I covered my shock with sarcasm. “Please don’t tell me this is where you admit to being my mother,” I told Sonja, rolling my eyes.

The demon laughed. “No.”

I expelled a deep breath of relief. The Demon of the Dark Force wasn’t very motherly. She was not cruel for cruelty’s sake like Soulslayer, but she also didn’t care how many people were used and misused along the path to her achieving her goal. Sonja firmly believed that her way was the only way, the only path, that it was best for everyone.

“Unlike your mother, I am not foolish enough to have an affair with a god.”

“Who is my mother?” I asked her. “And who is my father?”

“Your father was a mistake, a misguided affair. And your mother is the naive fool who fell for his charms.”

“Which god? Which demon?”

Sonja’s lips pursed up in disgust, and she returned her attention to her work.

“At least tell me if they are still alive,” I said.

“Yes.”

The gladness I felt wasn’t born out of a desperate wish to meet the mother and father I’d been missing all my life, and I harbored no delusions that my parents and I could be one big happy family.

No, I knew no such fantasy was possible. I had my real family, not in blood but in spirit: Calli, Bella, Zane, Gin, and Tessa. That was the family of my heart. I had no use for the cold, careless embrace of the gods and demons.

That spark of excitement was the curiosity burning in me. I just had to know who my parents were. I had to know where I’d come from.

“You have your parents to thank for your glowing hair,” Sonja said, absently touching the end of my braid.

“How so?”

“Your hair is a manifestation of their special powers.”

“What does that even mean? Glowing hair is not a magical specialty.”

Sonja pulled out a notepad and began quickly jotting down notes. She did not, however, answer my question.

I glanced at the complex patterns of symbols she’d drawn on the paper. “What happened to my parents? What brought them together? And what pushed them apart? Do they know I’m alive? How did I end up on Earth?”

Sonja looked up from her work, frowning. “Enough questions.”

She closed her notebook and picked up a syringe filled with dark sparkling fluid the color of amethysts. The demon grabbed my arm and injected the Venom into it. The dark magic surged inside of me, a flash of fire in my blood.

“This is Shifter’s Shadow,” Sonja’s voice echoed beyond the flames.

As the Venom burned through me, everything shifted inside my body. The two sides of my magic wanted to be one, to exist in total harmony. It was no easy battle, however, for two opposing magics to find balance.

I felt lightheaded, drowsy. A slow rock, like that of a boat bobbing on the ocean waves, drew me under, and when I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in hell anymore. I was on the open sea.

* * *

I sat in a boat on a sea of beautiful turquoise water. Golden tropical sands sparkled across a nearby island. The sun shone down on me, warming my skin and bringing a smile to my face. It was comfortable and safe out here, so far away from all the conflict, the pain, the constant battles. It was a life without magic and all its baggage, a life without monsters and the immortal war between gods and demons. It was, quite simply, peaceful.

I stretched out my legs in the boat, wiggling my naked toes. They brushed against someone’s leg. I glanced at my brother Zane. He sat opposite me in the boat, facing me. He wore a light cotton shirt and beach shorts, and in his hand, he held a fishing pole dipped in the sea.

“We’ve been out here for hours, Zane,” I said. “Let’s give it a rest. The fish aren’t biting today.”

“Patience,” he replied with perfect serenity. “I’m about to catch one.”

“You can’t possibly know…” I stopped, my daze darting to his twinging fishing line. “How did you know?”

Zane got a firmer grip on the pole. “Magic,” he said with a wink.

I snorted. “There’s no such thing as magic.”

The memory of a battle flashed through my mind. I saw myself lifting a flaming sword in the air to fight a gargantuan monster. It was a daydream, nothing more. I shook my head, clearing the fantasy from my wandering thoughts.

Zane had already reeled in the fish and dropped it into the bucket. His line was in the water again. I must have dozed off.

“It’s a big one,” Zane said as the line began to twitch again. He was straining to hold the pole steady. “A little help here, Leda.”

“Why do you need my help when you have magic?” I smirked at him.

I got another flash, this time of an angel, his dark wings extended, magic crackling off of his skin, igniting the air around him. I cleared my head again, but the image of the angel lingered for a few seconds, an image burned into my mind.

I helped Zane hold the pole steady. I could feel something fighting and thrashing on the other end, resisting with everything that it had. Zane reeled it in. He dropped a second fish into the pan. It was even bigger than the first one.

It bounced against the bottom of the bucket, and I caught another flash of the angel. He was sliding the sleeve off my shoulder, kissing my skin. Heat flushed my body.

