“Trent chicken out?” Landon said, and I lurched a step closer as the unfocused magic in the room began to build.

“He’s taking his daughter and ex-fiancée out to lunch.”

His lip twitched as he followed the ramifications of that. “Call your vampire off and maybe you live.”

“Oh, I’m dead already,” I said, ignoring the pain as I pulled myself up straight. “It’s just a matter of how much damage I can do first.”

“Call her off, and maybe she lives,” he amended, and in the split second my eyes flicked to Ivy, his hand flamed with a white-hot fire.

Again pain exploded, this time in my chest. Wide eyed, I fell to kneel before Landon as I struggled to breathe, to keep my heart beating. In his hand was a twisted mass of my hair, taken probably from my brush at the church. He’d made a target-specific spell, and I couldn’t fight it.

“Son of a fairy whore!” Jenks shouted, back again. “Ivy! Quit playing with that guy! Rache needs help!”

“No, I don’t think so,” Landon murmured, and I heard Ivy hit the floor, groaning. The man she’d been choking rose, kicking at her as he screamed. I tried to move, but every muscle sang with fire. Breath fast and shallow, I gripped the carpet, pulling myself closer to him. I would not fail in this. I wouldn’t!

“If you’re going to be a demon, you should be a demon,” Landon said softly, and I twitched, my back arching as I fell, looking at the ceiling, trying to get a clean breath. Landon’s hands were glowing, a haze of purple hanging between them. Slowly his hands came together. Struggling, he pulled them apart to show a spiderweb spool of glittering gold hanging in the air. And then he blew it at me.

I could do nothing as it settled over me, seeping in past my aura, winding its way to my core. My heart pounded as it begin to search, little darts of magic moving through me like a parasite. Groaning, I rolled over, but it clung, soaked in. Tendrils wafted out past my skin and then fell back as if the curse was looking for something to use to invoke. A soft, insidious chanting came from Landon, along with the sounds of Ivy’s frustrated struggle and Jenks’s swearing.

My eyes closed as the chant spun into the humming of my blood, settling into me like water, expanding my mind until it was unable to string two thoughts together. I recognized the spiderweb pattern. It was the curse that tied the demons to the ever-after, ages old and unbreakable—and Landon was trying to fix it on me.