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“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I muttered, before feeling the uncomfortable tickle of another person tiptoeing through my mind. It was not a pleasant feeling whatsoever. Maybe when we mated it might be better, but right now it just felt … icky.

“He’s grossed out,” Omaera said. “The feelings are fuzzier though. Even though I couldn’t actuallyseeanything when I was in Zandren’s mind, I could feel his feelings clearer. Maxar’s are blurry. That’s the only way I can describe it. He’s grossed out by me being in his brain. Thinks it feels weird.”

“Which it does,” I said plainly.

“What else does he feel?” Kenvin asked.

“Love,” she sighed. “But also fear. Fear that he could lose me before we mate. That he could get taken away by the Council just for being back in Hell, which is where his parents are.”

“Target that,” Kenvin said. “Lean into his fear of losing you and being taken away.”

Still holding my hand, Omaera turned to face me. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, just before she shoved images of her being beheaded into my mind. I glanced down at my hands—within my mind—and they were covered in blood. Her sword, Moloch’s Sacrifice, was on the ground at my feet, drenched in blood.Ihad been the one to take her life. To behead her. It was all so real that I could smell the blood, see her lifeless green eyes gazing up at me in shock and pain. My stomach lurched high up in my throat.

“Well done, son,” came a familiar voice from behind me, just as a hand landed on my shoulder. I spun around to find my mother and father standing there, smiling at me. “We knew you’d come around and join us. Now that we’ve killed the Queen, we can return to the plan—as a family unit—and rid the world of the loathsome and useless humans.”

“Shall we start with that little human over there?” my mother asked, pointingto the left. I followed her gaze, landing on Gemma laying on the gurney, in a coma and looking closer to death than ever. “Why don’t you do the honors, my dear? Seeing as you’re so good at it.”

“No!” I screamed, getting up from where I sat on the floor, the images in my mind disappearing like dandelion fluff in the wind. “I’ll never be like you! Never!” My eyes flashed open, and tears streamed down Omaera’s face where she sat, her mouth in a deep frown. I ran to her, sliding to my knees and taking her face in both my hands. I pressed my forehead to hers. “I wouldneverdo that. You have to believe me. I would never kill you. I would never hurt you. And I wouldneverjoin my parents. Please. Please say you believe me.”

Swallowing, she nodded and whispered, blinking watery eyes at me. “I believe you.”

“Good,” Kenvin said. “Now the vamp—”

“I’m sorry,” Omaera said, sniffing and turning to face Kenvin, though I still held her face in my hands, “while I understand the necessity in learning your opponent’s weaknesses, I thought I was going to learn how to control that red ball of energy I conjured, and the sonic booms that I create? Won’t those be easier, faster, and less tedious than sliding into someone’s mind and fucking with their feelings and thoughts?”

“Psychological warfare is still warfare,” Kenvin said calmly. “And how better to catch your opponent unaware than byfirstmanipulating their mind? You can make them do your bidding. You can put them into a state of mental chaos so that they’re caught up in their own world and own mind. They can’t even begin to attack you.”

“It’s for those you wish to subdue, or neutralize, but not eliminate,” Drak said softly. “Or not immediately eliminate.”

“Exactly,” Kenvin agreed. “Not every battle needs to end in a pile of dead bodies. First, you learn how to control and bend your opponents to your will. Thenif they resist, you learn to incapacitate them, and finally, you go for the kill shot. It’s also a very effective form of torture that is far less bloody than shoving a pretend dagger into their brain.”

I still held Omaera’s head and an enormous part of me never wanted to lether go. She met my gaze. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “I believe you. You can let me go.”

Nodding, and shaking, I pulled my hands away and sat back on my heels, meeting Kenvin’s eyes. It was tough to get a read on the old demon, but he almost seemed… relieved?

He cleared his throat. “All right. Now onto the vampire.”

CHAPTER TEN

Drak

Blood poured out of my ears, nose, and the corners of my eyes.

My brain was mush, and my heart felt like it’d been ripped clean from my chest with the sharp claws of that beast that came after us on our first night in Hell.

Omaera sat on the floor across from me as I writhed in agony, tears streaming down her face.

“Please, let me stop,” she sobbed. “I’m going to kill him.”

“He’ll let you know when he’s had enough,” Kenvin said with a flat voice, sitting where he was when we first joined him in his training room. We’d been in there for hours, running through all kinds of different techniques, simulations, and possible scenarios. When she slid into my mind and uncovered my weaknesses, I thought that was the post painful thing I would ever endure.

I was dead wrong.

Thiswas the most pain I’d ever experienced in my life. The pain of seeing her in such agony because she was hurting me.

I could take the torture. I’d been tortured far worse in my three hundred and forty-one years. I would recover—in time.

It was seeing how hurting me affected her that brought me unimaginablepain. But she needed to learn. She needed to train, and since she’d bonded with the bear, she couldn’t use him to practice on; and she’d already tortured the mage to within an inch of his life. Now it was my turn.