Drake POV
My demons crawled back into me like they'd never left — not with a polite knock, not with a whisper, but like a slammed prison door finding its lock again. One moment I was a husk, the kind of hollowed-out nothing that screams at the stars and gets no answer; the next, power slammed through my ribs and the world sharpened. Pain folded into place and then changed shape into purpose.
They'd done what they had to do. I don't know the bargaining, the blood-money, the screams they had eaten in some hell I couldn't imagine. I only know the result: the portal had been held open long enough for Eve's soul to be yanked back by my demons and slammed safely behind the door. They'd held on while teeth and darkness reached for her. They'd fought the thing off. I could feel them still, ragged and raw and globes of old fury wrapped around me like a second heartbeat.
She was alive. For now.
