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“What do you see?” Des asks again.

I swallow. “I see Callie.”

“As do I.” He dips his mouth close to my ear. “Cherub, people like us are not victims. We’re someone’s nightmare.”

I’m not a victim.

I’m not a victim.

How had I forgotten this? Because, somewhere along the way, Ihadforgotten. And it nearly broke me.

I’m not a victim.

Here in the Otherworld, I lost my most powerful weapon—my glamour. But I gained claws and wings.

My eyes move to Des. “Teach me again how to be someone’s nightmare.”

I needed to feel dangerous, powerful, traits I lost somewhere along the way.

A hint of his wicked smile appears, and cloaked in his shadows, it’s menacing. “With pleasure, mate.”

I stand insideone of the Night Kingdom’s reappropriated warehouses, staring at the multitude of sleeping female warriors. Thousands of them.

Killing Karnon should’ve released all these women from whatever dark magic held them under.

But it hasn’t.

And now there are so many more sleeping women, uncovered from the subterranean rooms far below Karnon’s castle.

The partially empty warehouse is suddenly teeming with coffins. And the women in all the new ones are pregnant. No one knows when—or if—they’ll give birth.

The other kingdoms have also received their share of sleeping warriors recovered from the bowels of Karnon’s prison, warriors belonging to the Kingdoms of Day, Flora, and—strangest of all—Fauna. Karnon had been abusing his kingdom’s female soldiers.

I can barely wrap my mind around it.

There’s still the matter of the male warriors, the men who are still missing. And then there are the female captives, like Aetherial, who are recovering from their ordeal. Captives who have all complained of a darkness that still lingers within them.

Nothing’s solved.

I touch my hand to one of the coffin lids, my claw tips clicking against the glass. “Wake up,” I whisper, glamour slipping into my voice.

If the sleeping women hear, they don’t obey.

I even wait for the sound of wraith-like voices to rise around me, just as they had before.

But all is silent. All is still.

Smoke and shadows wrap around my arms. A moment later, they coalesce into hands.

“Cherub,” Des whispers into my ear, squeezing my arms gently.

At his voice, my wings stir, brushing themselves against his chest.

I shouldn’t be surprised that he found me. He’s the Bargainer, Lord of Secrets, Master of Shadows, and King of the Night.

He touches my jaw, turning my face.

I close my eyes and swallow. It feels good to have the Bargainer touch me like this, despite the fact that Karnon did the same thing, day after day. Because with Des, it’s different. It always has been. It always will be.