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It shouldn’t be burning. It shouldn’t be anything. Stomach wounds were more often than not deadly. Especially when given by a demon. Usually a one-way ticket to hell.

Yet there I was, listening to two men argue over taking care of me.

Which was kind of my version of hell if you thought about it, so that tracked.

“She’ll heal,” the second voice, belonging to Dante, muttered.

He was closer. I could feel his breath, hot and scented with cinnamon, on my face. Smell the worn leather of his jacket, smell him. I was pressed up against his soft tee, the skin of his muscular chest warm. Though arms were tight around me, my body jolted up and down, pain spearing through me with every step.

He was carrying me. In his arms.

While Colton was somewhere talking about a hospital.

Yep, definitely in hell.

“She’ll heal?” Colton yelled as I was laid on what smelled earthy and crunched like leaves. No scent of the rotting stench of hell itself.

“People don’t heal from this shit, they die,” Colton spoke quietly. “Hadley is going to die.” Grief saturated the sentence. Defeat. He was already mourning me. Had given up.

Hair was brushed from my face in an oddly tender gesture that couldn’t have come from Dante. Yet Colton sounded far too panicked and scared to make such a gesture. It was odd to me that he was still there, in human form. Was the moon full? How much time had passed?

“Well, she’s not a person, is she? You’ve got two eyes, you saw her little light show. If she can smoke a demon prince, she’ll be able to heal herself.” Quieter, as if to himself, Dante added, “Her powers certainly activated.”

Powers?

I mentally shook my head as I remembered what got me there. The burst of light. The feeling in my body like I was opening a well of something deep, old, powerful, and wonderful. The feeling of being … whole.

The demon spoke about my powers too.

Powers.

It was certainly the only explanation as to the light show I’d gifted everyone. A light show that killed a prince of hell.

And I wasn’t dead, which I most certainly should’ve been.

I heard what sounded like feet stepping on fallen leaves and dirt, then a sharp gasp.

“Mom?” Colton’s confusion was audible. “Angela? What are you doing here?”

Angela? Oh, great. That bitch got a front row seat to my death. Or whatever this was.

“Is she⁠—”

“She’s not dead,” Colton cut in, obviously talking about me. His tone was resolute, as if he could make it so. “But she will be. If we don’t get her to a hospital.”

“She doesn’t need a hospital,” Dante rumbled from above me. “You need to go with Mommy and Anna.”

“Angela,” a nasally voice corrected, as if it were the time for that.

“I don’t care.” Despite my situation, I felt a warmth of satisfaction at Dante’s dismissal of her.

“I’m not leaving her.” Colton’s voice was thicker now, rougher. Even in the haze of whatever this thing was, I could feel it. The change.

How Colton had fought it that long was impressive, considering what he must’ve been feeling, freed from the shackles of the curse and his irrefutable sense of powerlessness while watching a demon tear me apart.

It was nothing short of a miracle that the beast inside of him hadn’t torn itself out.

Yet it seemed it was done waiting.