“Go.”

Kera charged toward the mansion. Mara ripped at her, suddenly appearing in front of her or beside her, trying to grab her or knock her off her feet. But Kera kept running. Even when their talons struck out and cut across her arms and legs, her face and chest, Kera ran.

“Light it!” the head Mara yelled out. “Light the bitch!”

One of the Mara raised her hand, circled it once, and pointed at the ground. Kera slammed into that Mara from behind but the flames had already erupted.

The Mara vanished beneath Kera and she briefly landed in flame before she rolled out of it and three Mara attacked her at once, dragging her to the ground and giving her nightmares to last a lifetime.

Tessa had taken down two of the Mara and was dealing with a third when she saw another Elder grab Chloe and take her to the ground. The creature placed her hands against Chloe’s temples and instantly, Tessa’s leader was trapped in a nightmare scape. She buried her blade in the Mara’s head, killing her quickly, and tore across the yard toward Chloe. By the time she reached her, though, Chloe was sitting on the Elder Mara’s chest and was strangling the life from her with her bare hands.

When she’d crushed the thing’s neck, Chloe got off the twitching body and stared at it for a few seconds, hands and body shaking.

“Chloe?” Tessa gently called out. “Are you okay?”

“Uh . . . yeah. Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“I didn’t realize what I was doing.”

“You didn’t?”

Chloe shook her head. “No. I was dreaming I was still married to that idiot.” She pointed to a fighting Josef. “And he pissed me off. Again! And I just . . . sort of . . .”

“Snapped?”

“Yeah.” She paused, glanced off, then said again, “Yeah.”

“We really need to keep you two apart, don’t we?” Tessa asked.

Chloe nodded at her. “Yeah.”

All around Kera, her fellow Marines were dying. Their screams were so loud. Needing to help, Kera tried to fire her weapon, but nothing. She first looked at the safety. It was on, so she tried to switch it off. But the switch wouldn’t move. She couldn’t make it move! Marines on either side of her were gunned down and Kera was still struggling with this ridiculous weapon.

She needed to help them! She needed to save them! She couldn’t allow them all to die!

A sound in the distance caught her attention and she turned. It was a crow, sitting on a burning telephone pole. It squawked at her again and Kera forced herself to focus on nothing but that crow. On the cawing sound it made. She listened only to that until she finally dropped her weapon and, ignoring the screams of the dying all around her, she swung her arms around.

It felt foolish but she kept doing it until . . .until . . .

Kera dug her hands into a mass of hair and yanked, throwing the Mara off her body and into the ground.

She brought her hammer up and over and crushed in the thing’s head. Snarling, she moved over to the one who had Vig on his knees, probably giving him nightmares about dying without honor. Kera took that Mara down with a swipe to the head and then continued on to the burning house.

Erin flipped the Mara off her back and rammed her blade directly into the bitch’s head. She yanked it out, blood spurting across her face, and tossed the corpse aside. She saw an Elder wrap herself around Stieg and place her hands against his head. He immediately dropped to his knees, his face going white. Well . . . whiter than usual.

She debated leaving him that way, but decided against it. She’d never hear the end of it from Kera.

Erin stalked over to the pair and reached out to grab the Mara from him. As her hand nearly had hold of her hair, the Mara was gone, turning to smoke and disappearing.

Then, seconds later, she knew the bitch was behind her.

Erin turned and the Mara grabbed her head with both hands, her talons burrowing into Erin’s flesh.

Stieg went from being in that alley, searching for food in the trash, like he used to do when he was a kid, back to battling the Mara in the rich part of town, trying to stop Gullveig from coming back to this world.

When he no longer felt like screaming in panic, he saw the redhead. A Mara had her. Hands digging into the woman’s skull.

Stieg forced himself to get up. It wasn’t easy. His body still felt like it was back in that alley. But when he did get to his feet, the Mara snarled, yanked her hands away, only to slap them against the redhead’s temples again. Then she did it a third time.

“Are you done?” the redhead asked.

And the Mara stepped back, hands falling to her sides as she gazed at Erin with her mouth open. Stieg didn’t understand it. He’d never heard of anyone not getting the nightmares when they were touched by the Mara. Even if they fought their way through it, they still got the nightmares.

As the Mara stood gawking, Erin brought her blade up and into the Mara’s jaw and brain.

When the Mara stopped moving, Erin pulled her blade out and dropped the body. She faced Stieg, smiled, winked, and walked away to find someone else to kill.

Now he understood why one of his foster fathers used to always warn him to stay away from the redheads.

One of the Mara had her talons dug into the side of Jace’s head. Panicked, she unleashed her wings and flew up but the Mara wouldn’t let go. She tried to fight her off, stabbing her in the belly, but the Mara just laughed and then Jace was back there. In that marriage. Her ex calmly telling Jace she was stupid. That she was ugly. Telling her that no one would want her.