The air sucked in around us and popped like a bubble.

Where before there had been only darkness, night, and the red glow, now there was only light. Brilliant. Blinding. It filled her vision so fully that there was no darkness. No shadow. No Moira. Only her and the all-consuming power that couldn’t simply be described as light. It tasted of wild magic. It smelled like heavy perfume and rain. It brushed over her skin, searching for something.

And then it dissipated. Breaking apart in a shower of sparks, the image shattered, revealing just where she was.

It was a room of some kind, but her vision was disoriented. Off. After seeing only what I could describe as true white, this shroud of darkness was hard to make out. Candles littered the room. From the chandelier above her, to the side tables across the room, to the ones sitting on top of a stack of books, all the way to the ones dotting the circle drawn on the floor below her. Beside her, Moira was sprawled out and moaning. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her brows furrowed. Pain. She was in a lot of pain.

Bandit scrambled to his feet, very much alert as the beast turned to the two figures.

“What is this?” she snarled, her gaze narrowing on Eugene McGee as he stood beside a tall, grey-skinned male with obsidian hair that changed colors like oil in the light. He wore dark fighting leathers, making the silver of his eyes and red glowing brand stand out.

Wait a minute—shit.

The blazing red marks on his forehead weren’t brands. They were runes.

The etchings on the knife were runes.

Devil-fucking-damnit.

The beast growled under her breath.

This guy wasn’t a demon, and fucking Eugene McGee—what had just happened? Red blotted out all reason within her as she let out a roar, breathing fire in an attempt to set the Fae man aflame from across the room. Blue flames spewed from her mouth and ran into an invisible barrier, flattening against it in a wall of black and blue.

Her mouth snapped shut sharply. This was bad. Very bad.

Maybe Moira was right that we should have gone to the Horsemen—

“No,” the beast growled at me.

“Are you done now?” the Seelie asked with an air of annoyance. His accent was foreign, but I couldn’t place it.

“Why have you brought me here?” the beast demanded, keeping her eyes on the Fae.

“I didn’t bring you anywhere, child,” the Seelie said distastefully. “Your familiar grabbed a weapon that did not belong to her. She’s lucky that Gene told me you were not the ones to attack him, or her life would have been forfeit.”

“You’re working with demon hunters,” the beast said to Eugene. An almost sheepish blush crept across his cheeks for the second time that night.

“I’m sorry, Ruby. I should have warned you about—”

“The thing inside that girl does not want explanations, my dear.” He reached out and rested a hand on the rubrum’s shoulder almost affectionately. “And you,” he turned back to the beast. “It is unwise to make assumptions on things you know so little about, daughter of Hell.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, not liking his tone, or the fact that he knew who we were.

“Oh yes, I know who you are, girl. Most of New Orleans does after the way you’ve been parading about, mid-transition, leaking ancient magic into the world.” I wanted to cop a snide remark at the beast, but it really wasn’t the time for that. She was already raging. “But, as much as it pains me, I mean you no harm. You healed my lover from his wounds and stood your ground with Le Dan Bia.”

“And the binding?” the beast said pointedly, motioning to the red line surrounding her and Moira.

“A necessary precaution for any who try to steal a Fae blade. It’s one of the few things in this world that can kill a demon outright. Can’t have it go missing, now can I?” he said rhetorically. Still, he didn’t drop the barrier.

“I wasn’t trying to steal it,” Moira rasped from the dirty concrete floor. She sucked in a noisy breath and sat up to cough hoarsely.

Somehow, the blade that brought us here had gone missing after Moira grabbed it and was left sprawled out without an explanation. I didn’t trust the Seelie, whether Eugene did or not. But I did respect his power.

“Yes, well, I didn’t know that until Eugene took the time to explain it, just before I let the air within the binding crush you.” He said it without remorse, much as the beast would have. It was a certain kind of jadedness and I wondered how someone like him could be with someone as naïve as Eugene.

“Enough,” the beast commanded. “You know who we are. Now release us.”

“Well, you see, I can’t do that just yet…” the Seelie trailed off at the deadly glare the beast gave him.

“Donnach,” Eugene groaned. “Please don’t do this. This isn’t her fight.”

“Someone has to deal with them, Gene. If not her, then who? Who else has the power to do that outside my own people?” Donnach replied with an undercurrent of anger. Eugene deflated, running a hand over his smooth, bald head.

“I don’t like this,” the rubrum said.

Donnach’s features softened for a fraction of a moment.

“I know, but you know better than anyone what they will do to Morvaen if she remains. I cannot allow that, and she is the only way to prevent a war.”

