When Lyla woke me, I could still feel the ghost of Marius' lips on mine. For a brief moment I innately cursed her for interrupting us, but then realization dawned on me, and my heart started to race. I sat up quickly, eyes darting around.

"It's okay," she said, running a gentle hand down the back of my head. "Nothing's happened, I'm just starting to space out a bit and I didn't want to fall asleep. It's been a few hours I think."

I blinked away the shred of grogginess that was left in my sleep addled brain and stretched my arms up, groaning at the delightful crackle of my spine.

"Did you dream?" She asked as she stood to pile some more wood on the big fire.

"Yes," I admitted, touching my bottom lip gingerly. I dropped my hand fast, glad she had her back turned and hadn't seen it. "Damien's with him, he's safe."

"Oh, good," Lyla let out a deep breath of relief and turned back to me. "That's really good news."

I nodded in agreement. I opened my mouth to relay what I'd learned, but I didn't know how to start. Hey, also, we're somehow super powerful witches? Marius is hundreds of years old? This demon thing could destroy the world but it's cool, the sexy Irishman will save us? The same sexy Irishman that I'm so attached to that it's scary?

"Hey, cut it out." She snapped her fingers in front of my face and I jumped. "You are entirely too far up in your own head. Come back to me."

"I should have asked him more questions." I lamented softly.

"It's okay, the main thing was finding out about Damien and getting them here," she assured me. "It'll be easier for everyone if we bombard him with questions together." Easier for us, maybe.

I kept the fire high and bright while Lyla curled up next to Archer's still naked form to get some sleep. My senses were on high alert, every little whisper of wind causing my imagination to go into overdrive.

I stared up at the crescent moon, and couldn't help but wish we'd never set foot on this mountain. But it was half hearted. I felt responsible now.

Marius had said he belonged to me. He'd once belonged to someone else, and they died protecting him from this demon. Was history repeating itself? Even though we had no idea how to use our fucking abilities, let alone do whatever ritual required to get rid of the thing.

But it wasn't gone. Had it been trapped? Hibernating? Waiting for four humans with their own hibernating magic inside?

He'd said that the magic binding us together was something he'd never seen before. Did that mean that we could somehow deal with this in a different or better way than his witches? Could we beat this demon and survive?

I sat watch over my friends, mulling over the multitude of questions in my head. When the first rays of sunlight created the horizon, I was shocked at how long I'd stayed in one spot.

My shoulders sagged with relief and I realized how afraid I'd been that we wouldn't survive the night. I crawled over to the stash of cooked meat skewers and set to warming them up over the embers of the little fire.

It wasn't long before Archer groaned and rolled towards me, rubbing his eyes.

"Morning, beautiful," he greeted me, and I couldn't help but laugh. "How come you didn't wake me?"

"You almost drowned less than a day ago," I scolded gently. "You needed the rest."

"You hear from the wizard?" He sat up and yawned, gently tucking Lyla's arm back against her as he slid away. He kissed her sleeping forehead and stood, stretching his arms above his head.

"Yes," I pursed my lips at the nickname, stifling a smile, and a wolfish grin crossed his face. His morning boner was proudly displayed at eye level and I raised an eyebrow. "Will you just go piss already?" I laughed. "Maybe get dressed?"

He gave a low bow with a flourish and marched off into the bushes.

"At least I don't have to worry about missing the toilet," he called back to me, and I rolled my eyes.

"Having a dick must be so difficult," I offered. "You face such hardship."

"Jesus, Arch, that is a fucking hard ship," a familiar voice said and my head snapped up as Damien strolled towards the fire.

I squealed something unintelligible and launched myself into his arms. He hugged me tight, kissing the top of my head.

"Miss me, kitten?" He laughed, and I punched him playfully in the stomach. Lyla, having woken up in the hubbub, threw her arms around his neck from behind, practically putting him in a choke hold.

"Dogpile!" Archer cried jovially, and Damien maneuvered us as a human shield. "Please put your cock away before hugging me," he begged, but to no avail as the naked brunette leapt forward and Lyla and I stepped away to allow him access. "Traitorous whores," Damien muttered, but he was smiling as he hugged his friend.

"We should put the fire out," Lyla snapped back into business mode, and I was confused before I caught her drift.

"Yeah, don't get super emotional while the bonfire is raging," Archer said, pushing off of Damien to collect his clothes from where they hung nearby.

Lyla started grabbing some of the cool ends of burning sticks and tossing them into the stream, and I followed suit.

"Right, I'm some kind of fire lord," the blonde rolled his eyes. "No worries guys, you know I don't get emotional. Plus Marius' been teaching me how to keep my shit under control. I don't want to burn the mountain down until we're off of it. Is that meat?" He sat down next to the cooking pit, snatching up a kebab.

I froze in my task, glancing around at the trees to see if Marius had slunk close.

"He's running the perimeter, getting our bearings," Damien told me through a mouthful of venison.

"No, he's probably just giving us time to catch up." I bit my lip. He probably didn't want to be an awkward fifth wheel during our reunion. "I doubt he'd have to get his bearings anywhere on this mountain."

