I stood in front of the darkened alley. Last time we were here I thought the beast crazy. Sure, I had wanted to free the Fae, something I fully planned on doing once Le Dan Bia were taken care of—but I hadn’t had the guts to really stomach what went down below the streets of New Orleans. Monsters in the night. The things that made even demons afraid.

Yes, I hadn’t been prepared before.

This time I was.

Julian held his hand out for mine, and Death and I walked into the shadows like two old friends. The heat of my transition didn’t burn within me as sorrow weighed on my soul. Only ashes and darkness.

Desolation and destruction.

Rage…and desperation.

A scream split the air the moment we stepped back into existence.

A scream that hit me square in the chest. My heart thudded and a sheen of sweat broke across my skin as I took her in. Demons of every kind swarmed. They poured from the walls and the shadows. They sent spikes of poison and souls of the dead. They mounted at every point of the room, to attack.

And Moira, she wasn’t locked up like some caged animal.

She stood at the center of it all. Wings of fire snapped from her back and the brand on her forehead glowed. A determined glint lit her brilliant blue eyes as she assessed the demons coming for her. There had to be hundreds, and the only thing keeping her alive was that there were so many—too many for them to effectively attempt to dispatch her.

Well, that and her scream.

They ran for her and from her, but none could touch her. Anything that came within ten feet found itself exploding in the weight of her sonic scream. The demons began crushing each other as the makings of a stampede began. Moira launched herself into the air, soaring straight to the ceiling.

How she had survived even a moment down here was beyond me, but I would make sure it wasn’t for nothing.

Above us, a portal of fire licked at the ceiling. The flames burned a deep orange and red. The demons below shouted obscenities, but nothing they said could prevent Laran and Allistair from falling through.

They landed with a boom and the real fighting took off. That was our signal. Our time to move.

I willed the fire to life as an extension of myself and my hands lit up. The demon nearest us didn’t have time to react until he was burning, and by then it was already too late. He dropped to the floor in agony that would continue until the flames ate every bit of him from inside out.

Did he play a part in Bandit’s death?

I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

Acting without remorse, I flung the fire wide around me. It inched its way up my arms a little higher, a little hotter, as bodies exploded in clouds of black glitter.

One after another they met a horrible end by my hand, so fast that the air didn’t even smell like burnt flesh. Only sweat and blood and agony. Because they’d put me in a blind rage that I could not and would not contain.

Someone grabbed me from behind and I sent an elbow back into their throat. The weight trying to pull me disappeared instantly as I turned and flung another wave of power.

In my dreams I had done this and more quite easily. I destroyed an entire cabin and parts of a forest without realizing it. But that kind of fire didn’t come from this kind of raw pain. Every one of them was another slice to my chest that I could not seem to heal. Someone here had killed Bandit. Maybe more, but I’d never know who. I’d never be able to pick them out and make their pain last longer. Make them fear their death whilst they looked me in the eyes.

For all I knew, the person responsible died by War’s wrath, a single swing of an axe and they would be beheaded for good. Or maybe it would be Rysten, who infected them from the inside out, festering deadly diseases that ate their bodies faster than any poison could. Allistair’s methods better suited my tastes for revenge, the way he walked without lifting a finger and bodies dropped. He sucked the emotions from them like a leech. Stronger than any incubus, he left them with nothing. No sense of self. No cognizance of life. They simply fell to the ground with eyes wide open. It should have disturbed me, but it wasn’t so different from what one does when their soul dies. They felt a pain and loss so deep that they often couldn’t even scream, and then there was nothing. My fire eating at them was probably a relief and I hated that. I hated that no matter what I did, it didn’t make it better.

Killing them didn’t make it better. Letting them live wouldn’t make it better.

Nothing could fix this broken hole inside of me where Bandit should have been.

With that thought, the fire inside died out. I turned with my heart only half in it, and maybe that’s why I wasn’t surprised by what came next. I wasn’t shocked by the ripple of pain that spread through me, not so great that it could overrun the emotional state I was in, but strong enough to eat through the adrenaline.

From above, a banshee screamed, and I looked up, expecting the pain to not be mine, but hers. The thought filled me with true terror, until I saw that she was fine and well. She glided to a stop, her flaming wings flicking embers into the mob below. She was dressed in the same clothes she’d been in the night Julian took me. Blood flecked at her feet and shins, but her skin was unmarred. She was untouched.

So, what had caused her to scream in such anguish?

My eyes fluttered as I worked to draw my gaze up to her face.

Now I saw the absolute horror that had made her scream.

…it was me.

I stumbled forward, following her line of site—straight to the spike sticking out of my stomach.

I swallowed hard.

Not good. This was not good.

I had taken out demon upon demon this night, but a spike slipped through. One that undoubtedly belonged to a chupacabra. Their venom was poison to demons. Not enough to kill the immortal, but enough to seriously injure.

And me? Was I immortal yet?

I didn’t know.

My head spun with the horrible truth, but I could not bring myself to simply stand here and wait to die. Despite the exhaustion creeping in, I willed the fire forward. More. Faster.

It burst forth from my chest in a wave of unprecedented power, spreading outward. It crawled up the walls and onto the floors as I used everything I had to incinerate the entire damn building.

One way or another, I was ending this. My knees shook disjointedly as I took another step forward. It seemed that my body no longer wanted to support me. In fact, I no longer seemed in control of it at all.

The world tilted on an axis. My vision faltered. My legs failed.

I only briefly registered the crack that rang in the air. Was that my head? My darkening vision led me to believe so.

Was this it? Was tearing apart Le Dan Bia all I accomplished as Hell’s Heir?

Somehow that seemed like a crock of shit.

What was the point of being some precious heir if you couldn’t ever do anything?

I swore to myself then and there, that if I lived, I was embracing this destiny. That if I survived…I would wipe out the evil in both worlds on my path to the throne.

And as the darkness closed, I prayed that if this was the end, I would find Bandit on the other side. That we would go wherever comes next together. And that the Horsemen—however misguided they were—found peace and happiness. That they didn’t blame themselves. That Julian wouldn’t succumb to guilt. That Rysten would hold onto his humanity. That Laran would trust again. That Allistair wouldn’t try to drink himself into oblivion.

That Moira didn’t blame herself.

The darkness wrapped around me, and that tendril of shadow and night held me close.

But even deep in the recesses of my mind, I heard it.

I heard a monster roar.