The sun was peeking over the horizon when I stepped into the living room. An inch-thick glass wall was all that separated me from the wonders and dangers of New Orleans. Out there, somewhere, was the portal to Hell, but at the moment I had greater things to worry about. They came in the form of four dangerously seductive demons, who all happened to be waiting for me.

“You seem to be feeling better,” Allistair smirked from across the room. He sat shirtless, leaving the blue brand across his abdomen on display. His arm sprawled across the back of the long leather couch where a vacant seat was waiting between him and Rysten.

Damn him. He was no better than Laran. They both got far too much enjoyment out of this for the wrong reasons. On one hand, it made me want to throttle them. On the other…maybe Julian could use the prodding to make him sort through his shit…

“I am, thanks for asking,” I said, displaying a smirk of my own and crossing my arms over my chest. Instead of taking the waiting seat between them, or the one beside Laran, I veered straight for the single armchair. Bandit leapt on top of it, poising himself where he could simultaneously watch them and be petted.

“We need to discuss your transition,” Julian said, turning away from the cityscape. “Or more pertinently, how you would like to go about it.” Both his arms were clasped behind his back. He wore dark pants and a fitted long sleeve shirt, despite the New Orleans heat—then again, maybe it was just me burning up given how high the air conditioner was jacked. His jaw tensed, waiting for my answer. The picture of utter control.

“Ummm…” I drawled out. “I don’t know. Considering no one ever thought I would transition, I didn’t pay all that much attention to the house mothers at the orphanage…” My voice trailed off at the look he and Rysten were sharing. Allistair sighed deeply, and even Laran looked a bit uncomfortable.

“You have no idea what the transition entails?” Julian asked slowly.

I shook my head. “Not really. Theoretically, I know that I might gain some cool powers and I’ll stop aging, as for how…” I shrugged. “Like I said, I never thought I would.”

The room seemed to let out an audible sigh of frustration. Clearly the Horsemen had expected more than that. Expected more of me. It’s not like I signed up for this job, though. I had no idea until they showed up on my doorstep to drop the news. The awkward silence made me tense and I looked away as Moira came to sit on the other arm of my wide chair, throwing her arm around me. She smelled a bit like sweat and booze. Great.

“It might be a bit easier, love, if we started with your questions and worked from there,” Rysten suggested. His lips quirked up in an encouraging smile.

“Well…” I started when Moira decided to cut in.

“Let’s start with you Four Hobos.”

Did she really just call them that? Yep. Yes, she did.

“Her beast wants to claim all of you. Is there going to be any issues here? Because she’s all caught up on not wanting to take anyone’s choice away—”

“I think that’s enough, Moira,” I cut in. My eyes narrowed at her as she shrugged her slim shoulders.

“I’m tired. It’s six in the fricken’ morning and we’re holding an intervention. Someone had to break the ice.”

And you clearly appointed yourself in charge of that.

I think I went indigo from head to toe with the way the four of them were watching me. I moved my hands to my lap and twiddled my thumbs; behind me, Moira let out a groan.

“Is that what she really thinks?”

The words drifted through my mind. Sudden and without preamble.

Where had that come from?

I frowned.

“I would have branded her an hour ago if she was concerned where I stood.”

Okay. I know that wasn’t me. Something weird was going on here.

“Ruby, love, you are aware that harems are quite common in Hell, aren’t you?” Rysten asked, the first to break the silence as far as I could tell.

“Yeah,” I said. “But you guys aren’t normal demons. It’s not unreasonable to think that each of you might want your own harems one day…” I trailed off, feeling sheepish under the look Laran was giving me.

“She really doesn’t see herself the way we do.”

I perked my head up, trying to figure out where the voice came from, but no one spoke. This was getting kind of awkward…

“Being chosen by the beast is the greatest honor we could receive—” Rysten started kindly.

