"He said they're dead, and you should move on."

Fingering the kitchen blinds, she glared over her shoulder. "Shut up."

A look of genuine hurt crossed Sterling's face.

He was probably chilly in his black T-shirt and grey joggers. When he'd worn a short sleeve for the first time months ago, she'd been shocked that he was noticeably muscular. Not like Lucas and Kane, but his physique was defined, perhaps, in Kiernan's league.

"I meant for him to shut up," Hannah said gently. "Not you."

Sterling nodded conspiratorially, as if they were sharing a secret. She might not be able to see him because the necklace was around Sterling's neck at the moment, sapping his magic, but the jerk could hear her fine.

"Hm?" Sterling said to the empty chair across the kitchen table. He laughed a little, leaning forward and smiling widely. "What does that mean? I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't have any magic."

He might still have his hands cuffed behind his chair, but she'd begun to do more than tolerate Sterling these past few months. She actually liked him quite a bit. When he wasn't trying to maim someone, that was.

The rare times he seemed to awaken from whatever dream he was living that made him laugh and smile at the worst times, he'd helped her with researching and taught her about magic. But he often made no sense, shifting emotions hard to keep up with.

Having him take over watching Valrus was a no-brainer. It gave Sterling someone to torment. He'd quickly learned that he could force Valrus out of the necklace at his whim.

She was certain Valrus had been trying to manipulate Sterling again, but he got nowhere because Sterling just laughed.

Sterling was inexorable.

Smiling a little, Hannah turned her focus back to the window. The grass that had once been a healthy green was a dismal brown. At the edge of the property, the dense trees were stunning shades of red and orange.

She saw no movement in the yard, and her heart ached. It was difficult to get a trustworthy phone signal, and right now, held in her hand, hers was showing no bars.

"He's threatening to kill me in my sleep," Sterling told her suddenly, and when she turned to look, he was frowning at her. "I don't want to wear this anymore."

Didn't he keep claiming he wanted to die?

Sighing heavily, Hannah glared at the empty chair. "Valrus, be nice, or you'll go in the box." She smiled at Sterling. "If you wear it, I'll make you whatever you want for dinner tonight."

Pretending to contemplate this, Sterling hummed. They both knew he would accept when food was involved. "I've become quite the whore for food. I'll end up so fat I can't escape." He hmphed. "I wonder what my mother would say?"

"Did you know her?" Hannah asked. She remembered Lucas had claimed the Bureau raised Sterling in one of its facilities. Knowing that the Bureau had taken Sterling from his mother made her sick to her stomach.

"No," Sterling replied cheerfully and left it at that. He grinned at her. "Lucas isn't dead, you know. A few werewolves won't give him any fight." He chuckled. "Don't worry."

She was worrying. The fact Sterling noticed meant she was doing a lousy job of hiding it. "I know," she replied, "but it's not a few. It's an entire pack of werewolves."

"He'll probably rip their heads off."

"Okay...."

"Their fluffy ears and tails, too." Sterling frowned, disturbed. "I wonder what he'll do with them afterward?"

There was a scoff in the kitchen doorway.

Presley walked past Sterling. "Can you not talk about that stuff?" He made his way to the counter, giving Sterling's grin a wide berth.

Glancing at Hannah, Presley motioned to the percolator on the stove, and when she nodded, he began taking cups from the cupboard.

Hannah counted four mugs. "Can you have caffeine while pregnant?"

"Me?" Presley asked, picking up the percolator and carefully pouring coffee into the mugs. He smiled. "I'm not pregnant. I hope not, anyway. That would make this whole held-up-in-this-house situation really weird."

Sterling laughed.

"Very funny," Hannah replied, rolling her eyes.

Presley gave her a wary look. "Are you going to tell them they can't have coffee?" He glanced over his shoulder, peering through the pass-through that offered a glimpse of the living room.

The television was on low, and a card game was happening on the coffee table. Everyone was trying to keep their minds occupied.

She should be out there, doing something other than worrying. But instead, she was here, with a gun holstered to her side and the burden of supervising the Bureau agent they'd kidnapped, keeping the most powerful seer in the world safe, and protecting a woman who was carrying a full-term baby and another who was just beginning to show.

Hannah winced. "Not unless I want to die." She smiled tiredly. "Cream and sugar, please."

Presley nodded, leaving the steaming mugs on the counter and crossing the kitchen to open the refrigerator.

"Do you want a coffee?" Hannah asked Sterling.

Sterling shook his head. He stared at her, hazel-green eyes locked on her face, as if she had some secret he would uncover by making her wholly uncomfortable. He did this sometimes, and it was always intense. Lucas usually threatened the agent back to reality, but Lucas wasn't here.

He was at a meeting with the werewolves. Kane, Dad, and Reid had accompanied him. Gianna, Wyatt, Anna, and Uriah had driven into the city in the wee hours of this morning. They were kidnapping some vampire guy's son. Kiernan and Axel were meeting with another coven of vampires, trying to garner their aid in the upcoming battle.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket, they said. Well, what about all the people you care about walking into a potential ambush? She hadn't been able to sit down since they left.

So many things could go wrong.

"What are you thinking about?" Sterling whispered.

"Nothing."

The glare she received in response made her wince. Sterling obviously wanted more. She assumed reading minds and then, not being able to, was bothering him a lot more than he let on. Sometimes, he would ask people what they were thinking about and was creepily earnest in receiving a truthful answer. But there was no way she was giving him a rundown of her inner thoughts. They were hers. And they were full of intense worry right now.