As the image faded from my mind, I saw Zane staring at me strangely.

“What?” I said guiltily.

“Nothing.” He was grinning from ear to ear.

I blushed, unable to shake the feeling that my brother could read minds—and that he’d just caught me red-handed fantasizing about a sexy angel.

“Do you believe in angels?” I blurted out.

“Do you?” Zane countered.

I was still considering my response when Zane’s line began to swing about wildly. Whatever he’d caught this time, it was enormous. I reached over to help him, but as my hands closed around the pole, a torrent of images crashed through my head. I saw myself fighting monsters, sparring with angels, battling the forces of hell. Magic shot across the battlefield like fireworks.

The images streamed by faster. I saw cities rise and fall and immortals being born. I watched gods and demons clash. Lifetimes of memories flashed by in the blink of an eye.

Then I was ejected from the memory stream. My mind spun, trying to make sense of what I’d just seen.

“You’ve tapped into the memories of the Guardians,” Zane told me.

The name ‘Guardians’ sparked something in me, and I recalled the Black City, where I’d first experienced the memories of the Guardians in dreams and visions. And then I remembered who I was. What I was.

I looked around at the boat, the beach, and the water. “This isn’t real.” I suffered a moment of profound loss, though I’d not lost a thing. You couldn’t lose a paradise that you’d never had.

“No,” Zane said. “It’s not.”

“And you’re not really here with me.”

“No.”

“What was all of that? How can I see the memories of the Guardians?” I asked him.

“The Guardians got their powers from the original immortals, who possessed balanced light and dark magic. Just like you, Leda. For some reason, your balanced magic allows you to see into the collective pool of memories of light and dark magic. You sit at the peak, Leda, at the crossroads between light and dark,” Zane added. “You can dip your toes into both pools and see all the magical strokes that created the picture that is today.”

“But how do I do that?”

“Patience.” He held up the fishing pole with one hand and indicated the pail of fish with the other.

“My favorite virtue,” I said drily.

Zane chuckled. “With a bit of practice, you’ll get it. You always do.”

“Is that what the Guardians told you?”

I couldn’t help but think back to what Sonja had said about the Guardians. She’d told me they were more dangerous than anyone else and that Zane was in great danger. But could I really trust the demon? Sonja certainly hadn’t done anything to inspire confidence.

“The gods and demons split from the original immortals. And in doing so, they split magic. They created this black-and-white, light-and-dark reality,” Zane said. “The Guardians have a prophecy about a divine savior who will be born human, with equal light and dark magic. She will grow her magic one ability at a time, and someday she will upset the balance of power.”

“And they think that’s me.”

“Yes. And so does Sonja. She wants to control you as that instrument of change, the end of the immortal war. She thinks your magic will help her overthrow the gods and lead the demons—and especially her—to great power and supremacy.”

That was pretty much in line with what Sonja had said. The demon wasn’t really hiding anything.

“The Guardians have a different interpretation of the prophecy than Sonja does,” Zane said. “They believe you will change the balance of magic back to the middle, back to mixed magic of light and dark origins. They believe the savior is a god killer and demon slayer.”

That’s me, making lots of friends throughout heaven and hell. Chances were good that if the gods and demons had shared the Guardians’ belief, I’d already be dead.

“What do you think?” I asked Zane.

“One prophecy, a thousand possible interpretations. I think we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“Patience,” I sighed. It always came back to that.

“Exactly.”

“I don’t want to be a part of some prophecy.”

“Because you hate being the center of attention,” Zane teased, a twinkle in his eyes.

“I don’t try to be the center of attention. Drama just finds me.”

“Like a magnet.”

“If I punch you in a dream, does it still hurt in the real world?”

Laughing, Zane drew me into a hug. “Just hold out a little longer, Leda,” he whispered into my ear. “Help is on the way.”

Then he shoved me over the side of the boat. I hit the icy water and jerked awake.

* * *

I woke up chained to the dungeon wall. My body felt as limp as an overcooked noodle. I tried to move my toes, but I couldn’t feel them. I shifted my eyes to look around the room. Sonja was watching me closely, a syringe of dark purple Venom in her hand. My mouth watered, reacting to the poison’s overly sweet scent.

My mind was less amenable than my body. When Sonja tried to inject me with the Venom, I knocked the syringe away with a flick of my magic.

“You will give up fighting me eventually,” the demon responded to my defiance.

