Chapter Four

Wren

Hayden looks at me as though she's waiting for me to let her die.

Not a fucking chance.

I wrap her in darkness, shielding her eyes from the brightness of my magic and yanking her behind me as I tear apart the revenants who threatened her. Sometimes being a Render is tedious, cruel work that brings no satisfaction. But today, I delight in tormenting those who dared come after my mate. I rend the shattered pieces of them into smaller and smaller slivers until they are dust.

Hayden presses her hand to my back, and the ability to feel her touch in this form? It means everything.

"Am I still dreaming?" she asks.

"Does it feel like a dream?" My shadows swirl around her, brushing her skin.

"Maybe." She leans into me, and gods, I need to claim her as mine in waking hours as much as I have in dreams. "But I don't have nightmares of being chased through houses. Not since I met you."

No, I dominate her dreams, an apex predator who scares the other monsters away. "You should still be sleeping."

"Which means I'm awake." A smile teases her voice. "Not dreaming after all."

The gravity of how close I came to losing her forever hits me. "No, the revenants could've driven you insane, could've forced you into suicide. If I'd been seconds later returning?—"

"But you weren't." She moves beside me, and I wrap a shadow around her waist to keep her from going farther. Pointing toward Maximus, she says, "I guess he didn't need me looking out for him, did he?"

It's hard to hold onto my rage with her pushing against me and Maximus kicking at the dust leftovers of the revenants with his hind paws like he's scratching up dirt to cover the mess. He yips with all three heads as though he's the conquering hero.

"He didn't," I admit, "but the fact that you thought of saving him simply speaks to who you are. Maximus, check the rest of the house." The dog stops barking, spins, and walks through a wall.

"Maximus," she whispers. "No wonder he didn't agree with any of the names I tried out. And yet, your three-headed dog disappearing isn't the most unbelievable thing to happen today."

I glance down to find her staring at me like there's no one and nothing else here. As though she isn't standing on the threshold of her worst nightmare, as though we weren't just in the midst of monsters she should never have to deal with, as though she has all the answers she needs in myshadows.

This is my mate.

A shiver runs through her body, and my darkness instinctively tightens around her. Gods, to touch her, to have her look at me with the same heat and desire of her dreams rather than fear like everyone does.

The scent ofarousalmixes with the sweat on her skin.Myevery shadowreaches for her.The darkness at the core of my being isconsumed by the need to touch and taste and claim her.

She's mine .

The word rings in my head, vibrates in my magic's veins, and pulses through me like no power I've ever known. I need to own her soul the same as she possesses whatever phantom of one I could imagine having.

Sunlight crests the mountains, sending rays of light through windows above and flooding the area where we stand. She squints, and I immediately surround her in darkness.

"You're really here?" The hope shining in her voice, the tender way in which she speaks the question—it holds the same need, the same obsession, the same certaintythat lives in me. We're fated to be together.

"I told you I would come for you again."

She steps closer, and my darkness wraps us tighter in shadows. I savor each touch.

My body aches with the desire to pull her close. My every instinct demands that I make her mine. But I can't claim her, can't sink inside her.Not yet. Not until shemakes that decision of her own free will instead of feeling pressured by a demon's bargain.

She places a palm flat on my chest. The pressure is more real thanany dream, any fantasy, anything I imagined.

I am truly here with my Hayden.

"But I'm still alive," she says, doubt creeping into her words. "Right?"

"You are."

She banishes whatever uncertainty lingered with one of my favorite things about Hayden other than her glorious tits and that round ass—her immense curiosity. "Then how are you here with me now? While I'm awake?"

"I'll tell you after you're away from danger." I nudge her farther out of the house. "I can't risk you if more revenants come through."

"Is that what those were? Revenants?" She doesn't move, lost in thought and endless questions. "I've never seen them before. Are they a kind of spirit? Like pissed-off beast ghosts? Speaking of which, where are all the ghosts?"

I need her to stop thinking, stop asking questions, and let me get her to safety. She's still rambling about the lack of afterlife on the property when I sweep her off the ground and into the shadows closest to where my magical core thrums the same as a human heart might. Hayden cuts off on a lovely, shocked squeak yet she doesn't fight my touch. If anything, she curls closer.

While I walk with her wrapped in my shadow arms, I satisfy her inquisitive nature since I won't be able to fulfill my own desires until I get her full consent to the mating bond. "Revenants are abominations, created by a necromancer who disrespected the dead he rose by stitching together pieces of their souls into those beasts. I still don't know how many more he has made in addition to the ones already trapped inside the manor?—"

"A necromancer?"

I keep going because if I stop for every question, it'll be nightfall before I answer her biggest one. "As for the reason we can finally touch while you're awake? I made a deal with a demon prince. The same as you did."

"I. Did. Not."

Her outrage holds not a hint of fear. It's part of what drew me to her in the first place. Humans resist when a reaper comes for them. They can't win, but they try. Oh, do they try. Survival instinct combined with terror makes them fight or freeze. But not Hayden. She looked at me as though puzzling out who I was—who I really was.

Not a reaper come to collect her soul.

Not a monster.

But a man.

A mate.

It's as intoxicating now as it was ten years ago, as it has been every night I've visited her and teased her to pleasure in fantasies when I couldn't in reality. No, I can't think of how she looks when she comes undone beneath me. Not until we have this dreadful, necessary conversation.

"Does the name Theodopolis mean anything to you?" I ask.

"No." She scrunches her nose in the most adorable expression. "Wait, Theo? The corporate rep who was here to meet me? He's a demon?"

"He's crown prince of the hell dimensions."

"I knew there had to be something shady about a company calling itself Underworld, but they offered to give a ton of money to charity so I figured how bad could it be? I read the contract in advance, and there was nothing weird."

"Are you sure it was the same contract that you signed?"

She tenses against me. "No. With the headache…"

"You don't need to explain." Spending every night together for ten years means we shared more than sex. We shared secrets. I know this woman as well as I know myself. "He tricked you. That's what demons do."

"But why ? Why would he need a social media influencer to tell him the history of the house? Why run a contest?"

"To lure you in. It's my fault, actually," I admit. "I should have warned you sooner. I would have if I'd had any idea he would dare bring you into this danger."

"What danger? And how could this be your fault?"

I stay quiet until we reach her van and the wards I set around it before dawn. "See these markings?"

She glances down to the intricate salt, iron, and amethyst design I burned into the ground. "Oh, wow, this was hidden by the fog earlier. A mandala inside a pentagram." My mate squirms in my shadows, leaning for a closer look, and I have to tighten my hold on her to keep her upright.

Her trust in me is touching, and I vow to myself to spend each day earning it.

"What is it?" she asks.

"It's a protection ward."

"Such radial symmetry and geometric harmony. Did you draw this?"

Of course she would be as fascinated by the artistry as she might be by the magical properties. "I did, and as long as you're inside it, the revenants can't get to you."

"I'm in favor of the scary ghost beasts not being able to eat me."

I tangle a shadow through her hair, letting the silky strands slide over my darkness rather than through it. "They wouldn't devour you. Although I could go for a taste of you right now."

She wiggles against me. "Okay, Shadow…" Her eyes go wide, and a flush steals over her brown skin.

"Yes, my beauty?" Because she's the most beautiful vision—both inside and out—I've beheld in the years I've roamed between realms. I've known it from the first moment we met when I could see the threads of her soul reaching for me, drawing me in.

She sucks in a breath, and gods, how I wish to hear that sweet sound again when I sink between her legs. "I can't say that out loud," she mumbles. "I mean, what I call you in my dreams, I don't know if I can…"

"You did last night in front of the demon."