However, it felt as if Sterling could already read her mind. Even though the wards were dampening their magic, the way he was staring at her reminded her of Lucas's warning before he left. He'd told her not to get near Sterling in a fight; close quarters were where he shined.

So, if Sterling got free, she was supposed to shoot him without hesitation.

Her hand moved to the holster at her side.

Sterling caught the movement and scowled. "Are you going to shoot me?"

"Not unless you give me a reason," Hannah replied coldly.

Her fingers clutched the leather grip of the pistol. She hadn't practiced shooting in a long time, but the kitchen was small enough that aiming precisely wouldn't be an issue. She really didn't want to kill Sterling, but she would if it came down to him or her.

Suddenly, a pencil flew through the air.

It hit Sterling's cheek.

Sterling made a noise of shock and then erupted into laughter. It was shocking, not because the pencil came from seemingly nowhere, but because Valrus must have noticed her unease.

The demon had his moments when he wasn't a complete asshole.

Baring his teeth at the seemingly empty chair across the table, Sterling yanked at his cuffs. He gave up his struggle; the metal chafing his wrists raw. "I've really lost my touch, huh? I used to be able to catch knives." He groaned, his expression falling, and let his head hit the back of the chair with a soft thud. "I'm domesticated!"

"That was so creepy," Presley murmured, pouring the creamer. "I knocked into Ghost Guy last night. Felt...weird." He noticed Hannah's gaze flickering to the window and cleared his throat. "Want to, um, play some cards?"

"Sure... I'll play."

It was that or wait with her heart in her throat for hours.

Near her ear was a soft murmur, "They have nothing."

"That's cheating," Presley snapped, glaring from where he sat on the floor, elbows resting on the low coffee table. "He can't whisper in your ear!"

To Presley's left, Rowan had her head on the werewolf's shoulder. On the couch with her legs drawn up, Asha stared at her cards intensely. She kept messing up the rules even after having them explained three times. Crystal was on the floor with her back to the low-volume television and had given up playing seriously, eating the candy that was meant to be used as game chips.

"You don't even know what he said," Hannah defended.

"I told her she's a bitch," Sterling said casually. Somehow, even with his wrists cuffed behind his back, he made lounging on the sectional beside her effortlessly lazy. His hands must be numb. She felt bad, but not enough to free him. She wasn't stupid.

All eyes turned to her, waiting for her reply.

"Yeah," Hannah lied. She had a full house. If Sterling were wrong, she could lose it all, but somehow, he had been correct every time he had given her advice thus far. She should take him to the casino. They could win thousands.

Rowan frowned. "That's mean."

Sterling chuckled.

"Liars," Presley hissed, brown eyes luminous with wild anger. He was competitive, but so was she, dangerously so. They were going to bring out Monopoly next, but she was rethinking it. It might end in a brawl, or at least a war of tiny plastic pieces being thrown at each other at high speed.

Clearing her throat, Hannah said, "I'm going all in." She pushed her candy pile into the middle and grinned when Rowan dropped her cards.

Asha followed.

Then, when it came to her turn, Crystal did as well.

"See!" Presley tossed his cards in a fit of frustration. He'd lost every game. "This is worse than playing with Kiernan! That's it..." He began pulling all the cards on the coffee table toward himself with his arms. "I'm going to torch all the cards in this house."

Then he froze.

From the kitchen, there was a hissing noise. It reminded her of a bug's wings beating. She responded slowly, unsure of what was happening.

Maybe it was an alarm that Gianna had left?

The way Sterling sat forward, expression shadowed, made it clear that wasn't the case.

"What is that?" Rowan asked, sitting straighter.

"Uncuff me," Sterling whispered to Hannah harshly. "Now."

"No," Hannah snapped.

She flinched away from Sterling's sudden pounce, grabbing a couch pillow and lifting it as a barrier. It hit his chest, and she made a noise of shock when he tried to bite her fingers.

The only reason he didn't maim her was because she thrust the pillow against his face as if he were a dog snapping its jaws at her.

"That is not going to convince me to let you go," Hannah shrieked.

Presley ripped Sterling off her. He pinned the agent to the couch with a fistful of his shirt. But before Presley could say what his lips were parting for, the hissing sound rose so loud that they all had to cover their ears or risk deafness.

Asha held her head in her hands. She was murmuring something. Hannah thought she caught, 'the baby,' but she couldn't be sure with so much happening around them.

"No," Crystal gasped. She clutched her swollen stomach and hunched over, groaning. "Not now..."

Dread fell on Hannah and, with it, a wave of nausea.

"No, no, no," Sterling growled while struggling to sit awkwardly without the use of his hands and Presley trying to hold him down. Sterling blew the curls that had fallen across his forehead away angrily. "A baby is not being born right now!"

Crystal shouted, "Tell him that!" She accepted Rowan's hand and clutched Rowan's fingers tightly, obviously trying to keep her breathing calm, but it was quickening with panic.

Rubbing Crystal's back soothingly, Rowan told her to breathe.

Hannah rose from the couch—then froze.

She had no idea what to do.

The hissing was cutting through the air so loudly that thoughts were difficult to keep straight.

Hannah glanced around wildly, searching for answers, and found Sterling glaring at her from the couch, tolerating Presley holding him down.

"That's the wards," Sterling told her. "Someone has breached them. A few, if the sound is any indication."

Her stomach sank.