Perfect bliss and contentment filled him at the sensation of her in his arms. He nuzzled her hair and inhaled the scent of her that overrode the smell of blood, death, daaeman magick, and battle.

“What happened?” he murmured near her ear.

All around them rose the sound of renewed battle, but at the moment they were together, enjoying a sense of peace he wanted to expand into forever.

Casting his gaze toward the stairs, he saw that Stefan had disappeared.

She pushed away enough to see his face. “Bai took me to Kentucky. After I managed to get away from him, I found Rue in the cave. Do you remember the cave?”

He nodded.

“Stefan had rigged it so he could keep Rue frozen in there. It was the only way to keep him subdued, I guess.”

“Is Bai dead?”

“As a doornail.” She winced. “A really crispy one.”

Relief filled his chest with a sudden burst of lightness.

Something rocketed past them and crashed into the wall behind them. They could only drag their eyes away from each other for the barest moment to see that it had been a chair.

Blue light flashed out of the corner of his eye. Theo pushed Sarafina to the floor. The blast exploded on the remains of the chair.

“We can talk about this later,” said Theo.

“Uh-huh,” answered Sarafina with wide eyes.

They got to their feet and made their way out to the foyer. There, right where Stefan had been standing with his blue ball of doom, was an interdimensional doorway.

Theo had seen one only once before. It was not something you forgot. Light flickered and pulsed around the portion of matter that had been twisted and altered to form a bridge between Earth and Eudae.

Through it came the Ytrayi in a blessedly heavy stream. The Atrika didn’t look very happy to see them, either.

The blue ball pulsed in Rue’s hands, no longer emitting the magick-killing shots that stole elemental power. Theo and Sarafina watched as he crushed it like a ball of tinfoil into nonexistence.

“Where’s Stefan?” Sarafina said beside him.

What a good question.

“The bastard’s not getting away again.” Theo growled. He’d slipped away after his father, William Crane, had been killed at Duskoff International. He’d escaped from Gribben twice. No way was he running away from his punishment this time.

Theo knew that Sarafina’s magick had been tapped out, probably from fighting Bai. He could feel that raw, empty spot in her. Why she wasn’t flat on her back was a mystery. Looking around at the carnage in the room, Theo realized that many of the Coven witches didn’t have any stores of magick left, either as a result of the blue ball or from the battle.

Power exploded near them as the Ytrayi and the Atrika locked horns. It was nice to have some reinforcements.