"Have you ever heard of nam gilim, Mrs. Dixon?" Keilynn asked.

"Please, call me Maman," Memaw prompted. The two of them had been on the phone for hours. The Voodoo priestess, Mam'bo Gideon reminded himself, was giving the witch a crash course in how to perform a ceremony to call the loa. The most important part was the banishing of the spirits at the end. This, the women surmised, hadn't happened when Kalfu was initially called. They hoped doing so now would expel the evil loa from Trystan's body.

"Right, Maman," Keilynn repeated. "My twin and I recently learned we are nam gilim. The translation from the old tongue is basically 'fate bender.' My sister, Breqlynn, tapped into that ability to save a daem-" she stopped herself from saying daemon "-well, um, an ally," the witch explained. "I've been practicing and hope to use it to save Remi."

Blue-black eyes found Gideon's then. Keys knew how volatile he was. And with reason. The sadistic bastard who had Remi let her emotions bleed through their bond. The soul-wrenching guilt and despair told him what his mate was enduring. They'd spelled out a story that'd sickened Gideon, made him want to seek vengeance on his woman's behalf.

"Are you certain no Houn'gan are nearby?" Memaw's tone was filled with doubt.

Gideon couldn't sit still any longer. Rising from his chair, he walked to the closest of the library's large windows. Staring down into the deeply shadowed courtyard, he let the witch and Voodoo Mam'bo's conversation wash over him. There was nothing he could add to the discussion.

Never had Gideon had such impotence filled him. Fingers balling into a tight fist at his side, he tried not to vent his spleen. It would serve no purpose, wouldn't save his little mystic.

"You have to remember," Memaw's voice intruded. "Kalfu is a powerful loa. He must be shown the respect he deserves."

The fist rose and punched at the window's casing. Wood splintered, and the pane shook. Remi's great-grandmother wouldn't be saying that, Gideon thought with a snarl, if she knew what the revered loa was doing to her granddaughter.

"Gideon," Keys softly warned.

Turning his head, Gideon's lip lifted at his king's sister-in-law. The witch knew what Remi endured. They'd argued with whether to spare her great-grandmother the ugliness of that knowledge.

A sharp gust of air smacked Gideon up the backside of his head. Keilynn's spotty magic was working. It served to bring him back to himself. With the full moon rising as the sun set, his wolf was too near the surface. It struggled for dominance even though the curse was broken, and the change was no longer forced on him.

Blowing out a breath, Gideon told Keys, "I'm fine." His tone was naught but a growl, his beast's influence. Looking back out the window, he watched as the sun set.

Suddenly, Remi's emotions came back. Gritting his teeth, Gideon tried to calm them. Through the bond, his mate's guilt, fear, and misery flooded him. In turn, he sent her understanding, love, and comfort.

At first, Gideon's attempts to tell Remi he didn't blame her, that he still loved her, didn't seem to be working. But then she calmed, and a sort of grim acceptance came to him.

Gideon's breath of relief was cut short as a familiar pain struck the inside of his left wrist. Lifting it, he watched as the last lines of a tattoo form as his witch's bond set. It was a black-faced wolf. In the center of its forehead, a white snake circled to bite its tail.

Studying the tattoo, Gideon couldn't help but wonder what mate ability would manifest. It was bound to be something rarely seen with the double combination of the witch-destined and shifter-mate bonds. Wolfrick's and Breqlynn's produced the rare ability to communicate telepathically. He tried reaching out to Remi in his mind but was met with silence.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the scenery beneath Gideon's feet changed. Gleaming walnut-colored hardwood floors were overlaid with a dirt-encrusted one. Eyes lifting, he spotted his nude mate. Her upper torso twisted away from him.

"Remi!" Gideon called. He knew this was a vision, and he hadn't been teleported. His destined's form and that of the room around him were hazy, double-imposed with the scenery outside the window in Vârcolac Turn. The air around him was warm, not at all chilled by the winter breeze coming through a cracked window that blew around dust and small bits of debris. There was no fire in the unused fireplace and hadn't been for decades, judging by its dilapidated condition.

"Gideon?" Remi's tone was uncertain.

"Where are you?" Gideon asked, his eyes coming back to rest on Remi. Her coffee and cream flesh was covered in goose-pimples. The urge to wrap her in his arms and warm her filled him.

After blinking her eyes, Remi had a question of her own. "Are you really here?"

"No," Gideon replied, regret filling the single syllable. "I'm guessing that since you're a mystic and our witch bond formalized, this is how it manifested."

"Huh?" Remi asked as she quickly rose and began to dress.

"As I understand it," Gideon wished he were closer, and suddenly he was. In the blink of an eye, he stood beside his mate. It was killing him that he couldn't touch her. "The bonds," he continued softly so as not to startle Remi, "between a witch and his destined, mixed with those of a shifter and his mate, can manifest in countless ways."

Zipping up her coat, Remi then turned to face Gideon. A slightly shaking hand reached up to touch him. When it came to his cheek, it passed through.

Blowing out a breath, Remi looked away and intoned in a voice dead of emotion, "You know what I did."

A harsh curse came from Gideon. It drew Remi's gaze. "I wish I could touch you, hold you." Taking a step, he came close enough that barely any room was left between them. "I know what he did. You bear no blame in this, Remi bach."

Tears welled in Remi's amber and moss eyes. She wished Gideon could hold her as well. Never had she ached for another's touch as she did now.

"Now," Gideon said softly. "Tell me where you are so we can send that bastard back to Hell."

Technically, Kalfu wasn't a demon and resided in Ifé, not Hell. But Remi wasn't going to point that out to Gideon. That he was saying they'd found a way to send the loa back to his home world was what she chose to focus on instead. "Keys figured something out?" she guessed.

"Yes. She and your Memaw have been plotting for hours. What can you tell me about where you are?"

Biting her lower lip, Remi said, "We're north of the lake, on the west side." She hadn't paid much attention to her surroundings while under Kalfu's thrall. "We're in an abandoned village in a house that has an old water wheel outside."

"Do you know how long you traveled?"

Wincing, Remi told him, "I don't remember."

"That's fine. I'll have Keilynn do an internet search."

Something occurred to Remi. "I remember a white sign with black lettering." Squinting, she tried to remember the words. "It said Peninsula del Rey or something." She remembered the last part because it reminded her of the pre-war songstress Lana Del Rey.

Stilling, Gideon asked softly, "Could it have been, 'Pensinea Gura de Rai?'" Excitement filled him. If it was the pre-apocalypse town, he knew where to find Remi.

"It could have been," Remi began slowly. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine the sign once again. The words rearranged themselves. Her eyes popped open, and she exclaimed, "Yes, it is!"

"Good. I need to leave now to tell the others. We're coming for you, Remi bach." Before he faded back to Vârcolac Turn, Gideon vowed, "I love you, Remi. Nothing will ever change how I feel."

Tears welled in Remi's eyes once more. Her reciprocal, "I love you too, Gideon," echoed in his mind as he came back to himself in the fortress' library.

In the next breath, Gideon exclaimed, startling Keilynn, "I know where to find Remi!"