"I don't want to." My voice comes out sounding faint, and I say it again, more strongly."! don't want you. I want you to leave me alone." Cal tips back his head and laughs, exposing the smooth brown skin of his neck. "Of course you don't really want to be alone," he says, sounding indulgent in a way that pisses me off. "Not when you can be with me. Didn't you have too many years of being alone? You did. But now you'll never be alone again."

"What are you talking about?"

He takes my hand, and it really feels like a person holding it His skin is smooth and warm, and I feel the brush of the leather friendship bracelet he used to wear. When he was alive. I shiver, but again he doesn't seem to notice.

"You've been playing hard to get," he says. "I don't blame you. You're an exceptional witch-very strong. You're simply too strong not to be joined with me." His smile lights his face, and I'm struck by his physical beauty. "You know what they say-if you're not with us, you're against us."

"Who's us?" I ask. I know I'm supposed to do something, something guided or interactive-but what? Desperately I try to remember-I'm supposed to do something, for some reason-

Cal shrugs casually. "With me. Tonight you're going to join with me forever."

"No."

He laughs easily. "You don't really have a choice, Morgan. Not anymore. Not tonight."

"I always have a choice." My voice comes out stronger than I intended, and it makes his golden eyes flick over at me.

"Not really. Not against me." He stands up and holds out his hand. "Now, come on. Let's get going. I've waited too long for this. You won't get away from me tonight" He remembers to smile at the last bit, but it's a horrible, almost vicious expression, and I recoil.

"No," I say, pulling farther back into the bed. What should I do? What should I do? Isn't something supposed to happen now? Is someone supposed to help me? Where are they?

Cal reaches forward and grips my wrist in a tight, almost painful grasp. My eyes narrow a bit-I'm not a pushover. Not anymore. I'm no longer innocent Morgan, never had a boyfriend, so flattered that a demigod like Cal Blaire would want me. He thinks I'm weak, is counting on it But I'm not weak. I'm very strong, and I know it. I'm so strong, I can protect myself in this situation. Strong enough to fight Cal all by myself. I can win. I can beat him.

"Why are you doing this? I want you to leave me alone," I say firmly. I tug on my hand, but he doesn't release it. "I don't want to be with you. I'm not going to join with you. You need to leave and never come back."

He frowns. "Morgan. Stop it. This is nonsense. Now, come on." He gives a hard yank on my hand and almost pulls me out of the bed. My shoulder feels a sharp pang, as if my arm is straining against its socket. Determinedly I pull it back.

I realize now that we're in the meadow again. I don't remember where we were just seconds ago. But we're in the meadow, and there's Cal's bed at the edge of it The sun is warm on my hair, the bees' droning noise is mesmerizing-it's the most perfect, peaceful place in the world. Except Cal's in it.

Time to act. I reach forward and grab Cal's other hand, pulling it toward me. He smiles-playful Morgan-but I keep a death grip on it and won't let go. He frowns in puzzlement and tries to pull his own hand back. "Let go," he says.

I send every bit of power I have into the hold I have on his hand. "No," I say calmly. "I won't let go."

He suddenly gives a hard yank, and I hold on tighter, clenching my teeth. "You can't hurt me anymore," I grind out-

Then my eyes opened to darkness lit only by a glow of blue witchfire. I lurched up in bed and stifled a horrified scream-in my hand I was holding one leg of a dark-feath- ered hawk! The same hawk I had seen in all my dreams- the one with the cold, golden eyes. My face froze in shock as I took in the scene-the hawk's huge, powerful wings beating the air, my fist gripped around its leg tight enough to break its bone. The hawk screamed unbearably loudly, right in my face, and I squeezed my eyes shut, the horrible sound raking my eardrums.

Its beak lunged toward my face, and I ducked at the last second to avoid having my cheek ripped open. Around me I heard a commotion-moving and shouting, and then a light flashed on. Other hands were grabbing at me-I was on my knees on the bed, hanging on to the hawk's leg, avoiding its beak. Then I recognized Alyce's voice, and Hunter's and Bethany's, and it was enough to pull me back into reality. Hunter managed to grab a beating wing. Alyce grabbed the other one, holding it hard, outstretched against her body. A sudden slash made me cry out, and I saw that the hawk had managed to slice into my arm with its other taloned claw.

I let out a gasp, and then Hunter grabbed the other leg, and between the four of us we held the hawk down. It struggled fiercely, still lunging with its beak, and then Alyce reached out one hand and grabbed its neck. Her face was contorted with fierce, ruthless determination-I had never seen her look like this before.

I still held on to one leg and glanced down at the gashes on my arm, dripping blood. I stared at the hawk, at its golden eyes-they were like Cal's eyes. I looked up at Alyce to ask what should we do now, but I saw a look of horror come over her face. My head snapped back to the hawk, and then my jaw dropped in terror as the hawk's mouth opened and a wisp of thick, oily smoke emerged. In a second I remembered the last time I had seen something like that-it had been back when Selene had died, in her library. It was here now, and it was incredibly foul, this close. Just being within proximity of it made me feel like my life force was draining away, as if it was the coldness of death itself. My heart sank and my mouth went dry, and then, as the last of the smoke roiled out of the bird's mouth, it went limp and sank lifeless in our hands. It was dead.

"Quick!" Bethany shouted, dropping the bird's body on the bed and throwing herself toward the window. She slammed it down and locked it, and Alyce sprang for the door and locked that, too. I was still trying to get my bearings, but the other three witches were circling the anam, grim looks of resolve on their faces.

Then, as we watched, the nebulous smoke slowly began to achieve more form. It coiled upon itself, becoming more three-dimensional. My eyes felt like they were burning as a grisly, acid-eaten face gradually emerged from the oily fog.

It was Selene.

My mind went blank with terror. Selene! My first thought was that against Cal, we had good odds of beating him. Against Selene, who besides Ciaran was the strongest, most evil witch I'd ever come across-our odds were much worse.

Selene! How was it possible? Her anam must have been within the smoke that drifted from her mouth when she died. She must have found some other host-this hawk, or another one, or something else. Then she had decided to take revenge on me. It hadn't been Cal at all. It had never been Cal.

I felt my heart sink at this realization. The real Cal was dead-he had been dead all this time. Selene had used his image in my dreams to make me follow him. She must have known that I still had conflicting feelings about her son: anger, fear, maybe even a little fondness. But most of all, guilt. He had sacrificed his life for me. And as much as I knew he was a twisted person who had done terrible things, a small part of me still regretted that Because he might have truly loved me, in his way. And because he never really had a chance. Not with a mother like Selene.

Her death's-head grin was becoming more apparent-in life, Selene had been as beautiful as Cal, in the same sleek, golden, feline way. She was no longer beautiful. It was as if every bit of evil she had in her had eaten away at her human form, leaving only the grimacing mockery of a challenge.