, and I slumped unmoving between them. “Rachel seems to think you moved in the same day she did,” he said. “She might be interested to know all your magazines are addressed to you at the church.” I heard Ivy’s quick intake of breath, and he added in an intent voice, “How long have you been living here waiting for Rachel to quit? A month? A year? Are you hunting her slow, Tamwood? Hoping to making her your scion when you die? Doing a little long-term planning, are we? Is that it?”