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He was mine to annoy and piss off.

The fabric of the bag curled under my fingers.

“Croygen!” Katrina’s scream sparked fear in my blood. It wasn’t to hurry me up; it was a warning of death.

Flipping over, I saw a man with asai, the devil’s pitchfork, over me, heading right for my chest. Before I could move, Katrina whirled up, and I heard flesh being split open, the slicing of veins and tissue. The man’s mouth fell open in a silent scream, and blood sprayed out, covering me. His head tipped to the side, his spine barely hanging onto it as he dropped to the ground.

Katrina stood over him, her chest heaving, holding a Yuanyang Tomahawk covered in blood.

“Fuck.” I breathed out.

“Saved your ass again.” She wiped the foreign blood from her mouth with her sleeve, not looking at me. “Let’s go.”

Scrambling to my feet, it took a moment to pluck myself out of my reverence at the badass pirate in front of me. The woman who had saved my life twice in the same number of days. And fuck if that didn’t turn me on. I had never met anyone who could challenge me. Best me.

I had no doubt about how she got her title, how she became the best. Katrina Roth was a legend and a clear competitor for my title.

“Come on!” Cooper yelled, motioning us forward. I glanced around, the area strewn with bodies.

And as usual, Amara was gone. It’s what she did best—vanishing into the chaos, a magician at escaping, at slipping away.

But like a magician, it was all a trick of the eye. She was somewhere close, conjuring up her next illusion to test us once again.

Chapter 5

Katrina

“I am a King! Bow down, my minions!” Sprig stood on Cooper’s shoulder, his arms in the air, facing the rest of us trailing after the Dark Dweller, leading us further into the belly of the caves. “Did you see them run in fear? Shriek in terror? I amallpowerful.”

“You’re full of something… though smells more like bullshit.” Croygen exhaled behind me.

“Shush, subordinate. You are in the presence of greatness. Of a powerful deity!” Sprig froze, his eyes widening. “Oh… of agod!”

“There is no living with him now.”

“There was before?” Croygen countered.

AB shook her head with a smile. The girl was barely keeping on her feet, but she refused help, spouting she was fine and to keep going. As fae, we might biologically be stronger, but this girl was tougher than all of us combined.

To subdue Cooper, those men had beaten her, which allowed them to get the goblin metal around his neck. She was injured and exhausted, and every day I picked up a more acute sour smell from her, the cancer claiming more of her.

Yet, she persevered.

“The King Monkey God!” Sprig declared with his hands waving in the air. “And as your god, I demand to be gifted an endless supply of honey.”

“Sprig,” Cooper growled. “Shut the fuck up before I gag you.”

“Silence, underling!” Sprig touched his blond head. “These hands are bestowed with the magic of a god king! Released you from your bindings.” He motioned to where the goblin metal collar used to be around Cooper’s neck. He had taken off both mine and Cooper’s bands after we got far enough away. “Cured you of your ails. Saved you all from the devil-horned, psycho, purple people eater.”

Amara.

The same woman who had spoken to me in the toilet in Shanghai, taunting me about intimately knowing Croygen, which was truer than I thought. She was the same woman he thought himself in love with for so long. The one who twisted him up and kept him coming back for more, decade after decade.

A knot twisted in my gut, covered in something I hadn’t felt in a long time, if ever.

Jealousy.

Not an emotion I liked or was familiar with. It made me feel wretched. Embarrassed. Weak.