I asked to see Moira for the hundredth time.

For the hundredth time, they said no.

“She’s fine, love. Let her sleep it off,” Rysten said.

I grumbled in response, leaning against the bed and ignoring the wall of instruments that had been taunting me for the last twelve hours. Shortly after Moira collapsed, they moved me back to my warded room, no matter how many times I protested. Eventually, Julian ordered War to move me whether I liked it or not.

Laran threw me over his shoulder and dropped my ass on the bed and he and Rysten had been watching over me since.

What they didn’t realize was that the beast was pissed with them for it.

And so very close to the surface.

Julian had riled our anger, and very soon he was going to pay the consequences for that.

“Careful, Pestilence. She almost persuaded you that time.”

Had I? I hadn’t noticed?

It didn’t take long being stuck in here with them to realize the voices I was hearing were not voices at all, but thoughts. Their thoughts.

“She’s growing stronger. This bloody room is hotter than the fourth providence.”

So it wasn’t just me. That’s nice. If they wanted to be assholes and lock me in here, at least they were sweating it out too.

“She has fire in her veins. I expected nothing less.”

How was it that War’s internal voice could make me shiver? My cheeks warmed and I turned away, but not fast enough.

“Something wrong, love?” Rysten asked. He stood by the door, trying his best to look at ease and not like a guard. He failed.

“Nothing, I just—”

“Ruby, you’re a terrible liar.”

Oh crap. I could come clean that I’d been hearing their thoughts, and let’s be honest, they were bound to find out soon enough. But it was nice having insight into the things they wouldn’t normally tell me. For all I knew they had a way to turn it off, and I’d rather hear them than sit in silence like they thought I had been doing.

“Um—well—you see—”

Rysten lifted his eyebrows, a grin forming on his lips. Still, I don’t know what persuaded me to say what I did next.

“I have to take a shit.”

I couldn’t believe I had just said that.

Just when I was going to retract my statement, my beast mentally shoved hard, not vying for control, but throwing me off-kilter long enough that by the time I looked up, Rysten had a tinge of pink on his cheeks.

“Oh, I see…” he trailed off, looking to Laran for help.

War sat in the lone armchair on the other side of the room because he was trying to keep his hands off me. Apparently, I smelled good.

“Should I let her go to the bathroom?” Rysten asked silently.

“If she has to shit, then she has to shit,” Laran shrugged.

“Maybe I should ask Julian…”

Really? Now that irked the hell out of me. He didn’t know I didn’t actually need the bathroom, but he was going to ask Julian if I could go?

I bent, clasping my stomach. My motions were more guided by the beast than I wanted to admit. “I really gotta go, Rysten,” I groaned. His decision wavered. “Unless you want me to shit on the floor...”

Rysten stepped into a shadow and disappeared. The next moment the door cracked open and he waved me forward.

“For the record, love, that’s disgusting. Next time just say you need to go.”

Isn’t that what I started with? May as well make use of the opportunity…

As soon as I crossed through the ward, I knew something was up, but it wasn’t until I closed the bathroom door behind me that I knew what.

“I’m right outside the door if you need me,” Rysten called. I loudly grunted my response as I placed my hands on the bathroom sink.

A shudder ran through me.

What was that?

I stilled, pressing a hand to my chest. Nothing.

I breathed a heavy sigh and moved to use the bathroom.

Instantly, my stomach twisted in hard knots as a second shudder ran through me. I cried out once, leaning against the counter for support.

I had never been one to suffer from extreme cramps. Even my time of month was mild compared to Moira. But this was something else. I’d never felt a pain that wrapped around your insides and pulled like it was trying to tear apart every muscle.

I gasped in mouthfuls of air, but the reprieve didn’t last long. A splicing sensation ripped through me, running straight from the apex of my thighs to the brand on my chest. It left a searing pain trailed by pleasure as it rammed into my sternum.

The pentagram pulsed. Once. Twice. Like a tidal wave it gathered its strength, building deep inside me, pulling from every essence of my being.

Laran had said I had fire in my veins. He wasn’t wrong.

Those very veins lit up beneath my skin, casting me in an eerie light blue inside the semi-dark bathroom. My brand pulsed faster beneath my shirt, the outline showing up through the thin cotton tank top. I brushed my fingers against the fabric where it connected with my skin, and the brand flashed brighter. It began spinning beneath my shirt and an awful gut-wrenching feeling filled me.

This was it.

My shirt caught fire, erupting in a brilliant blaze that disintegrated not even a moment later. Heat engulfed me as I stumbled back from the bathroom counter. Head pounding. Heart beating. My knees hit the floor with a bang as flashing lights danced before my eyes.

Black. White. Blue.

The flames of Hell.

Banging.

I could hear banging in the distance as the Horsemen called to me.

It was too late for that. Too late for me.

Wrapped in a cocoon of flame and fire and ash, my conscience wavered.

I could feel it, my power approaching this crest as the tidal wave within swept through me. It built so far, so fast, that when the beast took my hand, I was glad. She could control it. She could get us through this when I couldn’t.

Because there was no way I could possibly control what was coming.

Moira was just the beginning, and there was a hell of a lot more inside me where that came from. I saw a vision: a flaming girl with a crown of charred bones, sitting above a blackened city.

The Horsemen thought they could control me. They thought they were ready for me.

They thought wrong.

This was a pivotal moment where I could decide what part of me took control in transition.

But we both knew who I would choose when it came down to it.

We both knew what was coming.

My beast and I stepped into the flames of my soul together. We felt the immense power that lay there.

Power beyond what this world knew.

It didn’t belong here.

We didn’t belong here.

And in that moment, the future of both worlds was hanging by a single thread.

Because when it snapped, I would never be the same again.

“I will do what must be done,” she whispered to me.

I believed her.

Maybe that was my first mistake. Maybe the fire and the heat had really gotten to me.

Or maybe it was what needed to be done for me to survive.

For Hell to survive.

Either way I would never know, because I wrapped my arms around her and the thread ignited.

And then we fell.

Fell into the flaming pits of my own self, where I would rise again.

Not as the half-breed I always thought myself to be.

But as the queen I must become.

When my eyes opened, they were not blue, but black.

I had hit the transition.

The bathroom door blew open. With her head bowed she could not see who, but she knew. She always knew. The beast was so much cleverer than they gave her credit for.

They thought her wild and savage, but they failed to see how much she loved her games.

She raised her head to the Four Horsemen. Her mates.

Though one of them had yet to see it.

No matter.

They stared at her with a challenge and she smiled wickedly.

It was time to play.