He flicked his fingers and sparks shot from the tips. The beast eyed the Seelie warily, but he’d dropped the barrier. He’d explained what was to come. He’d sworn on rune magic to do us no harm except in defense, and he hadn’t made the beast swear the same.

I wasn’t sure if it was stupidity, arrogance, or something else entirely.

I’d never seen someone work so fast. His fingers flew through the motions, as if playing piano in the air. Red, swirly shit appeared everywhere he touched. The glowing marks didn’t make much sense to me, but after a few seconds of nothing happening, I felt it.

He stopped, lowering his hands. There was a massive whoosh like we’d stepped into a vacuum and the marks shone brighter, becoming more intense as they moved to converge. The air crackled with power as the magic formed an incandescent orb. The sheer force that radiated from it unsettled the beast. The thing sucked in all the magic from the air, pulling physical objects toward it. A couple of books came flying out of their piles and ended up being absorbed in the damn thing as it nearly tripled in size before exploding outward. A portal six-feet in diameter snapped into place.

On one side stood the beast, Moira, Bandit, Eugene, and the Seelie. On the other, separated only by a thin film of red magic—a dark street leading towards a shadowed alley.

In truth, I didn’t understand a lot about how their magic worked. I’d only heard snippets here and there growing up, but to my understanding, runes—or brands as I knew them—held power. Power the Seelie could tap, just as the Unseelie used blood. They were old magic. Older than any demons I knew of, including the Horsemen. I kept those thoughts to myself as the beast walked forward, toeing the edge of the portal.

The entrance to the underground fighting ring.

“If this is a set-up, harvester, you will be sorry,” the beast warned. Although he had sworn up and down not all Seelie were out to kill our kind, the beast was less forgiving and more irritated with him than I.

“Duly noted, child,” he replied, putting just enough sneer into his voice that the beast’s fingers twitched with the desire to backhand him.

Without any formal goodbye or even a glance at Eugene, the beast stepped through the portal. For a moment, her movements were sluggish as the magic strained against her skin, simulating the feeling of moving through water. With a pop, it broke, and she crossed over, stepping onto dry pavement. Bandit shook himself like a wet dog and began grooming his paws while the beast waited for Moira.

She didn’t take long. Coughing and spluttering, she stumbled through the portal, her right wing smacking into Bandit. He let out a cry of dismay and jumped to the ground. He ran at her and bit her pinky finger, jumping away before she could swat at him.

“Ow! Little asshole, what the fuck is wrong with—”

“Come.” The beast leaned over and he hauled himself up onto her shoulder again as she strode into the night. Moira let out a slew of curses behind them but followed after.

Above them, the skies looked tumultuous. Thick clouds blotted out every star, reflecting back the lights of the city in a red haze that lit the midnight streets of New Orleans.

She walked down the broken sidewalk, stepping around the chunks of concrete and smashed beer bottles. She didn’t even cringe as the tiny shards of glass cut her feet. In front of her, the alley loomed. Tall. Imposing. With the red haze in the sky, she should have been able to see down it. An umbrella of dark magic and midnight covered it entirely, hiding away what lay below—unless you knew it was there.

Together they made their way forward, stepping through the veiled murkiness. Her foot felt something smooth. Another, but this one was lower. Stairs. They were going down stairs. She continued, taking the lead as they descended further, and the path slimmed. She still couldn’t see anything apart from the glow from Moira’s wings, but she could feel it. Feel the dark magic around her. Feel Bandit as he clung to her, quietly mewling with displeasure. The beast ran a hand through his fur, soothing him, and my raccoon purred.

At the very bottom, they stopped, and Moira lifted a quivering hand to knock twice. The sound reverberated through her bones, echoing up the stairway.

“Are you certain you can handle this?” the beast asked softly into the dark night.

“Too late to turn back now,” Moira grunted. Her heart was hammering so loud even we heard it.

The door swung open, and a tall male zeroed in on Moira, assessing her with interest before turning his predatory eyes on us. The beast stared back without emotion, impassive as always. Time for that moment of truth. Did the Seelie deceive us? Or was it really going to be just that simple?