Both Donnach the Seelie and Eugene the rubrum turned to watch the beast. She had one arm tucked under her breast and the other sitting on top of it, bent at the elbow so that she could stroke her bottom lip with the pad of her thumb. Bandit had gone silent during this exchange, as if he could sense the significance of what was happening. Moira had stopped coughing and rose to her feet on wobbly knees, but was very proudly holding her head high and wings partway open.

The Fae sighed, and then he began.

“Know that if I had another option, I would go with it before asking your kind for anything.”

If that was meant to make this better, he fell short.

Moira rolled her eyes at him. “Get on with it.”

He smiled thinly, razor sharp to the edge of cruelty…but there was something else. Something old… This Seelie looked fairly young. Certainly no older than his mid-thirties, and yet…something didn’t feel quite right. His eyes spoke of battles gone by. Of bloodshed and brutality.

There was more to him than her eyes were seeing.

“Very well”—he paused to take a breath—“several of my kind are trapped in an underground fighting ring hosted by Le Dan Bia. I’m assuming you know who they are?”

“We care not,” came the beast’s reply.

The Fae man gave her a withering look.

“You’re supposed to be the next Queen, and you don’t care that your people have overstepped their bounds on the planet my kind were sentenced to?” he spoke quietly, but his question was bold.

“That was before my time,” the beast replied. She shrugged her shoulders and reached around to pet Bandit.

“Yet, you are the heir now.”

They stared at each other for a solid minute, neither wanting to crack or yield in any way.

“We did not agree to this. You transported us here against our will, and now you try to manipulate me into solving your problems for you. Find someone else,” the beast declared.

Internally I blanched, but the beast watched him without a single fuck to give. They weren’t hers. Why would she care?

I sighed. I shouldn’t care. I really shouldn’t…but I shuddered to think of the fighting rings I had heard of growing up. Of the fighting ring Moira had been subjected to as a child before she was transferred to Portland.

When she’d arrived, her body was bruised and broken. There was a wicked cut on her head that had been haphazardly sewn together. She walked with a limp for six months, and that was after she was able to walk again.

She was a child, barely able to protect herself, and our own kind had thought to use her as entertainment. To beat and break her. She was a demon and they did that to her. What would they do to non-demons? To Fae? To Seelie?

“It doesn’t matter,” the beast said.

“It does. If we stand around and do nothing, we are no better than them.”

“Save your feelings for our mates. We’re not doing it.”

She was trying to shut me down. Outwardly, the beast turned a quarter of an inch to glance at Moira out of the corner of her eye. My best friend was quiet, and awfully pale. She still remembered those dark times.

The beast was fire and flame, but the wrath that filled me was sharp. Crackling.

I should have let the beast continue fighting and try to rip him to shreds, but I couldn’t let this go. Not yet. Not when the anger I felt with her was beginning to break through the carefully structured wall that kept me at bay and her in charge.

“This is not our problem,” the beast snarled. “We don’t negotiate with terrorists.”

Did she really just say that?

“You don’t even know what that means! We’re supposed to rule these people. This is every bit our problem,” I snapped back.

“Why us? Why not him?” the beast finally said through gritted teeth. She was struggling to contain me when I wasn’t willing to go along with her plans so easily.

“Eugene used to belong to Le Dan Bia and will be killed on sight—as you saw—before they allow him to step inside their territory. You two, however”—he motioned between the beast and Moira—“they would not realize the danger until it was too late. While young and untrained, you are pure of soul with nearly limitless potential.” He walked forward, cocking his head to the side while he watched them both. While clearly shaken, Moira stared back at him with an inner strength that spoke volumes of her person.

“You want us to enter Le Dan Bia’s territory, infiltrate their bait ring, and release members of your people—putting both of ourselves at risk, for what? So that you don’t have to do the dirty work?” Moira spat the words like poison, her anger harsh and cold.

“That’s not what I said,” the Seelie responded, clearly growing more impatient by the moment. “Any demon can enter their territory without suspicion because they are the portal keepers. Getting into the ‘bait ring,’ as you call it, would take little effort. I would portal you out of here, directly on their doorstep. The reason I am coming to you”—he motioned to the beast—“is because if I send my people in there, it will result in an all-out war that very well may spread beyond New Orleans. As a new ruler, that is not what I imagine you would want.”

That bastard.

He knew what buttons to press and where. The beast, she didn’t give many fucks about much of anything. Our familiars? Yes. Our mates? Also, yes. Past that, there were only two things she cared about. One: my safety—we shared a body, so that was a given. The second was our crown.

And a war that spread beyond New Orleans? That most certainly was an issue for the latter.

“We have no reason to trust you,” Moira countered. She wasn’t wrong, and the beast agreed with her. I did too, for that matter, but apparently, I was the only one seeing reason here, or at least trying to.

