Stacy cried out as a figure leaped from the shadows and tackled her to the floor. They landed hard on the wooden floorboards. The figure was masked like the ones she’d killed half an hour ago. The knife in his hand glided toward her neck.

“Get off me!” She kicked and thrashed, then remembered her magic and sent it bursting through her skin. The attacker flew over the sofa and met the end of Kiera’s blade in his neck.

No sooner had that happened when three more figures materialized.

Stacy got to her feet, spinning with enough speed to take out one. Rowan’s grunts told her he faced another. Kiera was silent as she cut down the third. Bodies fell in heaps around the room.

“Hurry,” Rowan insisted in a low voice. “Before more of their friends show up.” He rushed to the fireplace, and Stacy remembered what Amy had discovered about a secret tunnel leading from this room to an exit. She’d gotten the information from a housekeeper who had once worked here.

Thank God for investigative journalism, Stacy thought as Rowan opened the passageway by tracing a series of glowing sigils. She ducked into the darkness, alarmed at how narrow the tunnel was and how low the ceiling dipped. She made her way through by ducking her head, but Rowan had to bend halfway over. Kiera was the only one short enough to make the journey without contorting her body.

She pushed through the darkness, her heart hammering. The distant sounds of shouting reached her. The men were still in pursuit. She wondered what Victor would do when he discovered not only that she’d led an assault against his home and killed several of his guards but that she’d evaded his clutches again.

Amy! she thought. If her friend had been hurt or worse, Stacy would never forgive herself. It was fresh motivation to keep going.

Finally, she skidded to a halt. The tunnel had reached a dead end. “What now?” she demanded desperately, breathing hard.

Rowan placed his hands over the wall, and the instant glowing of runes said it was not a wall but a door. The dryad’s face filled with strain, slick with sweat. Finally, the ancient magical door groaned and slid open. Cool night air hit them with a blast.

Stacy fled into it. She was hardly touching grass when the tunnel filled with the sounds of pursuit. Thundering boots, shouting voices, the occasional fired gun.

Kiera threw up her shadows while Stacy and Rowan headed up the hillside toward the thick forest. Rowan reached the wards and tore through them, no longer mindful of setting off an alarm. He pushed Stacy through the opening, then spun to ensure Kiera was coming. The fae woman dropped her wall, then folded herself into the night.

Screeching tires, gunfire, and shattering glass prevented Amy from hearing whatever Spencer gritted out.

“Go this way!” he repeated in a louder voice, wincing at the pain in his side. Not only was he dealing with a gunshot wound, but glass had shattered all over him from the back window. Agony and adrenaline laced his voice as he yelled for Amy to veer the car down a side street, then another. She went as fast as she could without ramming anyone else. Other cars blared their horns. She didn’t care. She had to get away.

Where the fuck was the nearest hospital? Surely, their pursuers would not follow them in there, would they?

Amy decided she didn’t have room for that fear. She had to go, go, go!

Spencer could return fire through the back window. A black Mustang barreled after them, followed by a motorcycle whose rider wore a white mask instead of a helmet. Now that Amy thought about it, she’d seen a few other people in the crowd that night wearing white masks.

Weird, she thought. A little cultish.

Spencer aimed and fired, hitting the bike driver in the chest. He flew off, and the bike crashed into a pole. Screams rang out.

Amy ignored them and kept driving. Her foot slammed the gas, then lifted and slammed the brake, barely missing a group of young men crossing the street, who shouted their indignation at her.

“Watch where you’re going, bitch!”

“Women are the fucking worst drivers!”

Amy had half a mind to run them over anyway. They didn’t seem to care about the car pursuing her until they spotted a man leaning out the passenger window, gun aimed at Amy’s car. More screams rang out. People ran in every direction.

Spencer continued firing through the back window, but his aim was off, the pain clouding his clarity.

Tears pricked Amy’s eyes. We never should have gone to that damn gala.

