“Something’s wrong.” They couldn’t get out of here fast enough. Lindsay’s heart was racing, and not just from Noah’s distress. He’d left Noah alone and something—someone—was hurting him. “We have to go. It’s Noah.”

Dane didn’t ask any questions, much to Lindsay’s relief. “He’s a big boy, he’ll be fine until we get there,” he said quietly. “Breathe.” He led Lindsay between tables to the aisle. “Now you know how I felt in Mexico.”

In Mexico, Lindsay had gotten himself in trouble by leaving Dane when they were being hunted.

Noah was nothing but obedient and as vulnerable as a human now that Lindsay held his magic. There was no reason for anyone to hurt him except that he was Lindsay’s.

Lindsay couldn’t keep Noah from defending himself any longer. He could feel Noah scrabbling frantically for magic that wasn’t there, trapped in the illusion Lindsay had woven to keep him safe.

Clutching at Dane’s arm, Lindsay released the illusion that held Noah’s magic at bay. “He’s not okay. I have to be there now.”

Night was coming down on the salt marsh behind the duplex where Cyrus had made his home. The house was set at the far end of a curving cul-de-sac, and the cheap fence put up by the builders had long-since rotted, listed, and eventually crumpled into the tall grass and sodden earth. Noah had heard Vivian mention the sad state of it to Cyrus once. Noah couldn’t hear the answer that followed, but the ancient mage’s tone had been tetchy and querulous enough that Noah could guess that no one would be mending the fence any time soon.

He didn’t want it up—he liked looking out into the gray-green distance and letting his thoughts get lost. Lindsay was gone, but his magic remained. Noah could tell, when he failed to light one cigarette after another and each time had to resort to the only plastic souvenir lighter he’d been able to find buried among his dirty jeans. He had to do laundry. And he had to stop losing his lighters. As soon as his magic was his again, they’d be raining from every pocket and fold of his belongings for days, he just knew it.

Missing his power wasn’t much of a loss. It felt like he’d returned to normalcy, wrapped in the cocoon of Lindsay’s illusion. He could have struggled against it, but he didn’t want to lose his newfound comfort. Every time his mind rose up as if to question the reality he saw, he made it soft, like he had learned to do when Rose was first mastering her magic. His sister would have been furious with him for letting someone walk around in his head, but it was everything Noah needed right now. Only a lack of familiarity kept him from knocking at Lindsay’s door at night and begging him to keep the rest of reality away for a little while. Just long enough for sleep to come.

In the meantime, Noah turned to the bottle. One bottle after another. They were all his friends. He opened another and filled his flask first before taking a drink. Before, he’d been drinking 151-proof grain alcohol. Now, it was scotch, and not the cheap stuff. Noah told himself that was progress and gave himself a drink as a reward. It brought him the numbness he was craving, though his sleep was still terrible and waking brought the fresh hell of a hangover every day. The dry heaves and screaming headache kept his mind off his troubles, though.

If Noah had known Lindsay better, he might have brought himself to ask for help. But that wasn’t the whole of it. Dane had gone out on Cyrus’s business but his presence lingered. The last thing Noah wanted was to provoke the big creature, and if he came uninvited to Dane’s den, whether Dane was in the house or not, Dane would know it.

Now that Dane was back, Noah had no intention of asking for more of Lindsay than he’d already been given. Ferals had their own ways and Dane was infamously territorial. Touchingly, Abram had been almost as concerned that the terrible manners of the mundane world would lead Noah to a sticky end at Dane’s claws as he had been concerned that Noah would embarrass the family in front of Cyrus and Vivian.

It was comforting, in its way—its backward way, like not being able to use his magic—that Lindsay was bound to the feral. Noah hadn’t known how being given to someone like Lindsay would affect him, whether he’d be troubled and conflicted by Lindsay’s beauty and fragility. There was nothing fragile about Lindsay’s magic, and with Dane in the picture, Lindsay’s appearance and magnetism became irrelevant.

Cyrus wasn’t as capricious as he seemed.

In spite of how haphazard life here could be, Noah was starting to relax. Maybe starting to heal. He closed his eyes and leaned back on the steps. As much as he didn’t want to heal, as if Elle could never truly be gone as long as Noah carried the wound of her absence, it was hard to like the man he was when he was steeped in grief and mad with self-loathing. He was going to die or live, Rose had said sagely. Life meant healing. It didn’t allow a wound to gape. Noah could have his scars, but not the wounds.

“They left you home alone?” Noah hadn’t paid attention to the back door opening, but he couldn’t ignore the sultry voice.

“Hardly alone,” he pointed out. “Unless I’m hearing voices now?”

“No, I’m real.” Kristan’s laugh was low and rich. Her voice and her name were familiar, but he’d avoided her enough that he didn’t know her face. “If I weren’t, I’d have my own cigarettes, wouldn’t I?”

She sat down on the top step, close enough that Noah could feel her there, but not close enough to touch.

“I guess you would.” Noah could take a hint. He handed her the pack with the lighter tucked into it.

“Don’t lose that lighter. It’s my last.”

“Is not.” Kristan took a cigarette and lit it—Noah heard the rustle of the pack and the scratch of the lighter. “There’s three in the drawer in the kitchen and I found one on the front steps this morning. Is that your magic? Spontaneously spawning flammables?”

“Something like it.” Noah reached for the pack and she gave it up, trailing her fingers over his as she did. It should have irritated him, but maybe he was too drunk for that right now. He wasn’t sure he’d had that much, but he lost track of everything so easily. Lighters. Bottles. Days.

“Show me?” She moved down to sit closer, leaning forward. When he opened his eyes, her face was inches from his. He could smell her tumble of brassy hair, sweet and warm, like violets at noon.

“Would if I could, but I can’t.” He shrugged and sat up, picking up the bottle between his feet to take another drink.

“Why not?” Her words stroked the back of his neck. Her fingertips followed, leaving cold trails behind. “Are you broken?”

“Just got the safety catch on. Don’t want to burn us all in our sleep.”

“Looks like someone closed the barn door after the horses got out, in that case,” she said, tracing the lines of healed burns on his scalp and down the side of his neck. “They shouldn’t have let you get hurt.”

Noah wanted to protest—the touch was making his stomach churn—but his body wouldn’t move away. As much as he wanted to go, there was a heat in him that wanted to be closer. Every breath he took, it got worse, like his lungs were a bellows and his belly was a forge.

“It was my fault.”

It was all his fault. He’d been the one driving. The moment the pickup in front of him had slammed on the brakes, Noah knew he’d been following too closely. Another car had hit them from behind. He’d been turning to see why Elle was sobbing, to comfort her, when—in the rearview mirror—he’d seen the lights of the tanker coming up out of the fog, too fast to stop.

“I’m sure it was an accident.” Kristan was so close now, sitting right beside him, her hand on his wrist. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Noah wanted to roar at her to stop, but he didn’t have the breath for it. Something in the back of his head was flailing with terror, trying to flee.