Donnach clicked his tongue in annoyance. “She is a young queen asserting herself to her people while doing me a favor,” he said sharply. “It prevents a war this time, one that I don’t think she would like to start her rule fighting. Not while she has many enemies within your own kind. While you may not have a reason to trust me, she also doesn’t have one to distrust me. Have I attempted to harm either of you, or the creature, even once?”

The beast glanced at Bandit who stood tall on her shoulder, his teeth bared at the Seelie. His eyes, once black, were now blue like mine and the swirling pentagrams turned like smoke within them—the same as Moira. I’d done it on accident, but like Moira, he remained altered somehow in ways I still hadn’t figured out.

“Is declining your offer an option?” the beast asked bluntly.

“I will not take away your ability to choose.” He narrowed his eyes. “If you wish to do nothing, I would let you leave and that would be it. However, we will not leave them there to be ripped apart by the beasts of Hell.” His voice sounded sincere, but cold. I wished that I could think him a liar. It would have made the situation easier. I wouldn’t have felt like they were my responsibility. Like it was me who should fix this. After all, I’d only just stepped into this role. It’s not like I was raised to do this.

But I was born to. And the moment Lucifer died, everything began to unravel.

My life. My identity. My powers. The future of not only earth, but Hell itself.

They would continue to unravel until I pulled my big girl panties up and stopped being a pussy.

I wasn’t a defenseless half-breed. I could take on demons three times my size. I could escape all four of the Horsemen and outwit them when needed. I had Bandit and Moira at my side, and the beast containing the deadly power inside me. She’d said she was evil’s executioner. Maybe she should live up to it.

“I don’t trust this,” the beast told me.

“You don’t have to. But clearly if he can bind us then he could probably do a lot more. He’s not wrong about Le Dan Bia. They’re a problem, and our names are already on the list thanks to Moira.”

The beast stood immobile for what seemed like hours as she considered what to do, but it was really only minutes. Like me, she was coming to the conclusion that we should do this, or at least that we should consider doing this. The Seelie wasn’t wrong that by knowingly letting them go after the clan to free their own, we were risking war. As a newly appointed ruler with powerful enemies and a wide opposition, that really wasn’t something we could afford. The beast didn’t care for politics, but in this she could at least see a glimmer of reason.

We may have left looking for a good time, but it seemed that trouble was always fast to find us. A war with the Seelie was not something we could afford, which meant it was time to step up.

She didn’t trust this. Not one bit. But I wasn’t yielding to her unless she gave me a damn good reason.

“Don’t tell me you’re seriously considering this,” Moira said. “We can find another way to deal with it. We can send the Horsemen. We can—”

“We do not run from threats, Moira.”

My best friend stopped and swallowed hard. She took a minute to stare at the wall across the room, her eyes glazing over as she considered her own reasons. Eventually, she said, “You are powerful, and you are right to not run. But you don’t know the evil that lives in places like that. I worry about you—about Ruby—if you choose to go down there.”

The beast considered this and with a heavy sigh and deep reluctance, she lowered the barrier that kept me in, protecting me from my own magic. The transition of pushing me forward was sudden and violent, but she sat close to the surface, ready to take it back after I said my piece.

Silently, I thanked her.

“I worry too,” I said. Moira’s head shot up, her eyes blinking rapidly.

“It’s you!” she breathed, throwing her arms around me.

“It’s always me,” I chuckled and hugged her back. “But I can’t stay. The beast is in control because I need her to be. At least until my powers are no longer a danger. She’s doing this because I want her—I need her to. We can’t allow demons like the ones who attacked Eugene to continue. That’s not the kind of Queen I want to be, now or ever.”

Moira stepped back and took both my hands in hers. She held them tightly and let loose a steady breath.

“I left the Horsemen and came to find you because I was worried she was going to get you killed. Now I know that it’s in fact both of you playing off of each other’s thought processes that leads you to such awful decisions. I honestly don’t know what you’d do without me,” she said and gripped my hands so tight the skin around her fingers turned pink.

“You don’t have to come with me, you know.”

“You’re even crazier if you think I’m leaving you to face that alone.”

I smiled sadly at her as the beast impatiently waited for me to finish up. “I’ll be me again before you know it,” I whispered, and with that, I settled into the back of my mind. The beast dropped Moira’s hands and settled her hands on her hips as she lifted her gaze to the Fae.

“Double cross us and I will kill him myself.” She jutted her chin towards Eugene, who swallowed thickly.

“My dear, if I lied, you wouldn’t know it until you stood on the other side of the veil.” His words were slippery sweet, but truthful. The Seelie raised his hand and the barrier between us lowered until the light coming from the binding fizzled out.

He lifted his slate colored hand across the space. There was a resolution there, in his eyes. A tautness to his face, a pallor to his skin. This Fae called Donnach was ready and would do anything to bring his people home.

Even make a deal with the devil.