I pushed against my chains. Sonja grabbed the gun from her hip holster and shot me in the leg with a dose of Venom. I felt the familiar fire of the immortal poison, the pain as it clashed with the Nectar already inside of me. I wondered why Venom hurt and Nectar felt so good. If I had sipped Venom first, would it have been the other way around?

“Stop fighting,” Sonja snapped. “Give up on this foolish hope. No one is coming for you. Neither your friends nor your angel lover can come here. Only a true master of dark magic can open the gateway to hell. It takes at least a dark angel. Not even the lower soldiers of the Dark Force can do it. An angel of the light hasn’t got a chance, not even one like your lover, who fancies himself a little dark.” Sonja’s expression was downright haughty.

I wasn’t sure if my talk with Zane had been him speaking to me, or if it was simply my tortured, desperate mind playing tricks on me by showing me what I wanted to see. Maybe help was coming, but I couldn’t depend on it. I had to get myself and my sisters out, not stand idly by and wait to be rescued. There had to be a gate or something that led out of hell.

But first things first. Before we could leave, I had to get out of these chains. The task was a tad impossible as long as Sonja was watching me, but she’d leave as soon as she was done noting my initial response to the Venom. As much as she loved to wax eloquent about how patient she was, she didn’t like to stand around and twiddle her thumbs.

I tested my chains, but I was bolted to the wall pretty securely. I didn’t have the strength to break through the restraints. My body had gone too long without food.

But I’d had food, I realized. Venom was the immortal food of the demons, and Sonja had given it to me twice. That was pure magic, pure energy for my system. I just needed to access it. If I could just push past the heavy, overloaded feeling of my body trying to cope with the new magic, I might be able to do it.

“Fascinating. The Venom is actually activating the dormant dark magic inside of you, igniting it,” Sonja commented as I felt my light and dark magic reach an equilibrium. “I think you can handle something a little more potent.”

I was still wondering what could possibly be more potent than Venom when Sonja turned around with a syringe in her hand. Inside, two sparkling substances—onyx and white—swirled around each other, as though they were alive. Venom and Nectar. And as the demon moved toward me with that syringe, I realized she was going to inject both into me at once.

I tried to push out of my restraints, but they didn’t budge no matter what I did.

“Fairy’s Touch. Light and dark, together.” The elated look on Sonja’s face sent me into a panic.

“It won’t work,” I told her, trying to calm my staggered breaths. “It’s too much magic at once.”

Sonja didn’t even seem to hear me. “I will be the first to see the full spectrum of magic merge into a living body all at once, in complete harmony.”

“It won’t work, you psycho! You’re going to kill me!” I shouted.

Sonja paused, considering me.

“And if I’m dead, that’s the end of your experiment to create the perfect army.”

The needle tip was against my arm. “That’s a risk I’m willing to take.”

Well, it wasn’t a risk I was willing to take just because a crazy demon thought she’d roll the dice with my life. I had too much to live for.

I pushed out with my telekinetic magic, knocking Sonja back. She tripped over the table of tools, and they rained to the ground. The syringe flew across the room. Recovering her balance, Sonja caught the syringe inside a bubble of her psychic magic, lifting it higher. It floated in the air beside her as she approached me, looking considerably less elated and way more pissed off than she had a moment ago.

An explosion rocked the building. Beyond the glass doors, gunfire thundered. The walls of the dungeon groaned, and the ground shook with the force of an earthquake. Sonja paused. The syringe froze midair too.

“It sounds like the gates of hell aren’t as impenetrable as you thought,” I commented.

“It’s just one of the other demons annoying me like they always do,” Sonja said with a dismissive flick of her hand.

“Then why do you look so worried?”

Her lips tight, Sonja hurried out of the dungeon, drawing her sword as she ran. The milky-white sliding doors to the lab swooshed shut behind her.

A familiar twinge tugged on my senses. It was Nero. He was here.

Still groggy from the Venom, I forced myself to concentrate and calm my nerves. I focused my magic into a sharp, telekinetic point. It shot out from my body, breaking through the chains. They crumbled and rained to the floor in tiny metal slivers.

I slid down the wall, landing in a crouch. One leg gave out under me, and my knee slammed against the hard, unforgiving floor. I rose slowly, cursing the idiot who’d thought it was clever to cover the floors of a torture chamber with glossy, slippery marble. I stumbled, staggering in my steps as I moved toward my sisters’ cells.

But Tessa and Gin weren’t there. Soulslayer must have taken them away for testing while I’d been busy blacking out. I had to find them and get them out of here, but as I took off running toward the sliding doors, the walls around me exploded.