“I don’t give a damn about honor, Rysten. I need to know what you guys want. Each of you.” I swallowed hard and looked at each of their faces. Julian: stoic. Rysten: thoughtful. Allistair: flirtatiously seductive. Laran: intense, as always. He sat shirtless, twin pentagrams already branded on his shoulders.

“I’m sorry I branded you. Both of you”—I cut my eyes between him and Allistair—“without talking first. I never would have—”

Laran moved, rising to his feet. The low-slung jeans on his hips did naughty things to me, but it was his imposing stare that kept me transfixed as he crossed the living room. He came to kneel before me and rested his large hands over mine. Bandit inched forward, rubbing himself against Laran and let out a purr.

“Never apologize for branding me. I would not have it any other way. You are my mate, Ruby Morningstar. Now and forever.” The sincerity of his words made my blood rush. A slow, steady tempo building in my head. My heart. My body. It thrummed with power. Heat.

“Laying it on a little thick there, War?” another voice whispered unceremoniously.

Laran’s teeth clenched oh so slightly, but they did. Could he hear it too?

“Ruby, you must understand that it is not our place, nor anyone’s, to brand you first. Just as no other but you would be able to brand us. That is how things work in our world,” Allistair inserted, lazily watching the scene between me and Laran.

His feelings felt different, though. While not jealous, he was…possessive. Not so dark or dangerous as the way I felt it from Julian, but I got the distinct impression he wanted to be doing very bad things with me right now. Maybe it was better he wasn’t on his knees expressing his undying devotion like Laran.

“You are Lucifer’s daughter. For us to claim you before you and the beast choose us…it would be presumptuous, at best, and a deadly insult, at worst. Think about what the beast would do if another male were to claim you now. Would she allow it?” he asked me already knowing the answer.

Outside of them? No. No, neither of us would. I shook my head.

“Precisely,” he sighed. “We have not claimed you because we’re waiting to be chosen. Not because we want a harem of our own. I think I speak for us all when I say that,” Allistair continued pointedly. I didn’t miss the sly glance he shot at Julian whose true emotions were hidden behind an impenetrable mask.

“You already know how I feel, love. If not for it being your first feed, I would have gladly taken Allistair’s place,” Rysten added.

The warm fuzzy feeling in me spread. The beast appreciated their devotion, but she was still a bit irked by Julian’s lack of response. The way she saw it, she chose him, and he was pushing against her dominance as a mate. I wish I could back away slowly with both hands raised, but that’s not exactly possible when two beings occupied one body.

“Her first feed?” Moira interrupted, pulling me back from the perilously close edge I hadn’t realized I’d approached. The beast was trying to lure me back so she could come forward again.

“The first time a succubus or incubus feed, we need more kama,” Allistair explained. “Our own kind produces more than another demon, and demons produce more than humans. Ruby could have fed from one of them the first time, but they would have been severely depleted.” He cocked an eyebrow at me, and I pursed my lips. Was that admiration on his face? Pride?

“Or died. Given how she fed she may have actually killed one of them, but fuck that would have been some way to die. Her mouth wrapped around my cock was—”

Two fingers grasped my chin, pulling me forward. I turned my head and met Laran’s insistent stare.

“We were created to be your equals. For us, that meant that no other female would be ours. Even if you did not claim us, we would never have our own harems. That’s not how we were made,” he said in complete and utter seriousness. That was War for you. Not a man of many words, but the few he said were profound. At least to me.

“That doesn’t mean you have to choose this…or that all of you want it,” I finished, turning my eyes to the only one who had yet to speak. The one I currently couldn’t read. The real core of this problem. “Do you?”

Julian stared at me with the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. They were a shade of green so deep and vibrant that I could try for a hundred years and still wouldn’t get the color just right. But for all their beauty, they were incredibly cold. Like death...

“I want to keep you safe,” Julian said evenly.

“That’s not what I asked.”

His words were a chip to my heart, but I wouldn’t show it. They gave me every other part of themselves freely. I would not demand this from them. From him. The beast be damned. I would not tie him to me if he didn’t want that.

