“Eve, I want you to know you’re one of my best friends. And it has been the time of my life flying with you.” I touched her back gently as she hopped on the pavement.

“Don’t get morose on me, Alex.” She sniffed. “We have lost enough people. Neither of us is going anywhere. Rylee needs us too much.”

I hoped she was right. I ran to the motel office and burst through the door. John sat with his feet up on the desk, his beat up cowboy hat pulled down low.

“John, Rylee’s in trouble, and she could use all the help she can get.” It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that they would be of no real use being human.

He pushed his hat up with one finger and raised an eyebrow at me. “What you doing here, Wolf?”

“Rylee’s in trouble and . . . wait, how did you know I was a wolf?” I stared at him as my mouth slowly dropped open. “You knew all along?”

He shrugged and a slow grin slid over his face. “Wolf, I can’t come with you. Ry needs Mary and me here. You’ve got to trust me that we will do more good here than in the middle of that mess of demons.”

I backed up. “Okay.”

“I’ll see you in a bit,” he said, waving at me as he lowered his hat back down.

Running out of the office, I leapt up onto Eve’s back. “So much for that.”

“They won’t come?” The despair in her voice clawed at me.

“He said they were needed here. Then he said he’d see me in a bit.” The whole conversation, as short as it was, was strange.

“Then we need to go,” she said as she launched once more into the sky, heading straight for the farm.

“Yes,” I said softly breathing in the fresh air, filling my lungs with it, “I think you’re right. It’s time to go.”

CHAPTER 37

RYLEE

JONATHAN POINTED. “WHICH path do you want to see first?”

“Does it matter?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Left or right . . . did it matter? I looked at the path under my feet. The one to the left was made of perfectly in-line stones stretching out in front of us. Around each stone the grass was manicured and beautifully bright green. The other was overgrown with tangles of bushes and grass shooting up between the bricks. Most of the bricks were broken, some were completely missing, leaving gaps in the path.

“Let me guess, two states of mind?”

“If that is what you see, then that is what it is. I am just the facilitator here. This is your mind, this is your journey,” he said, a smirk on his face.

The path to the right represented my inability to plan. No matter how hard I tried, I would find myself going by the seat of my pants. I took a step to the left and I was back in the barn.

Doran leaned over me. “Rylee, what did you learn?”

“We’re going to do a play by play, understand?” I pushed to my feet, clutching at my stomach and the wound there.

He nodded. “You’re the one in charge here, Rylee. And you know I like it like that.” He winked at me and I laughed softly.

“Doran, will you never give up?”

“Nah, too much fun.” He slipped an arm around my back and helped me stand. “What do we need to do?”

I directed those left in my care to their positions. “When the sun drops behind the horizon, we’re going to do exactly as I planned. Everyone understand?”

They nodded, murmuring their assent.

The plan was to have the shamans holding the protective circle to let it drop and Ophelia would tear the barn right off us so we had a clear view of what we faced.

The vampires would rush me to the ceremonial slab, the shamans would set up another protective circle around us there, and I would end the game with Orion, complete the ceremony and save the world.

Easy as peach pie in the south.

I watched Berget and Faris for the first signal: the sun had gone down. Berget’s blue eyes were on mine and I saw the flicker there a split second before she nodded.

“Now!”

Ophelia ripped the barn off. Or at least, half of it. The other half fell on top of Jonathan, crushing the kid. Doran scooped me into his arms and ran across the short distance to the burned out shell of my house. The ceremonial slab beckoned me.

I closed my eyes and trusted in the plan. For the first time, I had truly planned this out and it had to work. I looked over Doran’s shoulder. “Where the fuck are the shamans?”

The barn wall collapsed on them, Rylee. I couldn’t stop it. Ophelia’s words turned into a scream of pain and I squirmed in Doran’s arms. The rapid staccato of her heart pounded through my body. Slash after slash of red-hot fiery death lanced through me from her.

Like Blaz, I felt her slipping away, the pulse of her blood slowing as she fought.

Rylee, I can’t hold them off. Ahh, my babies. My babies are the last.

“Put me down, they’re killing her!”

One last shot, and Ophelia slipped from me, the bond shattering, and with it my will to fight. Not again. I was losing her like I was losing everyone around me.

“You can’t save any of us if you don’t do this!” Doran grabbed my arms, shaking me hard. But his back was turned to the demons and it was the last mistake he would ever make.

A sword sliced through his neck, taking his head off in a single clean swipe. His beautiful green eyes widened and a single tear fell from each as he air-kissed at me one last time.