She disappeared.

One minute she was standing next to me, sexy little smile lighting up her face, and the next minute she was gone. Someone was going to fucking pay for this, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

A barely-tempered fury pounded in my chest as I scanned the gambling tables. Imps of every shape and size, banshees of all colors, a Chupacabra here and there, even a few shades littered the crowd, but no Ruby. Her amaryllis and lavender scent filled the air, mixing with the pungent smoke of burning white lotus. White lotus: the drug of choice for most demons, and a far kinder version of the black lotus that was known for its…undesirable effects.

I left the gambling tables and searched the bar where I picked up the briefest hint of her. She was close, and yet, as I searched the entirety of the bar, I couldn’t find her anywhere. How the fuck did I lose her? The only person in the world I was created to protect?

This shit was unbelievable.

The itching inside me that something had gone terribly wrong sped up as I barreled toward the stairs. If I found her in one of these back rooms tied up like—I couldn’t even finish that thought. If she was up here, someone was going to die. I squared my jaw and kicked open the first door I saw.

A sallow-cheeked she-demon looked up at me and let out a purr while the male behind her continued pounding into her flesh. She was bent over a desk that had seen better days. Her feral grin and crooked finger she used to try to beckon me forward was not appetizing in the slightest. There was only one person I felt like slamming my cock into and it wasn’t the drugged-out whore before me. I didn’t bother with closing the door as I moved on to the following rooms. They were all much the same: she-demons with one or two males, and no Ruby.

I ran a hand through my hair as I paced the balcony overlooking the bar.

Where the fuck was she?

Nearly half an hour had passed since we walked into The Black Brothers and there was still no sign of her. Much longer and I was going to need to scour the grounds to see if someone snuck her out. I would have thought she would put up enough of a fight, but I didn’t get the vibe she was used to smoking white lotus, and the room itself was a hefty dose that left even the stronger demons slightly delirious.

She’s young. She hasn’t transitioned. What the fuck was I thinking bringing her here?

I took one last round of the bar before my patience ran out. She was here somewhere. I could smell it, but someone was glamoring her.

“Allistair, I need you to get your ass down to Black Brother’s. Ruby’s missing.”

Under any other circumstances, I would chew my own arm off before I called on one of the other Horsemen. Glamors weren’t my specialty, though, and there was no way I was calling on Julian for this. People always thought I was the biggest, baddest fucker around, but that’s only because they’d never seen Death in action. Truth be told, you were already a goner if you saw him lift a finger in a fight. His particular brand of subtly was not needed for this, and Rysten had already pissed me off too much this week. I didn’t know what state Ruby would be in when we found her, but I would rather place my pride on Allistair’s help than the doom-and-gloom twins.

“How the fuck did you lose her?” His response took longer than I’d hoped, given who we were talking about.

“Someone fucking glamored her and is hiding her underneath my nose. I need you to sniff the fucker out,” I snapped back.

“I’m on my way.” Thank the fucking devil for that. I needed him here yesterday.

I didn’t want to check the clock, but I knew the time was racking up. I gripped the railing, not noticing that I’d burned most of it away before I began to stumble over the edge. I pushed a gail of wind up from the floor below, and it hoisted me back onto the upper platform as parts of the broken railing fell on the poker table below. So much for keeping my cool.

I could burn the building down. Tear through it with a twister unlike any other. Flood it with rain that would drown half of the demons in this room. Even decimate it with an earthquake that would level all of Portland.

But Ruby was in here somewhere, and I needed to get my shit together until I found her.

Allistair came striding through the door in record time. Famine must have been staring at himself in the mirror when I reached out, given how quickly he got here. I was halfway down the stairs when his eyes locked on something. I hoped to Satan it was Ruby, because if it wasn’t, I would level the Black Brothers to the fucking ground.

“Laran,” Allistair said. The surrounding demons gave a wide berth when they realized who my friend was. I dropped my own glamor and the bar went silent. All except for one.

Allistair snapped his fingers, and disintegrated her glamor. Across the bar at the very first table I checked, was Ruby.

She was sitting on an imp’s lap, letting out breathy little gasps.

Air tunneled through the bar at my beck and call, winking out the fire that burned the lotus leaves. The imp’s hands crept tighter around her, pulling her supple skin closer to his body. The look on her face was dazed and confused.

He dared to conceal a claimed she-demon?

I saw red, and it was war.