Rebekka gave Levi another quick hug then disengaged, saying, “We can talk as we walk.”

Lion gold eyes issued another warning to their escort before Levi took up a position next to her. And as they walked, she told him what had happened since they parted upon seeing the guardsmen and Gulzar near the Mission.

When she reached the part where Aziel had appeared, Levi produced the blackened token and handed it to her. He stopped in his tracks when, moments later, she got to the end of her story, telling him, “Annalise prophecies a war between supernatural beings. She claims healers will emerge who are able to do what I can’t for those trapped between forms.”

“What you can’t do yet,” their raven-marked guide said, causing them both to look at him, though he neither looked back nor stopped walking.

Levi let the stranger advance a block before he took a step. Rebekka doubted even ten blocks would be enough distance to keep their escort from hearing their conversation.

“Is he right?” Levi asked.

“Yes.”

“What do the witches want from you?”

She curled her fingers around his arm. “They didn’t ask anything.”

“Yet. They involved you in their schemes from the first, by sending for you. You could have lost your life, either at the hands of the guardsmen or the Church.”

“Because I chose not to leave Eston in the truck for guardsmen to find,” Rebekka said, and she wasn’t sorry for that choice. Just as she wasn’t sorry they’d ambushed the trapper or waited in the woods to offer shelter to Araña. “If not for the witches, Anton would have dragon lizards and Cyrin would be dead.”

Levi snarled at what Anton had planned for his brother. She squeezed his arm, hardly daring to mention the dream they shared of freeing the animals and Weres held at the maze, but she didn’t know Aisling or her mate, and Annalise hadn’t said it was safe to speak freely once they arrived at the shamaness’s house.

“I think the witches intend for Araña to gain control over the demon. If—”

“She and Tir intend to break into Anton’s house. Araña made a bargain with Draven Tassone. I don’t know the details of it.”

Confusion buffeted Rebekka. The vampire’s involvement was unexpected. “Tir is the prisoner?”

“Yes.”

“When will they attempt it?”

Levi stopped her once again, this time putting his mouth close to her ear. “She has three days to complete whatever task she agreed to.”

Rebekka’s palms grew suddenly damp. “Then they have until tomorrow at noon unless they want to face the magistrate’s men as well as the demon.”

“I warned her about the magistrate’s arrival when I saw her earlier. She and Tir witnessed the assault on your house and she came to the brothel to warn me. Her boat is hidden in the outer harbor. I’m meeting them there shortly after sunrise tomorrow.”

Rebekka’s breath caught. Her thoughts went to the patriarch, trapped in his wheelchair, his limbs slowly becoming useless. She could think of only one thing Araña and Tir had that could be used for bargaining with the vice lord who controlled the outer harbor. “Rimmon’s daughter?”

“I told them she suffered from the wasting disease. If Tir healed her as you think he might be capable of doing, there’s no rumor of it yet.”

Levi turned away from her and began walking, hands shoved into his pockets and shoulders hunched in an uncharacteristic way. “I contemplated betraying them. I asked her to use her gift to find you. When she claimed not to have control over it, I told her about Annalise sending for you. I told her to seek out the witches and learn how to use her gift. When nearly a day passed…”

Levi shrugged. “I was on my way to the outer harbor to see if Tir had succeeded in stealing the boat and making a deal with Rimmon. Then I was to meet with the werewolf we freed. He approached me at the brothel—

“Now I know he lied. He said he was there when Tir was turned over to the trapper. He claimed Tir was a demon-possessed human being sent to the maze.”

Rebekka slid her arm through Levi’s. “You wouldn’t have betrayed them.”

“I’ve thought about little else but the possibility of you being held at the maze and Gulzar—” A shudder went through him. “If Araña had arrived a few minutes later, I would have missed both her and the messenger bringing news you were safe. I might have—”

“No. You wouldn’t have betrayed them.”

He shrugged again and remained silent. Ahead of them, the stranger leaned indolently against a fence in front of a white adobe house with a profusion of flowers underneath the windows and on the porch.

Rebekka touched her pocket and felt the folded pages she’d ripped from the journal on the patriarch’s desk. Choices. Paths taken and not taken.

Sitting across from Annalise, she’d accepted that maybe she couldn’t know the cost ahead of time. Maybe she could only go with her heart and do what she considered right at each juncture. “There might never be a better chance to free those held in the maze.”

Levi didn’t respond until they’d halved the distance to the shamaness’s house. “I had the same thought as I passed from the red zone into this area. Vampires aren’t known for wasting their resources. Draven Tassone least of all. He would have provided her with information to increase the odds of success. I’ll listen to her plan, and if it’s a sound one, I’ll go with them. You can wait—”

“No. Both the Weres and the animals will need me or they’ll end up dying in the traps outside the maze or slaughtered in it when the magistrate’s guards and the police arrive and find them loose.”

The stranger opened the gate and proceeded to the shamaness’s front door. As they neared the house, Rebekka could hear music coming through the open window, an exotic mix of instruments making her think of shimmering desert and primal heat.

Their escort knocked and the door was opened by a man. Rebekka’s steps faltered. He had the same otherworldly beauty as their escort, the same hint of ready death.

“Was that the door I—” The shamaness’s question was cut off by her laugh, and it remained thick in her voice when she said, “Didn’t you warn your father against making you his pawn again, Zurael?”

The teasing question earned her a growled “Aisling” and had their escort’s teeth flashing white in the rapidly approaching darkness. He extended a hand toward Rebekka and Levi. “I’ve brought guests in need of safekeeping.”

The shamaness nudged her mate aside and stood in the doorway. He curled a protective arm around her waist, but she smiled and Rebekka felt welcome. “Come in,” Aisling said. “We’re just about to sit down for dinner.”

ARAÑA brushed her fingertips over a taut masculine nipple and smiled at the sound of Tir’s heartbeat speeding up beneath her ear. Just a little bit longer, she told herself, savoring the closeness as his words of love continued to sing through her like a musical refrain.

She closed her eyes in contentment and sighed as his fingers combed through her hair, gliding sensuously over her vertebrae, his palms caressing her buttocks at the end of each downstroke. She wanted this forever, but even as she thought it, the knowledge that he’d once killed and enslaved the Djinn pushed her peace aside.

Against her back, Tir’s hand stopped moving. “What are you thinking about?”

She longed to tell him, to ask for reassurance. But how could he give it when he had no memory of his past? When he’d already refused to give up his claim of vengeance?

Araña snuggled closer and wedged her leg more firmly between his. None of it would matter if she didn’t succeed in the task she’d agreed to. “I spoke to Levi after I left L’Antiquaire.”

“At the brothel?” There was no mistaking the purr of menace in Tir’s voice.

“Yes.”

His fingertips found one of the scars on her back and traced it, sending a pulse of erotic fear through her. “I should punish you. You knew I expected you to go directly to the Constellation.”