She pressed on. Spencer needed her. He needed a damn doctor. She swung the car around another corner and sped down a street. This one was far less busy, and she made good time. The light ahead turned red, but she raced through it.

If the cops pulled her over, at least she’d have help shaking the men who were still on her ass. Her speeding would be the least of her worries, with bullet holes riddling the car, Spencer returning fire, and all the blood. Gods, it reeked of blood. So much of it, and it was everywhere.

“Hold on!” she told Spencer. “Hang in there for me.”

“We ne-need to g-go home. I need to get you somewhere safe, Amy!” His gasps were longer and harder, signs he was struggling to stay in his right mind.

Her voice cracked. “I feel the same about you.” Right now, that “somewhere safe” was a fucking hospital room.

She saw it up ahead. Another bullet hit her car, shattering the driver’s side mirror. “Fuck’s sake,” she breathed. At least they were armed men and not werewolves leaping onto her car. Her brakes screamed as she pulled up to the hospital. No one shot at her as she hurried to the other side of the car and helped Spencer out.

“Amy, we need to⁠—”

“Shh, you’re going to be fine. You need to get inside.”

The emergency room was a blur of motion and noise that Amy was too tired and full of adrenaline to register. Everything was bright and white. Healthcare professionals swarmed her, questions and concerns falling from their lips. Amy was too disoriented to answer them. A stretcher rolled through the hallway, and nurses helped lay Spencer onto it, saying things like, “Here, lay down,” and “Wheel him to room forty,” and “Get Dr. Sanchez!”

His blood was everywhere. They began to wheel him off, and Amy reached for his hand, squeezing. Tears streamed down her face. “Everything’s going to be okay,” she told him.

He didn’t squeeze back. His eyes were closed, unconscious. Amy felt like crumpling to the floor.

The nurses took him into another room. One remained behind, steadying Amy with a hand on her elbow. “Ma’am, can you tell us what happened?”

The words tumbled from her. She told the nurses she and Spencer had been at a gala at one of Corbinelli’s hotels. They had gone to get their car and were shot at. Spencer had taken a bullet in his side. They found their car and fled here.

Amy felt a sharp pain in her leg and realized she’d hurt herself. Whether she had pulled a muscle or hit something, she did not know. She’d been so focused on escaping that a lot had passed her noticed.

“We’re going to take care of you,” a nurse’s soothing voice stated. “Follow me. We’ll take you to a room.”

Amy had been clutching her side during this interchange. Now, she removed her hand, revealing, to her shock and the nurse’s alarm, a growing patch of blood. Pain spasmed through her side. “I-I… They must have…shot me.” She didn’t remember it happening. She couldn’t figure out how it had occurred. She had been too focused on Spencer and getting away. Was it a bullet or something else?

The nurse urged her along. Another stretcher arrived. Urgent voices filled the room. Amy felt gloved hands on her body. It all turned to dull commotion in her ears. She felt them lowering her, and the lights were bright in her eyes. Too bright. Too white. Everything hurt.

“Spencer,” she choked out before darkness slammed into her, and she knew no more.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The car rumbled along the road.

Though Stacy would have preferred Rowan to race home, it was better to take it slow and not draw attention to them. They had no idea how many of Victor’s men were on the road or if Victor himself would drive past them.

Stacy had not realized until now how sore her body was from all the fighting and running. It wasn’t until they were riding along that she realized how much blood was on her clothes. Kiera sat opposite her, still as a statue and silent as the deepest night.

The quiet was shattered when Stacy’s phone rang. She snatched it, realizing with a pit in her stomach that she had not heard from Amy since confirmation of Victor being at the gala. The call was not from Amy but from a hospital. Hardly breathing, she answered.

“Is this Stacy Drake?” a woman’s voice on the other end asked. “We found that name with this number in a wallet belonging to Ms. Amy Greentree. You must be an emergency contact.”