Even if the other three did. Even if this would cause issues for years to come.

For centuries. I still wouldn’t do it.

I wouldn’t take his choice away.

“He’s a fucking idiot—”

“Can’t he pull his head out of his ass for two fucking seconds—”

“He’s not fooling any—”

I pulled away sharply, breaking Laran’s grip on my chin to shake my head.

What was going on? No one’s lips were moving. No one was speaking. Was I going crazy?

Was I hearing voices?

“Ruby, babe…” Moira said, sliding away from the arm of the chair.

Panic flooded me at the loss of contact. I hadn’t realized how much she was holding me together. How much her exhausted state of calm was keeping the burning at rest. My hand whipped out, faster than lightning. I wrapped my fingers around hers, pulling her to her knees before me with a flick of my wrist.

She hit the ground about as gracefully as could be expected, shoving Laran on her way down.

“What’s up? Talk to me, Rubes,” Moira murmured, raising a small green hand to my cheek. She hadn’t called me that in years, and now three times in one day?

Embers flared inside of me. They drifted through my veins, catching fire where they went, and I was helpless against it. Hopeless to stop myself as power surged within me.

So far, every gift I had developed was deadly.

The flames of Hell.

Soul shredding.

Feeding.

What would be next? What personal hell would fate cook up to test me?

How much could I take before I broke apart at the seams?

How hot could I burn before the world caught fire with me?

I wasn’t sure, but the sweltering fever that was coming on again didn’t leave me all that confident.

“So…hot…” I breathed, the words shaking as I said them.

The room seemed to look almost…glassy? Like when you stood outside on a day that was hot as hell and stared into the distance. The way it almost smeared together as the sun cooked the very earth.

But we were inside. In December.

Which meant…

“Can you hear me, Ruby?” Moira asked, a tenor of worry in her voice.

I don’t know when or how, but suddenly everyone was there. Allistair was at my left. Rysten at my right. Laran kneeled beside Moira, and Julian stood right in front, assessing the situation with a clinical gaze if I ever saw one.

“The transition is speeding up,” he murmured.

“Do we move her—”

What’s going on?

“She’s heating the room, Julian—”

Where are these voices coming from?

“Something’s coming—”

What’s coming? Why isn’t anyone answering me?

“She’s starting to lose it—”

I clasped my hands over my ears and let out a choked cry.

“What is she doing?”

Can’t they hear me?

“Do you think it’s—”

“Stop!” I shouted. A wave of power flashed through the room and the glass warbled. Fire ignited at my fingertips where I held Moira’s hand, but she held tight as it inched up my bare arms.

“Rubes, I need you to talk to me…” Moira trailed off as I raised my head and pulled her to me. Acting without thinking, I did the only thing that felt right in that moment.

I kissed her.

Never in my life had I felt anything sexual toward Moira, and this was no different. But a sudden burning desire to lay one on her filled me with a compulsion I couldn’t control. I coaxed her lips apart with ease and breathed, exhaling the swirling tempest out of my chest and into her. I didn’t understand what was going on. Why the power within was trying to claw its way out of me into anything. Into her.

Her lips pressed closed with a finality and I pulled away.

What the—

Of course, that’s when she screamed—and I don’t just mean any normal banshee scream. This was the sound of raw, undiluted pain.

And the very foundation itself trembled.

“Moira!” I cried, reaching out to her again. I didn’t understand what had possessed me to do that, but the moment our skin made contact, the screaming died instantly, like someone cut her vocal cords.

She collapsed inward, her dark green hair spilling across my lap. I brushed my hand over her, my fingers snagging on something warm.

“What the—” I broke off as I turned her head.

Two tiny flaming horns poked out of her head, black and blue swirls coming together and solidifying in seconds, like the flames had frozen and been given form. They couldn’t have been larger than two inches, but they were hard as stone and wicked sharp.

“Horns,” Rysten whispered.

