Sam is asleep on my chest before I find a way to tell her that this is a very bad idea. It's my own sluggishness. And shock that this could actually happen to me, of all creatures.

For five minutes or so, I don't move at all. It's hard to even think. My brain is darting everywhere, from the bedroom to the grave, and then it starts shutting down. I can squeeze out only three options:

A - Pick her up. Take her to her own bed.

B - Get up carefully. Tuck her in. Leave her on the couch.

Or C, Stay and rest. Live the dream, suffer the consequences.

Being the sucker that I am, I lean toward the arm of the couch, shifting Sam with me, subtly enough not to startle her or snap her out of whatever "cabin in the woods" spell she's under.

Funny. I thought I smelled like death, like an actual decaying body in a hot, airtight space. A scent that had been confirmed, mocked, and shunned by two other wolves, and I consider them my friends. I wasn't aware that the mystery potion "did" anything but make me suffer. And make others suffer around me. The smelly and alone potion.

Sorry Rosemary, even in the underworld, I don't think there's a market for that...

After a beat or two, I lift my dangling legs, sneak them beneath Sam's blanket. She adjusts herself accordingly, right into me, around me, without really waking up.

The scent of her hair is the only reason I don't mind breathing right now. Even after a shower, I feel like that glop is still oozing out of my pores.

Why am I putting Sam through this? Why am I letting her get under my skin? She does it so effortlessly, like I have no skin.

Why? Why? Why?

Because I'm a shitty, wannabe alpha male with no backbone. I have too much of a conscience, or not enough of one. And I'm a glutton for punishment. I can't scrape together the will or desire to disturb her or deny myself this one treat.

All right. Fair enough. I get thrown a bone every now and again and shouldn't complain. Still, I'm hungry. I'm never really sated. What I have is not fulfilling or healthy in the long run. I know that. I've always known that. I've stomached the scraps out of a fear of starving. I've been in that position too and won't survive it again.

I'm not talking about food or sex. It's about satisfaction. Inner calm. Personal fulfillment crap. Like I even know what that is!

But with Sam...

I still have no idea, but she has, at the very least, kindled the curiosity...

***

I'm whisked from a hazy half-sleep by a sharp, sudden sense of doom.

At my jolt, Sam shifts beneath the blanket. Her leg sweeps up mine. Her arm drifts downward. She's about to close in on something she really shouldn't, not right now, not unless...

On the coffee table, her phone lights up and catches my eye. She has quite the pile of messages. It's normal for me, but I doubt the people in her life expect her to be sleeping at one in the afternoon.

It's a gloomy, rainy day. The shades are closed, and the room is dim and gray. I'm not surprised Sam and I slept for six straight hours, entwined in each other, keeping each other warm and secure.

I'm about to close my eyes again, but, somewhere amid the lingering death stench and the light but addicting smell of Sam's hair, body, pheromones . . . an ashy, herbal, sulfuric smell wafts by. Then it hits me. Why I'm awake. Where that sense of doom came from...

I scan every corner and shadow, past every possible obstruction.

"Looking for something?" Ivy says to me, loud enough to rouse Sam as well.

I have to lift my chest to see her.

Ivy's leaning against the wall a couple of feet behind the arm of the couch. It's the exact spot where she'd be able to hear every breath, see every sensual shift toward a closeness that she and I could never achieve. And I wouldn't be able to see her unless I disrupted the "peace."

With little subtlety or grace, I scoot out from beneath Sam's embrace. Ivy struts out of the room, past Sam's room, past my room, and out the back door. She leaves it open for me. It's not a favor. It's a silent command to follow her.

After muttering an inane apology to Sam, I traipse after Ivy with my figurative tail between my legs.

When I get to the empty flat downstairs, I realize why the old "brimstone" smell is clinging to her clothing. Flasks are broken, cabinet doors are dangling from their mangled hinges, and there's this orange sludge caked to the stove, spattered across the wall, sticking to my bare feet. And man, does it burn.

While passing by her in the kitchen, to get a better look at the scorch marks on the floor in the next room, she's obviously not enamored either. "You smell like the sewer," she informs me, her arms crossed, her nose and eyes flaring. "What were you doing all morning? Bathing in each other's bodily fluids?"

I turn back, and what the actual fuck? It's her accusation. And the fact that she has the nerve to make it when she probably caused thirty thousand dollars-worth of damage to her parents' property that I'll no doubt get charged for. And who the hell knows what she unleashed with all that power?

It's no wonder Sam couldn't sleep! And wasn't this mess the first domino in one thing leads to another...?

