My arms wrapped around air. Hot. Sweaty. But ultimately empty air.

I stopped where I stood and looked down at the spot where the beast and some rubrum had been. A sinking sensation in my gut said I’d fucked up. Not only had I been the one to release her from the wards and lose her the first time, I’d also been the one to deviate from the plan and fail a second time.

“Where is she?” Julian roared.

I didn’t flinch against the brutal thrust of power that swept through the room, searching for the missing she-demon. If they had been invisible, he would have found her, but the beast and the rubrum were not here. That almighty power that Julian released turned fraught and chaotic with the sharp bite of cold.

Demons hated the cold, but Julian embraced it.

I grit my teeth against his rage and kept a tight leash on my own power. If I let loose the sickness that ate away inside of me, the room of demons would die a very painful death and Julian would take it as challenge with the state he was in. All of our existence he’d been not just the strongest, but the most rational. Ever since we’d found Ruby, his controlling nature and tortured mind had begun to unravel. The beast walking out seemed to have brought out the worst in both of them, and while I had every intention of killing that rubrum with her when I found them—losing my temper would not be a wise idea.

So, I did what I was best at.

I dropped my arms and settled all of the darkness deep inside me where my brother couldn’t see it. I would go hunting when he was asleep to get it out of my system. I turned my face, hiding the emotions I had a more difficult time keeping from him. In his primal state, he wouldn’t even notice I was doing it. Ruby was the first who ever had.

“She’s gone, Julian. I went too early and she ran before Moira could even attempt to calm her down.” Honesty. It worked best for him in situations like this.

“She can’t just be gone,” he hissed.

The darker side of his magic clung to him more and more as the years went by, making him more like the beast than he ever would admit.

“We need to get the banshee and track her down before she goes too far.” That was my only reply before I turned my thoughts to Allistair. Before I could reach out to him, something smashed against my face. I turned and spat blood across the club floor. It mixed with the blood the beast had painted this place in, and the urge to kill someone filled me again. Harder to control this time, when I recognized my attacker.

“What the fuck was that?” Laran bellowed.

I popped my unhinged jaw back into place and gave him a level stare.

“I saw an opportunity and I took it—” He hit me again.

I coughed hoarsely, spewing droplets of blood across the damn place. On the other side of me, Julian didn’t say a fucking word, leaving me to deal with the anger of War alone. Maybe he wanted to hit me too, so this was him giving me a chance to at least fight back. I wouldn’t.

“Listen, mate,” I paused to rip out a tooth that was half hanging on by a chunk of gum. The new one was already pushing through. “I fucked up, but—”

His fist slammed into my face a third time, and I roared back in response. That tight hold I kept on myself strained for a moment, as my power itched to unleash an even worse fate on the hotheaded asshole. Pain like broken teeth and missing limbs were often easier for people to handle than a wasting sickness that ate them alive from within. I saw it every day with humans, and we demons—we were no different.

It took me a moment to recover from that one, staring at the shiny concrete floor, my face a mass of broken bone and flesh was healing rapidly. When I could move my lips I said, “Do not hit me again.”

It would be the only warning. He had the right to be pissed, and I would even grant him the first punch for breaking the plan and trying to talk to her myself. I thought I could fix what I had done. I was wrong, but I would only grant him so much before he got a taste of the rot that lurked within.

“You broke formation. Moira was moving in, and you spooked her.”

His fists were a pain that I could take. It was his words that cut me because I already knew it was my fault. That my actions blew the chance we had.

“Moira can still track her,” I said. Like she’d done a dozen times already, just for the beast to cause some kind of havoc and disappear before we even saw her.

“Actually…” a fourth voice interjected. Allistair stepped out from behind the stage. Moira wasn’t with him. “She can’t. After you blew the plan, the banshee decided that she was better off doing the job on her own.”

Fire and ice clashed as both Julian and Laran turned hostile.

“She said that?” Laran demanded.

“I believe her words were, if I want it done right, I should do it myself.”

“You let her leave.” Julian’s words were hardly more than a growl. His own sanity was beginning to fray at the edges.

“I attempted to persuade her to stay and she somehow redirected it. By the time I could break my own persuasion, she had decided flying was the best way to leave without me being able to follow.”

Fuck.

This just kept going from bad to worse. I knew the banshee was not thrilled with us, but I didn’t exactly expect her to follow through on her threats. Son of a bitch. If the beast gets both of her familiars, and is left unchecked, New Orleans will burn.

“There has to be another way to find her,” I said. “Something—someone that can track her—”

“We need more than just to be able to track her.” There was a dark note in Julian’s tone.

“We won’t be able to bind her if she has both of her familiars,” Allistair said.

“More than a binding,” Julian answered.

“Are you suggesting—” Allistair started, and there was a heavy warning in his voice. A flicker of unease, because what Julian wanted to do to her…not even I would be willing to face her ire when she found out. Ruby would forgive a lot, but this? Julian was too far gone.

“I am.”

He was going to get our girl back, no matter the cost.