“And wings,” Allistair added dryly.

I turned my gaze to the massive pair of flaming blue wings, slumped over like the girl whose back they were attached to. Veins of cobalt and indigo colored the strands of fire. Sections of dark flame moved through them, seemingly shifting and turning while still maintaining shape.

But her wings…they did not solidify.

They burned.

I reached out, brushing my hands over the hot strands, but felt no heat.

“How is this possible?” I whispered, fighting to regain control of the situation. Moira had wings—and horns—although the latter wasn’t terribly surprising. I always knew she had them, but now the rest of the world could see it too.

“It’s hard to say,” Allistair murmured. “But if I had to guess, you might have inherited more abilities from Lola than we initially thought. Your mother could imbue objects with magic.”

“Imbue with magic?” I asked, fighting the bristling that was running down my spine and the beast’s cool gaze. That bitch knew what was going to happen to Moira. She knew, and she didn’t give a damn.

If anything, she waited, sulking in the back of my mind until the pressure became too much. She allowed the power that had been lying dormant in me to unleash suddenly and violently, knowing how I would react because she knew me better than anyone. Even myself.

I wanted to hate her, but hating the entity that lives within me wouldn’t help anyone. We’re a package deal. Even if she branded all of them without asking, just to further her own selfish desires. Cunt.

“Imbuing is using your own power to alter something, or in your case, someone. Lola used to create weapons that could do things I have never seen. You pushed Moira through the entire transition in seconds. She won’t be just a half-demon anymore…” I brushed my hand over her forehead, Allistair’s voice falling short at what we saw.

“Is that what I think it is?” I didn’t want to ask, but I had to. I was terrified at what it meant, because I’d only heard of a mark like this once.

“The horned helmet never lies,” Julian replied.

A horned helmet with two black wings.

A brand. Moira had a brand.

But not just any brand.

“She’s a legion,” Rysten said in disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Suddenly the beast’s smugness made a lot more sense. We didn’t just give her horns and wings of flame. We’d made her damn near untouchable, because a legion bore the mark of Cain.

Yet another thing that humans fudged across time. I guess that’s what happens when immortal beings come to a mortal planet and conquer. Eve was sent here as punishment by her sister, Lilith and Lilith’s lover, big daddy Lucifer. She had turned on them in the war between immortals at the dawn of time. The whys and hows have never been clear, partly because Eve started to lose her mind once on earth. She fucked anything and everything that could walk, sometimes killing the men in the process. Across all of that, she had only ever bore three sons. Seth, who disappeared and was never heard from again. Abel, who died. And Cain, who killed him.

The bible leaves out that Eve had commanded him to do it. She claimed to have had a vision of a horned helmet with black wings, and should one of her children offer up a worthy sacrifice, they would be gifted with this mark.

Only Cain was willing to listen and find out.

Since then, the mark had shown up again only a handful of times across history. It was legendary, because it was real. Cain had gone on to slay many demons. After impregnating as many women as possible, he ventured to Hell. He was the first and only Seelie to do so.

He also never came back out.

The mark of Cain appeared only in exceptional circumstances to those truly willing to do anything and everything for a goal. A purpose. Cain was the only Fae known to bear it, but there were whispers of children marked by blood or rune magic in an attempt to see if it held. If it could be recreated. It was said that any who bore this mark returned pain sevenfold.

I didn’t know if that was true.

But what I did know was that for all intents and purposes, my best friend and familiar just got a hell of a lot harder to kill.

Unfortunately, I was the one that did this to her because whatever powers I had were running rampantly out of control. Judging by the Horsemen’s pained expressions, they had already come to that conclusion.

“It was an accident.”

I seemed to be saying that a lot nowadays. Despite having the Four Horsemen, Bandit, and Moira at my side—I couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble. Or stop setting shit on fire.

And judging by the beast’s shit-eating grin, she wasn’t about to stop anytime soon.

On the contrary, she was just getting started.