Two large hands gripped my shoulders and lifted me off my feet. I craned my neck back and found Unseelie armor glistening in the chaos. I wrapped my hands over his hands and pushed my magic. The Unseelie knight grunted and abandoned his hold on me. I didn’t scream on my way down, even as my bones seemed to crunch when I slammed into the cold, hard dirt.

“EASTON!” Lily screamed as her boyfriend plummeted toward the ground with black smoke coiling around his body and pieces of metal armor falling with him like hail. Lily screamed again but light flashed from her arm. Her voice cut off abruptly and her eyes rolled back in her head.

They both dropped. Unmoving.

“NO!” I screamed.

Everything was happening too fast, too chaotically. That same Unseelie dove for Tenn, catching him by surprise by gripping his throat. Tenn’s eyes widened. He’d captured Tenn by the neck and held him up in the air with a shit-eating grin on his alien face. His long fingers dug into Tenn’s throat. He shook Tenn’s body violently.

The rest of us snapped to attention and raced for Tenn, ready to lay down our lives for his.

The Unseelie gripping Tenn’s throat made a loud whistling sound. All of the other Unseelies disengaged from their fight and fled. They took off toward the sunrise. I pumped my arms and legs to try and get to Tenn, but it was like a moment in a nightmare where the body just didn’t move. And neither did Tenn. His muscles tensed and flexed like he was trying to move but his body was motionless, like the knight had turned him into a statue.

But it was just us and the one Unseelie. We could take one of them. He was outnumbered. But why hasn’t he fled with Tenn? What’s he doing? Is this a trap?

This Unseelie lifted Tenn until their eyes were level, then he growled, “Would you still love me if I were this hideous?”

WHAT?

Rainbow magic swirled around the Unseelie knight over and over until it revealed a familiar face. Relief hit me like a brick wall. TEGAN! I heard her name shouted with excitement and relief in chorus. Her pale-green eyes sparkled like diamonds. The black and purple hair whipped around her with every gust of the breeze.

Tenn sighed and his body went limp and loose.

“A choking kink is a pleasant surprise, babe,” Tegan purred with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes and a smirk on her face. She glanced down to Tenn’s throat still gripped in her hand. “But I can work with this.”

“TEGAN!” Hunter shouted.

Tegan grinned. “Let’s get outta here, kids, before they realize there was an imposter.”

White light flashed all around us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

FRANKIE

When the white light faded, we were back in the living room of Coven Headquarters.

“TEGAN!”

“T!”

“TEGAN!”