"So, now that we're together again..." Archer plopped down, finally clothed, and took up his own skewer. "How are we going to kill this cloud demon thing?"

My breath caught in my throat.

"Dude, I'm a human blowtorch," Damien scoffed. "Clearly, I am the saviour."

Lyla rolled her eyes. "I'm the one that blew it away to protect you helpless damsels," she teased, tossing the last of the bonfire wood into the water.

"Which didn't kill it," Archer countered.

"Excuse me!" I stamped my foot like an insolent child, catching everyone's attention. "Are we really joking about this? Can we have real fucking talk time, please?"

Lyla took my hand firmly and led me to the boys so that we circled the little coal bed.

Damien swallowed his mouthful and motioned to me. "Catch me up, kitten."

I told him everything that I'd told Lyla, and she filled in the gaps with her own experience. Archer went over his almost drowning, and then his speculations on our situation.

Damien ate and surprisingly remained silent throughout. After, I stared at him expectantly, hoping to hear his days worth of events.

He shrugged. "All of this brings me right back to how are we going to kill this motherfucker?"

"You can't kill it." Marius stepped out from a copse of trees and I nearly jumped out of my skin. How long had he been hiding there?

"Jesus, ninja," Damien said, waving him over. "Come sit and eat like a normal person."

"I thought we established that I'm not a normal person," he replied wryly, but strode over regardless. He set his bow across his lap and lowered himself to a cross legged position between Lyla and Archer.

He avoided my gaze and I didn't know if it was on purpose or not. It didn't really matter, did it?

"You got rid of it before," Damien prompted, handing Marius a kebab.

"I wasn't involved, they did it on their own," he replied, accepting the skewer. "And even if I did know what ritual they performed — which I don't — it only suppressed the demon. And it killed them." The coals reflected in his eyes, and he didn't eat.

"What do we know about it?" Lyla asked. "Where did it come from?"

"I think it was born when I was," Marius said, voice soft.

"On purpose?" Archer sounded flabbergasted.

"No, because of natural balance." Our dark haired guide shook his head. "I was created from light. Nature in turn created something equally dark. It's the only explanation that makes sense."

"And then we woke it up when we got here?" My arms tingled with gooseflesh. "Because of some balance of power?"

"So if we leave it might go dormant again," Archer mused.

"That's why I need to get you all home," Marius replied.

"We can't just leave..." I clenched my fists and stared at him despite the fact he still wouldn't meet my gaze. "What if it doesn't work? What if we'd just be leaving you here to die, and then that thing starts taking over Europe?"

"That's most likely what would happen," Lyla agreed. "If it took a ritual to lock it up, then I doubt it would just go back to its cell."

"No, that wouldn't make sense," Archer admitted, and I glared at Marius.

"So?" I asked, in a harsher tone than I'd meant. "We've established that we're not leaving. You said that we have a stronger bond than you've ever seen, which means maybe with your help we can deal with this." I fought to keep my voice from shaking.

Brave, brave, be brave.

"If we woke it when we got here, why didn't it attack us on the first day?" Archer asked. "Unless it can only come out at night. But that night, then? Was it deterred by the storm?"

"It wasn't you getting here that did it," Marius said quietly, and finally raised his eyes to mine. My heart skipped a beat at the desolation I saw there, and when I started to realize what he was insinuating, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

"What?" Damien shook his head. "I thought-"

"I thought so too, but the more I thought about last night..." he trailed off, swallowing hard.

"Did you know that could happen?" My voice was shrill. "Did you exploit our fucking connection knowing I couldn't resist you, running the risk of releasing a fucking demon in the process?"

The tension was palpable, and I could feel the anger rolling off of my friends in waves.

"No," Marius said, voice irritatingly calm. "I didn't exploit you, and I didn't know it would result in this."

"How would fucking one of us make a difference?" Damien snapped.

"We didn't fuck," I muttered under my breath, and nobody seemed to hear me.

"Ancient witches used rituals involving intercourse to bring new witches into their coven," Marius explained, not sounding put out at all. How was he so chill at a time like this? "You may not have known it, but you are a coven, and when Sapphire and I..."

And there it was. The second my name passed through his lips like a prayer, a shiver danced up my spine.

I tried so hard in that moment to hate him, to be angry, but my entire being wanted to just hold him. I wanted to lay his head in my lap and run my fingers through his hair and tell him it was going to be okay and-

Marius cleared his throat. "When our essences bonded, it tipped the balance and gave the demon enough power to break free. I felt it as soon as it happened, but with all of the excitement I didn't see it for what it was."

Silence.

"So what now?" Lyla let out a huge breath of air, seeming to relax. "We can't undo what was done. So we have to take care of it. Does this give us an advantage, you being in our... coven?" She seemed to chew over the word.

It fit, though, it fit so well. Our closeness, how we'd always been drawn to each other, only each other. That drug fueled night we'd sealed our relationship and it felt like magic. Maybe it had been.

"It seems to have unlocked your abilities which until now, have been latent," Marius nodded. "At least Damien says he's never had any experiences with it before."

"Us neither," Archer supplied, and leaned back on his hands. "So you going to teach us how to use them, sensei?"