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My name was the last thing she said. Her eyes glazed over and her body went still. She stopped breathing. Still conscious, she was now trapped inside her paralyzed body, suffocating in agonized silence.

All across Abyssos, demons would be dropping like flies.

I wrenched my gaze from Lana’s glassy, doll-like face—Christ, it hurt to look at her—and my own lungs heaved under the weight of what I’d just done. Without a single bullet fired, I had just eradicated a thousand demons.

I had exterminated a race.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and another tear slashed on my cheek. It was wrong.

But it was done.

The demon scourge had been eliminated from the Earth.

Someone had to do it.

This was why they feared me.

Chapter 21

Lana

My heart wasa dying thing. Crushing, shattering, obliterating into a thousand pieces.

I stared up at Asher as my limbs froze. He’d wanted me dead this whole time. He had done the deed himself, all while staring me in the eye, holding me close, and now I had to endure this slow death.

Everything was a lie. Asher’s touch, his kisses—the man had beeninsideme. He’d made me believe he cared for me, and now he was imprinted on my bones. I made him my mate.

If I could cry, I would.

I’d fallen for a human. I hadn’t known what I was doing, and I’d fallen for him.

All that time... a lie.

I could feel it—my world falling apart. How huge my hubris had become, to think I could tame this man’s anger.

To think he could love me.

And how terrible tofeellove for him—not the fickle human love that grew and then decayed with time, but an Infernarus’s love. Something that was woven into my very spirit, something without meaning, without beginning or end. Something that grew with every passing second—even now. Something that was loyal, everlasting.

While I had been plotting how to save Asher, he been plotting my murder. No, he been plotting my species’extinction.

It wasn’t enough to be betrayed by a mate—something that no other Infernari had ever experienced. No, the horror didn’t end there. Because I could feel a thousand different lives inside me all dying, their flames dimming and dimming. All those wondrous essences that I cherished my entire life. Eventually they’d all snuff out, and I would feel each and every death alongside mine.

All that would be left of any of us would be smoke and ash.

Asher had betrayed me, but I’d committed the ultimate betrayal

I wanted to sob. I wanted to scream and lash out at the man above me. But I couldn’t move—not even my eyes. They stayed fixed on the cavern ceiling. My lungs had seized up, and I could feel my organs slowing down—dying.

Asher leaned over me, brushing a kiss against my forehead, his hair tickling my skin.

How dare he touch me! Kiss me!

I wanted to shriek at him, I wanted to shred his skin from his bones.

There was no justice to this. This was what happened when hate won out. And the irony of it all! Because even now I felt my connection to him growing. Could the sadist above me feel it? Could he feelanything?

“Lana,” he said softly, “if anyone could’ve changed me, it would’ve been you.” He began to rise, but then he paused. “It was real, what I felt for you. It just... it was too late.”