I don't offer up any excuses, and that's because my own anger snags on Ivy's description. Sewage and corpses, although both disgusting, have a distinct odor that wouldn't be confused by someone who's familiar with every herb, spice, flower. Every nectar, elixir, solid, gas, liquid...

"Bodily fluids, you say?" When I consider the three odors I've been assigned, it all clicks together, or it almost does. "What exactly has Rosemary been concocting lately?"

"Oh, so you were the test subject?"

"Test subject for what?" I demand.

"I don't know why this is important after what you did, but for your info," she spits out. "It's called Impression."

"What I did? Because of whatever you were doing last night, you pushed Sam right into my arms!"

"You didn't have to open them!"

It's so obvious now. Impression. I should have been able to piece it together sooner. According to my own senses and that of my coworkers, who know what I endure, because they suffer through it too, I smell like dead meat. To my supposed girlfriend, I'm emitting the stench of excrement and various secretions. And to Sam...

It dawns on me like a bright summer sun when the weather forecast says blizzard. Is she actually into me?

If only she knew how evil I am by association and compliance therewith.

Then, it's like Ivy can read my mind. Or maybe she watched the hope spike and then crash. I did nothing to hide my expression, and it was foolish not to try. "And what did Sam say you smell like?"

"Nothing!" I cry out like she punched me in the stomach, and the lie was my grunt of pain. "She didn't . . . it never came up."

Ivy peaks that high eyebrow of hers. "Good thing it wasn't a truth serum."

"Good thing!" I snap back. "Because I'd tell you that you're the cheater and instigator. What was Rollin doing here last night?"

I get along with the wolves I work with, except for Rollin. Ivy knows this, and even though I know she has no interest in him in that way—allegedly—I still don't appreciate him in my space or anywhere near Sam. Yes, he's that cocky and that stupid, and that driven to spread his odiousness everywhere he can.

Ivy laughs and looks away, like I'm way off target. "Sam told you," she pivots, finding an avenue where I'm wrong no matter what I say or do. She's good at that. "Of course she told you," she then seethes.

"Don't blame this on her."

Her tongue clucks. "Don't blame everything on Rollin, either. You were working at the manor. I asked him to help me out. He's out there, you know. As a backup. To keep an eye on things while..."

"While you summoned a demon, am I right?"

Her cold, blank stare is answer enough.

"And where is it now?" I inquire.

In Sam's room somewhere, tormenting her, until she can't take it anymore? I can't see how this is at all conducive to her "plan."

"It's just a fiendling," Ivy notes, like it's no big deal. "It can't be far."

I wish I was wrong about these things sometimes. And, when I expect the worst, I don't just get it. I'm not even imaginative enough to anticipate how low things can actually plummet.

I head for the door leading upstairs. "We're done here."

A wind swirls. I'm knocked to my back like I'm tethered to a leash, and she has the strength of five men. "We're done when I say I'm done." She straddles my prone body. When I try to move, she presses more magic against me.

Broken glass is digging into my back, tearing my shirt, breaking into my skin.

She bends over. Her face is looming over my exposed eyeballs. Even my eyelids are stuck. "Is she a virgin? With that cute little body of hers all over you, I figure you would have gleaned that by now."

She releases some of her hold on me, just so I can speak. "I. Don't. Know," I grind out.

My guess is no. Sam's just too comfortable with me. It must be from "experience." My hope is no. It would free her from this hellhole I've sucked her into.

I don't want her involved. I don't want any part of this anymore.

Too bad I'm eye-socket deep in sludge and filth and decay.

There's only one way to go and that's down.

No one could haul me out at this point. There's nothing strong or decent enough out there, anywhere. I'm too far gone...

Ivy's power surges. The pressure on my body mounts. I'd scream . . . if I could. If I was able.

Her face contorts into something so ugly. It ripples with such hatred and frustration. Makes me wonder what this is really about. It certainly isn't me...

Then, rather abruptly, she releases me and walks out. Not for good. I'm not that lucky.

But for now, she's out of the picture. Knowing her, she won't come back anytime soon, not unless she "needs" something. And what I occasionally "provide," she can certainly find elsewhere.

It's the old blessing and curse. The relative freedom will come at a cost.

I'll be alone with Sam and have most of the week "off" to make the most of it. But her door is closed when I slink back upstairs. And through it I can hear her cry. I don't know how to smooth things over, or even if I should. Oh yeah, and there's a fiendling on the loose, who won't make my job any easier. And Ivy doesn't have a good "Impression" of me, right now or in general, and she won't do much to help me if shit goes any further south.

Perhaps she is the south I fear...