Ash pulls into the alley almost directly next to the building I will no longer be calling home, parking his oversized truck in a slightly hidden spot. The sun will be coming up in a few more hours and the house will be too busy for me to leave at that point. As much as I would like to wait for Demi to get back before I leave I know by then it will be too late.

The ride back into the city was a quiet one and, if he noticed the power shift between us, he has not felt to need anything yet. I felt it the whole ride here. I felt everything. The full intensity of his strength humming under the surface of his skin. The feel of the blood thirsty demons roaming the streets near us. I could feel it all.

I don't know what is more frightening at the moment, the fact that I am about to leave the place I've called my home for years, the fact that I can feel myself growing stronger by the minute or the fact that it the sudden change in me has something to do with what happened by the water between Ash and I.

"You have until noon to either call me or be at my place," he says pressing a phone into the palm of my hand. "My number is in there. My address is programmed into the GPS as well. There is a second number in there. Do not call it unless it is an absolute emergency."

"Whose the other number belon-"

"Don't call it unless you have to," he cuts me off. "I am serious Makenna. If you take even a minute longer to contact me I will come in after you. Noon, okay?"

"Noon," I confirm. I open the door and begin to slide out of my seat when he stops me, grabbing my hand. Ash pulls me back into the car and damn near onto this lap. He cups my face in his hands and I feel his finger brush across my cheek.

"Don't do anything stupid." He kisses me gently.

As tempting as it is to just stay in that car and get lost in everything that is the way Ash is looking at me, I only have a few hours to get everything done. I close the door behind me, catching a glimpse of the worried look on his face before he drives off.

The front door isn't even fully closed behind me before I feel the cold metal barrel of a gun pressed against the back of my head. I slowly raise my arms up, letting the unseen person at the other end of that gun know there is nothing in my hands.

A hand slips into the pocket of my jacket and I feel the weight of the knife fade as it is removed. A second later the gun is pulled from my boot, leaving me now completely unarmed.

"There was always something off about you." The sound of his voice sends ice water rushing through my veins. "I told Kristoff not to trust you and, after all these years, it seems I was correct."

"Aryn."

"Turn around," he orders. "Turn around. Make any sudden movements or even look like you are going to try something and I will drop you so fast you don't even have time to blink."

I obey, turning slowly with my arms still raised at my sides. Aryn keeps the gun focused on my head, its barrel now only inches from the center of my skull. His eyes shift between the door and me.

"Where is it?" he demands.

"Where is what?"

"Don't play dumb!" he yells. He moves fast, slamming butt of the gun into the side of my face. "Where is the demon? My scouts spotted you two together this morning. They came across him in California and tracked him all the way here. I was hoping his arrival and the increase in activity was just a fluke. That it had nothing to do with you but it looks like I was wrong. Now, where is he?"

It takes me a minute to realize he is talking about Ash.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I lie. My cheek grows warm and I feel the blood begin to run down it. Damn that man has an arm on him. Split my cheek wide open.

"Do not lie to me girl," he growls. "I am not as easily fooled as my soon. You cannot distract me with your beauty and coercive ways."

I feel my stomach drop. No, scratch that. I feel my stomach completely fall out of my body and run the fuck away from what has turned into a terrible terrible situation. Apparently Ash hasn't been the only one watching me.

"You didn't think I knew?" Aryn lets out a laugh. "You think I would leave my children here with something like you and not keep an eye on them? I know all about you and my son. About the sickening relationship going on between the two of you. Makes me sick. Don't give me that sad doe eyed look. You don't think I know what you are? Who you father is? What your mother was?"

"My mother-"

"Dad?" Marcus questions groggily, rubbing at his eyes as he makes his way down the hall towards us. "What the hell is going on in here?"

He pales as the scene unravels before him. His father, gun still pointed at my head. My face split open and bleeding.

"I told you to stay way from her," Aryn says sternly to Marcus. "I told you when you first got here to stay away from her. That she was not to be trusted. You turn your back for one minute and she is out the door and in the arms of a higher level demon."

Marcus looks around his father, hurt eyes locking on to mine. I shake my head and desperately try to find the words to explain to him exactly what is going on.

"Makenna?" he asks. I hear the betrayal thick in his voice.

"Marcus it isn't what you think," I begin as I step towards him.

This is where I go wrong. The gun goes off quickly and pain tears through my thigh. He shot me. Aryn just shot me. I yell loudly as my leg gives out, crumpling to the ground.

"Don't you dare go to her," Aryn warns as he retrains the gun at my head. I press my hand over the bullet wound in a sad attempt to try and stop the bleeding.

"The hell is going on in here?!" Kristoff yells. He storms into the room, stopping short as he reaches Aryn and I. "I demand to know what is going on in right now!"

"Everything I warned you would happen," Aryn replies. "I told you not to let this thing into your house. Not after her mother-"

He never has time to finish his sentence. One minute he is talking and, the next, all the windows in the house are being blown out. Glass flies around us and all three men hit the ground.

I never felt them coming. I was so busy trying to stop myself from bleeding out that I wasn't paying attention to the sinking feeling making its way into my gut. To the thick, heavy feeling that had begun to spread across my skin.

The door to the house flies open and three demons step through. Their power slams into me and it feels similar to having a weight placed on your chest. I've felt it before, when I fulled from Ash. These are not lower level demons. Not even close. I can feel the small horde of lower levels trailing behind them but these guys, the ones leading the charge, are certainly higher leveled. If not the highest level.

Their power hums around me and it is almost overwhelming. It is so familiar. Kind of the way Ash felt to me this morning before I got out of the car.

The three of them stop only a few inches inside the house. Their fire red eyes scan across the mass of people now occupying the small hallway, all stopping once they spot me. A wicked smile spreads across the tallest one's face.

"Filia principis," he snarls at me. "We have been searching for you."

(^a little Marcus, Makenna and Aryn action for ya^)

A/N: thanks for reading! don't forget to comment, follow, vote and show this chapter some love!!