Kent Hadleigh tells Leon the Deep One is awakening and orders Leon to retrieve a buried sacrifice victim's body.

Jeremiah Hadleigh throws Marcus Kynes's exhumed body down the White Pine mine shaft as an offering to the Deep One.

Rae returns to Abelaum to finish college and receives a mysterious handwritten grimoire from her best friend Inaya.

Rae meets Leon on campus, where he poses as a security guard and demands to know her name.

Rae performs a mock summoning ritual at St. Thaddeus Church and accidentally summons Leon for real.

After reviewing her summoning footage, Rae spots Leon's monstrous demon form frozen in a single video frame.

An Eld attacks Rae inside a church; Leon kills the creature and proposes protecting her in exchange for her soul.

Rae returns home to find her cabin ransacked and the grimoire stolen; Leon suspects Everly took it.

Leon tracks Everly to a coven, fights her Archdemon guardian, and recovers the grimoire page bearing his true name.

Leon and Rae search the Hadleigh basement during a Halloween party and discover a powerful magical dagger.

Kent confronts Leon and Rae at gunpoint and reveals that one of his own children must also be sacrificed.

Jeremiah summons a Reaper at Rae's cabin; Leon gives Rae the grimoire page and stays behind to fight the creature alone.

Rae returns to find Leon near death from the Reaper fight; Jeremiah captures Rae before Leon can stop him.

Jeremiah carves sacrificial runes into Rae's chest and shoves her down the White Pine mine shaft.

Leon carries Rae out of the collapsing mine to safety as Juniper and Zane kill Jeremiah and burn the Hadleigh mansion.

Leon, a demon enslaved by cult leader Kent Hadleigh, carries out Marcus Kynes's sacrifice to awaken an ancient god known as the Deep One. When Rae Lawson arrives in Abelaum and accidentally summons Leon, she discovers she is the Deep One's next intended sacrifice. Leon shifts from captor to reluctant protector as Rae refuses to give him her soul, even as monsters hunt her relentlessly. Their search for safety leads them into the Hadleigh mansion, where they uncover a magical dagger and learn of Kent's plan to sacrifice his own child alongside Rae. When Jeremiah seizes control after Kent's death and throws Rae into the mine shaft, Rae freely gives her soul to Leon, defeating the Deep One and surviving. With Jeremiah dead and the cult destroyed, Leon and Rae emerge from the chaos permanently bound together.

The core story of sacrifice, survival, and a demon's bargain.

Inaya introduces Rae to Jeremiah and Victoria Hadleigh on campus; the twins are immediately and unusually friendly.

Leon and Zane meet Rae outside a bar; Leon gives her a safe word and brings her to orgasm in an alleyway.

Leon discovers that Kent no longer holds his grimoire and refuses Kent's order to hand Rae over for sacrifice.

Walking home alone after dark, Rae encounters an Eld in the woods but mistakes it for an art installation.

Leon pulls up in his truck and drives Rae home, pressing her not to walk outside alone after dark.

Rae confronts Leon and confirms he is a demon but refuses to hand over the grimoire, her only leverage.

An Eld snatches Rae's cat Cheesecake from the porch; Leon chases the monster, kills it, and returns the cat unharmed.

Leon stakes three severed Eld heads around Rae's yard as a deterrent against further monster attacks.

Leon is wounded protecting Rae from the Eld; she tends his infected shoulder and invites him inside to rest.

Rae draws a binding circle around the sleeping Leon; he wakes furious and describes his century of captivity to her.

Gollums block Rae's road and tell her that the Deep One is waiting for her in the dark.

Jeremiah slips a drug into Rae's drink at the Halloween party; Juniper forces Rae to vomit before it takes effect.

Victoria calls Rae the morning after the Halloween party and reports that her father Kent is dead.

Jeremiah ambushes Rae at a grocery store and overpowers Leon in a fight using the Deep One's god-given strength.

A record-breaking storm floods and collapses the mine tunnels; Rae heals from her wounds but keeps the scar of Leon's name.

While Rae settles into Abelaum, the Hadleigh twins insert themselves into her life and strange monsters begin closing in around her. Leon refuses to hand Rae over to Kent once he realizes he is no longer bound by the grimoire, and the two fall into an unconventional and increasingly intimate alliance. Their bond is tested when Rae traps Leon in a binding circle, forcing a painful confrontation about his century of imprisonment and her own desperation to survive. As Halloween approaches, Gollums issue menacing warnings and Jeremiah's aggression at the party and at the grocery store signals that danger has escalated beyond what either of them can manage alone. The story resolves with the mine's collapse and Abelaum transformed, while Rae heals from her injuries and keeps the one scar she chose for herself.

The growing bond and escalating danger surrounding Rae and Leon.

Leon senses the Deep One stirring from its depths even before Kent arrives to give him orders.

Leon finds Rae researching St. Thaddeus Church on campus and sharply warns her to stay away without explaining why.

After their hostile first meeting, Rae goes home and privately fantasizes about being dominated by Leon.

Everly reads Rae's tarot at the art festival and warns of darkness and transformation coming for her.

Rae has a nightmare about the 1899 mine collapse that feels less like a dream and more like a memory.

While lunching with Inaya and Victoria, Rae falls into a sudden trance and sees black tentacles pressing in around her.

Leon explains to Rae that her ancestor survived the 1899 disaster through the Deep One's mercy, making her a sacrificial target.

Leon tells Rae he is leaving Abelaum and returning to Hell once he has the grimoire page.

Rae discovers the bare concrete room in the Hadleigh basement where Leon was imprisoned for a century and comforts him.

Rae decides she wants to give Leon her soul, but Jeremiah's summoning of a Reaper interrupts her before she can speak.

The Reaper overpowers Leon and leaves him gravely wounded and motionless on the forest floor, unable to rise.

Rae pulls over while fleeing, turns her car around, and drives back to find Leon in the woods.

The Deep One rises from the mine pool and tells Rae her soul was always destined for it, then fails to claim her.

Rae repeatedly stabs the Deep One's tentacle with the magical dagger until its grip loosens enough for her to escape.

Juniper Kynes approaches Leon outside the burning Hadleigh mansion and offers him her forgiveness.

From the moment Leon senses the Deep One stirring and Rae receives a cryptic tarot reading, both characters are moving toward a destiny neither fully understands. Rae's recurring nightmares and dissociative visions hint at her deep ancestral connection to the mine, while Leon's reluctant admission of love to Everly marks the moment his priorities permanently shift away from freedom and toward Rae. The story's emotional turning points accelerate when Leon reveals the truth of Rae's inherited debt to the Deep One and then tells her he plans to leave, forcing Rae to confront what she truly wants. Rae's decision to turn back for Leon rather than flee becomes the act that changes everything, leading her into the mine where she gives him her soul by her own choice. The Deep One's failure to claim what was freely given, and Juniper's act of forgiveness toward Leon, complete the transformations that began long before the final confrontation.