The yellow-eyed chupacabra stepped back and held the door open, silently letting us pass. From behind him, music thrummed with a steady beat and a mix of alcohol, sweat, and blood wafted in the air, luring the beast into the underground shithole with the promise of violence and booze. Can’t say I faulted her thinking as she roughly shoved past him, lightly casting him aside with a push of her hand as he tried to crowd toward her. I doubt he even noticed the exotic pull my body held over him. All the better that she tossed his ass around to snap him out of it. We weren’t here for sex. If that’s what she wanted, we had four mates just dying to get a location on us.

The beast walked into the bar like a guy with a big dick in the locker room. You know the type. She strutted in as if she owned the place and heads turned.

Behind her, Moira’s chest had gone into overdrive. Fear. Anger. Hurt. Pain. She wasn’t handling this. She wasn’t coping. Her distress made the beast hesitate, and Bandit dug his claws into her. Blue blood dripped down her shoulder as a painful clarity cut through her mind, allowing her to separate our emotions and Moira’s. Several male demons, imps by the looks of them, decide to try coming up to us. Bandit bared his teeth at them and let out a hiss, even when they switched to approaching Moira who was only just starting to break through her own paralyzing fear.

The beast grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her forward, ignoring the curious onlookers. This was a bad idea. Really, quite awful actually. Why did I think bringing Moira here was a good idea to begin with?

I didn’t. I listened to the word of a hunter and let my own judgement be colored by a sob story. I wanted to protect my crown and stand up for what’s right. But look where it got us.

The beast shook her head at my doubts and second-guessing. We had come this far, and she was going to do what we set out to do.

The concrete flooring was discolored. Stained in shades of brown and blue.

Blood. It was stained with blood.

To her left, the floor dropped off with nothing but a pathetically weak rail to prevent people from going over the edge and into the hell below. Blood and dirt smeared the walls down there and something let out a terrible screech of pain. Bandit instantly began growling. This place even made him nervous. He didn’t like being here, so out in the open like. It made him…uneasy.

And all I could think about was that Moira had told us. She’d warned us of the kind of evil that lurks in places like this. In clans like Le Dan Bia.

We didn’t want to listen.

But we were here now, and despite the paralyzing fear within her and the anxiety Bandit was now giving off, both her and the beast had every intention of showing them that we won’t tolerate this.

The place itself stank of piss and death. How anyone could keep a child down here…yeah, the beast was going to knock some heads in before we left. She wasn’t going to be complacent with this kind of behavior. Neither of us would.

She continued towards the bar in the back, well away from the pit and fighting that went on below. She walked right up to it like she wasn’t dragging Moira behind her, and slapped her hand on the sticky surface, ignoring the pungent odor around us. The male behind the bar turned as he finished lighting a joint. Instantly, the scent of white lotus hit us, sharpening the need in our core. The beast grimaced, eyes flicking to the burning end as it exploded in his face. He jumped back, moving to drop it, but it had already disintegrated into nothing more than black dust.

His dark eyes flicked from the wasted lump of ash in his hand to our face, growing angrier by the second. Fangs slid into place and he lunged to grab our hand. The beast moved faster. Releasing Moira, she grabbed a half empty beer bottle from the demon standing two feet over—and smashed it on his skull. Stale beer spilled over the shade that thought to hurt her, splattering her own form. Bandit leapt at him, attaching himself with great vigor to the demon’s face. He stumbled back, hitting the wall before regaining his senses.

He moved to grab Bandit and she let out a shrill whistle. My raccoon disengaged, tearing one of the barman’s eyeballs out as he jumped away. The painful scream rivaled that of the creature in the pit below, and Bandit only barely avoided the swipe of a clawed hand as he landed on the bar in a hissing pile of fur. The beast held out her arm and he climbed up, reaffirming his place as he glared at the now one-eyed demon.

I hoped she knew what she was doing, because the last time we left a one-eyed demon hanging around, he tried to kill me, and almost killed Moira. The beast laughed, cold and callous, as she sent his body up in flames.

The demons around us jumped back, only now realizing the predator that walked in their midst. She held the broken neck of the beer bottle in one hand as a makeshift weapon and a globe of fire in the other.

“We were supposed to come in under the radar,” I glowered at her.

“This place reeks of perversion. They must be taught a lesson.”

