Graydon raised his voice, and injected a note of scorn. “Coward. Don’t you even want to hear the terms of the wager I want to propose?”

Malphas paused, just as Graydon had felt sure he would. Pouring back, the Djinn said, “You want to propose a wager to me? You surprise me, gryphon. You’re not a gambling man.”

He snapped, “I am when I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

Again, truth. He would gamble everything to get a chance at another moment with Bel.

The frigid air around him boiled as Malphas snapped back, like a shark gnashing invisible teeth. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Because believe me, sentinel, you have got a great deal you could lose. Friends. Coworkers. Even a fledgling dragon.”

He did not just go there. Renewed rage set Graydon’s body on fire.

Come on, you bastard. Materialize.

“If you don’t want to hear my wager, fine,” he whispered. “Fuck off. I’ll find some other way to be rid of you.”

“And risk the so lovely Beluviel, and her son?” Contemptuous shining eyes appeared in front of Graydon. “You won’t get rid of me unless I say you can.”

“A wager,” said Graydon. His talons had emerged, and he could feel that his teeth had lengthened. He hid his fists underneath his crossed arms. “All or nothing. Or maybe you don’t have the balls.” He barked out an angry laugh. “Listen to me, what am I saying? Of course you don’t have the balls. Not really.”

Malphas slammed into his physical form in front of Graydon, wearing, as he always did, the same golden hair and angelically handsome face.

And as he faced Graydon, he set his back to the ocean.

The Djinn told him, “You don’t have the damned guts for an all-or-nothing wager.”

Julian, Graydon said. Aloud, he spat, “Try me. I’m sick to death of this arbitrary barrier you shoved between me and Beluviel. Do you hear me – I am fucking done.”

“You don’t get to say when you’re done,” Malphas enunciated, stabbing at the air with one finger. “I own you.”

Behind the furious Djinn, a dark, powerful figure rose out of the water and slipped over the edge of the ice. It crawled toward them, its helmeted head featureless in the moonlight, at once silent and so predatory that, even though he knew it was really a friend, Graydon’s hackles rose.

He growled, “You’ll never own me, Djinn.”

“I own the piece of you that you want the most,” Malphas sneered. “The chance to be with Beluviel again. How have the last two hundred years been for you – watching her at public functions, talking to her, never being able to copulate again without killing the one person she loves the most?”

“You are the most vindictive asshole I have ever met,” Graydon told him. “And I’m done arguing with you. Do you want to gamble for a bigger piece of me or not?”

“Oh, I will love putting a bigger noose around your thug neck.” Malphas gestured angrily.

Crouched on the ground behind his knees, Julian snaked both bare hands around one of the Djinn’s ankles and said, Got him.

Astonishment bolted across Malphas’s face. The Djinn’s Power rippled, but his physical form didn’t dissipate. He tugged at his leg, but he couldn’t dislodge the shackle on his ankle.

Son of a bitch. Part of Graydon had been too skeptical to believe it could happen, but the Vampyre had done it. He had really trapped Malphas.

Everything exploded.

As Malphas whirled to kick at Julian, Graydon leaped on the Djinn, fangs and talons out. While he tore at the Djinn’s physical form, he used his Power like a battering ram, bludgeoning Malphas with raw brute force.

It was an inelegant attack, but it was all Graydon had to use against him.

As fast as he tore wounds into Malphas, they closed again. Abandoning his kick, Malphas rounded on him with an inhuman snarl and bludgeoned him back, with a roundhouse punch fueled and magnified by his own Power.

If the blow had connected, it would have crushed Graydon’s face. At the last moment, he jerked to one side, and the blow caught him along the side of his head.

Pain exploded in his skull, and his ear rang. Savagely, he sank his teeth into the side of the Djinn’s neck and tore away a chunk of flesh. It melted to nothing as he spat it out, the gaping wound at Malphas’s neck healing over.

Vaguely, he was aware of Malphas kicking at the dark, armored figure at his feet.

Then Constantine fell on them from the sky, the weight of his body slamming them both to the ground. With a harsh eagle’s cry, Rune joined them, driving his lethal gryphon’s beak into the Djinn’s body. Constantine shouted something, but Graydon couldn’t make out what. The ringing in his ear was too loud.

Power gathered nearby, a great deal of it. Carling crouched a few yards away, hands up as she whispered an incantation. Graydon caught a glimpse of her face. She looked tense and afraid.

He had just enough time to think, well, shit. This is going to get a whole lot worse.

Malphas howled in rage. The Djinn’s body heaved, and erupted.

Julian might have him trapped and embodied, but he never had been human. Like the illusion that it was, his human form melted. His body grew larger, and tentacles with spikes exploded from his center.

Many tentacles, with needle-sharp spikes. Julian flung his legs around one tentacle, keeping a death grip on it. He was a big, heavy man, and he carried an extra forty to fifty pounds in armor, but despite his weight, the tentacle lifted him into the air and slammed him into the rocky ground with a crash that Graydon felt at the back of his teeth.

Rune shouted, “Watch out!”

Constantine curled and twisted at the same time, narrowly escaping the tentacle that drove toward him. He slammed his booted foot repeatedly at the tentacle, until it appeared to snap.