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I laughed. “I’ll try my best.”

I stomped to my car, tossing in my bag while once again questioning all of my decisions that brought me here.

“If you’re taking me here to murder me, you’ll be not-so-pleasantly surprised to find yourself in a shallow grave,” I told Dante ten minutes into our hike. My boots were already caked with dirt. Not that I was concerned about their upkeep; they’d been covered in much worse.

My ribs protested from walking, my head throbbing from the hangover and general lack of hydration since I only drank fluids in the form of coffee or booze.

“Murder you, Hadley?” Dante called from in front of me. “Not when you’re just getting interesting.”

“I’ve always been interesting.” I scowled at his back, muttering to myself.

Yet despite the crunch of fallen branches and chirping of birds, I could’ve sworn I heard a barely audible “Yes, you have” from Dante’s direction.

Surely not, though, since the tenor was low, almost tender. Dante did not have any tender feelings toward me. I must’ve been hallucinating. Gone off the deep end. Much more plausible and comforting.

“How much longer?” I groaned, my breathing reduced to short pants. Despite the bite to the air, the sun was relentless, a thin layer of sweat already beginning to cover my skin.

“You really need to get to a gym, Harris, if you’re winded already. Lack of conditioning will get you dead.”

I hated that he didn’t have so much as a hitch in his breath. “I do Pilates every morning with my best friend Sarah.”

He turned, his skepticism conveyed through the divot between his eyes. “Really?”

“Not fucking really. People who go to Pilates should be left behind in the Rapture,” I shot back.

He shrugged. “You have an ass that says you go to Pilates.”

Heat flooded my cheeks. From the hike, I told myself. “I have an ass that says I eat a lot of cheeseburgers,” I countered.

“Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.” He turned his head back around, directing us farther into the woods.

I bit my tongue against the urge of a sharp retort. This kind of banter was usual for Dante and me when we were together, but I’d been in his presence much more than I was used to. And now the snark had an underlying sexual tension that wasn’t exactly one-sided.

I just needed to get laid. Not by Dante. Or Colton.

“Here.” Dante halted after we’d veered off trail for a handful of minutes.

I smelled it first. Sage. Ash. Dead things. Then I felt the change in the air. Something heavy. Metallic.

I shivered, even though my body was flushed from the exertion of the short hike.

“Yeah,” Dante agreed, watching me rub my arms. “Someone was messing with the wrong things here.”

I looked to the tree in front of us, carved with sigils I faintly recognized as witchcraft. Dark witchcraft. I’d done a rudimentary course on good sigils versus bad ones lest I try to hunt a benevolent witch. Though once you’d tousled with a dark witch, you knew it was impossible to mistake the two.

Seasoned hunters who were attuned to the occult and signs of the supernatural could feel the underworld emanating off those dark witches.

In short, dark witches were strong, powered by demons, and they could be pretty fucking scary.

I peered at the sigils then downward, to the scorched earth, a circle of what was likely bone dust. To the left was a long, flat stone, stained with rust-colored blood. Even though I didn’t spook easily, I couldn’t escape the feeling of dread that covered my skin just by being there. This was dark, forbidden magic. Deals with demons and even worse creatures were made with this kind of power. The kind of power bought with the blood of innocents and one’s soul.

“She didn’t go to much effort to cover her tracks.” I pushed my sunglasses to the top of my head, gazing around.

This was a lesser-known trail, presumably used more by locals than tourists. I’d been here more than a few times with Colton, friends, or my parents on weekends.

“How did you find it?” I asked, looking back at Dante.

He’d been watching me with an intense expression on his face that communicated he’d been staring at me the entire time.