Devil-damnit. Every fucking time I thought she had the right idea going, she turned around and pulled something like this. Every fucking time.

“You better keep Moira and Bandit safe,” I snapped at her, not wanting to distract her too much.

“I always do,” she replied, seemingly unperturbed by my frustration.

Crazy psycho bitch.

She almost grinned at that comment. Of course she would. Only crazy people found it amusing to be called so.

“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” the demon from the door said as he walked to the front of the crowd, no longer as appraising as he’d been.

Good. That will make this easier—wait a minute—was that her thinking? Or was it me?

Oh fucking hell. This whole sharing a body thing was really screwing with me.

“Who I am, matters not. I’ve come for the Seelie you stole.”

“It’s her!”

For fuck’s sake. Could we not catch a break here?

“That’s Lucifer’s spawn and the legion.”

Moira stiffened and blinked. She lifted her head, and when she looked at them she saw shadows. I didn’t need to ask to know what they represented to her. What this place represented to her. I had come to peace with my past, but Moira never had.

She had never needed to, until now.

“Interesting,” the chupacabra from the door said. “You kill Creag Le Dan Bia and then return for the hunters. I can’t see any daughter of Lucifer being a Seelie sympathizer.” The demon looked at her for a long moment, and then he looked to the others in the room. “What do you have to say about that, lads?” It was only then that she noticed the vicious grin on his lips. “Do we have ourselves a fake?”

Several of them regarded the fire she held in one hand, but clearly it didn’t scare them enough. She’d taken on demons twice her size the last week when standing up for the weak and abused, but a hundred demons? Maybe more? Even I wasn’t sure she could handle that many. That we hadn’t grown overconfident in ourselves and only just realized the hole we dug. While some feared the power she held, others seemed completely unperturbed by the fact she’d killed one of their own with little thought.

Savages.

I had thought it, but Moira said it. She spat the word from her mouth like venom and snapped her wings open in all their glory.

“Savages, you say,” he mused, smiling with very pointed teeth. “Darling, you haven’t seen savage if this scares you.” He lifted a hand and snapped his fingers.

Three demons came forward in a bid to grab us and the beast let out a growl.

“Touch her and you’re fucking dead.”

She stilled.

We knew that voice.

That cold whisper of Death.

“Oh thank fuck,” Moira breathed.

The beast swung her head around looking for the source, but she saw nothing except unfamiliar faces. Then the brand on our chest began to burn—and I mean burn. It sizzled with a sharp all-consuming pain that almost felt like pleasure as it spread throughout her body. The three demons paused, also looking for the source of the threatening voice—only to come up dry.

They took another three steps toward me before coming to a violent halt. One by one, their skin blackened from the inside out. The whites of their eyes turned blue before exploding.

I’d seen that happen only once before. Most shades were not skilled enough to do that much damage to someone’s system. However, Pestilence was not most shades.

He’d killed Josh with as little effort. These three assholes were nothing—and while it likely wouldn’t kill them—they wouldn’t be able to heal from this kind of damage for hours.

That meant hours writhing in agony.

I rather liked that thought, even if another lance of red hot pain was shooting through our body. The beast blinked, just as confused as I about what was going on—and the next thing I knew, it wasn’t her staring out of my eyes—but me.

What in Satan’s name—

I didn’t even have the time to finish my thoughts before someone grabbed me from behind. To my credit, the beast was not the only one that had some cool moves. Armed with a broken beer neck, I let my adrenaline take over as I twisted to the side and slashed out.

Cold blue ichor hit my face as I severed the demon’s carotid artery.

The only problem was that this was not just any demon.

It was Death. He’d found me.

And right now, he looked pissed as hell that I tried to kill him. Again.

All bravery left me as I turned to run—but Julian was smarter than that. He wasn’t letting anyone get me out of here this time.

Julian grabbed my hips roughly, slinging me over his shoulder. I didn’t even register him moving before we stepped into the shadows and all sounds of the brawl taking place behind me receded.

The beast had wanted to court Death. She liked playing games.

Once again, I somehow got stuck paying the price because the bitch got her wish.

Me.

Him.

And if the sudden change in temperature was any indication, nowhere to go for miles.