“It’s not working!” Annabelle yelled out, and now there was fear in her voice.

   I closed my eyes, made myself think through the steps. Padgett was still here—why? Because he wanted to be?

   I opened my eyes, looked over at the pillar candle and the ring of salt around it, still intact despite the fighting. Salt rings were meant to contain things; it stood to reason that breaking the barrier would also break the containment.

   Like a girl preparing to run into a game of double Dutch, I watched him move, timed my shot, and I darted forward, running beneath Padgett’s open arms, and swiped a foot across the salt, putting a gap in the ring.

   Magic burst across the room. Bolts of blue power, bright and sharp as lightning, struck upward toward the ceiling.

   “No!” Padgett screamed, and his image wavered.

   “Return to your plane!” Annabelle yelled.

   This time, there was no explosion. There was only, like the first night I’d seen a ghost, the diminishing of magic, of energy, of Padgett’s ghostly image.

   “. . . god!” he screamed even as his image faded.

   And then there was nothing but darkness. After a moment, the cicadas began to sing again outside.

   “Not with a bang,” I quietly recited, “but a whimper.”

   Ethan stepped beside me. “He’s gone?” he asked Annabelle.

   She nodded. “As gone as any of us will be. Well,” she added with a smirk, “those of us who aren’t immortal.”

   “We all come to an end,” Ethan said. “Let’s just hope that we come to better ends than this.”

Epilogue

We came bearing ice cream . . . and a gift.

   Luc held up a hand when we walked into his room, wagged a finger from his spot in bed. “No more ice cream. I can’t take anymore.” He patted his flat abdomen. “I can feel it destroying muscle.”

   “I don’t believe the biology quite works that way,” Ethan said. “But just in case, we found something else for you.”

   “For me?” Luc’s face brightened when Ethan handed him the gift. “What is it?”

   “A get-well present.”

   Luc ripped off the paper, stared down at the box he’d unwrapped. “You got me an EMF unit?”

   “It’s just a starter unit,” Ethan said with a smile. “But since it appears the possibility of ghosts in Cadogan House is quite real, it would pay to have an expert on staff.”

   Luc looked as happy as a kid with a new bike on Christmas morning.

   “Consider it an incentive to heal faster,” Ethan said. “We need you back in the Ops Room.”

   “Kelley’s talking about embroidered polo shirts,” I said. As I’d hoped, that put a little fire in his eyes.

   “I’ll be down in an hour,” he said, and we left him to get dressed.

   “Do you think he’s really ready for battle?” I asked Ethan as we walked down the hallway.

   “I don’t know,” Ethan said. “But I suspect he needs the job as much as we need him.” He whipped an arm around me, kissed me hard. “Which isn’t nearly as much as I need you.”

   I gave him a wink. “Good. I like you a little needy.”

   “That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” Ethan called out as I continued down the hallway in front of him.

   “I know,” I said, grinning back at him. “What are you going to do about it?”

   This time, the fire was in Ethan’s eyes.

   And I was good with that, too.

The thrilling final installment of Chloe Neill’s New York Times bestselling urban fantasy series sees sinister sorcery advancing across Chicago, and it might usher in the fall of Cadogan House . . . keep reading for a preview of

   BLADE BOUND

   Available April 2017

Five by Five

Late August Chicago, Illinois

It was midnight in Chicago, and all was well.

   I stood in front of Cadogan House, a stately and luxurious three-story stone house on a rolling bit of lawn in Chicago’s Hyde Park. It was surrounded by an imposing fence meant to keep our enemies at bay, guarded by men and women who risked their lives to keep the House safe from attack.

   Tonight, as summer gave way to fall and a cool breeze spilled across the quiet dark, there was peace.

   Katana at my side, and having finished my patrol of the expansive grounds, I nodded at the guard at the gate and jogged up the stairs to the glowing portico. One final look, one last glance, to ensure quiet in the realm, and then I opened the door . . . and walked back into chaos.

   Cadogan House’s pretty foyer—hardwood floors, pedestal table bearing richly scented flowers, gleaming chandelier—was crowded with people and noise. A vampire manned the front desk, and three others—supplicants seeking time with Ethan Sullivan, Master of the House—waited on a bench along one side. Vampires carried boxes toward the basement stairs for the waiting truck, watched with an eagle eye by Helen, the House’s den mother.

   There was a flurry of movement and activity because the Master of Cadogan House was getting married tomorrow.

   To me.

   A vampire with dark skin and a shaved head rounded the corner into the foyer. This was Malik, Ethan’s second-in-command. He wore a slim-cut dark suit—the official Cadogan House uniform—his skin contrasting vividly with the crisp white shirt and pale green of his eyes. He tracked the room, found me, and walked my way.

   “Busy night,” he said.

   “It is.”

   “Is there a crowd outside the House?”

   I shook my head. “No, but Luc said they’re already filling the sidewalks outside the library. The CPD had to pull in extra staff to monitor.”