The ride back to the city was nowhere near as pleasurable as the other times we had gone back.

They weren’t ignoring me; Kai had his hand on my thigh, his fingers tracing the inside of it, and Derik was opposite me, his feet stretched out, brushing mine as Brax had his shadows stroking mine in that weird, intensely intimate way.

But it was so quiet.

“So, what now?” I asked, trying to break the silence.

“We have to meet with the council at the Summit and warn them of the sacrifices.

We don’t know many rituals that require humans as sacrifices, but they might know something that could help.”...