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“Oops?” Lilith mocked. Then she turned, scowling at Joy. “And what was that, Joy? Who was that? You said three Demon guards. It was your job to case this place. You didn’t say anything about Shifters!”

Joy knelt next to the dead body, frowning. “I don’t think he’s a guard,” she said, softly. She touched his face. “I don’t know who he is.”

Fey looked down at the body and couldn’t help but agree with her assessment. He was a thin, spindly thing, barely more than a kid. A civilian. He didn’t look anything like the predators they’d encountered outside.

He looked like… like prey.

That was it. He was a prey Shifter.

So, what was he doing here?

Lilith shook her head angrily. “I guess it doesn’t matter who he was now, does it?”

Several of the crates that had hit the ground had broken open, spilling pieces of wood and glass shards over the floor. Something wet trickled from a box, spilling onto the ground, mixing with the grime on the warehouse floor.

Fey reached down and plucked a small glass bottle from where it had rolled from a crate to rest at her feet, holding it up. The liquid inside was golden, and it sparkled in the light like it was full of tiny, shimmering stars.

“Devil dust?” Joy asked, head tilted as she stared at the bottle in Fey’s hands.

“I guess,” Fey said. It was mesmerizing. Inviting. “I didn’t expect it to be so…”

“Pretty?” Willow finished for her.

“There must be gallons of the stuff here,” Fey said, gesturing to the crates that filled the building. “No wonder the Crown wanted this place leveled—there’s enough drug here to dose the entire realm.”

“Not for long,” Lilith snorted. “Come on, help me place the rest of this. We need to get out of here. We’ve made enough noise to wake the dead, and I don’t want to be blamed if another dumbass civilian gets themselves killed trying to investigate.”

Lilith tossed a bundle of explosives toward Joy, and she caught it easily. Fey gave the golden liquid one last look before tossing it on the ground.

It took just a few minutes to place the rest of the explosives under Joy’s careful supervision. There’s an art to explosives, to leveling a building while limiting damage to the surrounding area. It wouldn’t do to set the block alight, wouldn’t do for the Queen’s Blades to level part of the city. This mission was simple and surgical: Take down the building and everything in it but leave as little damage to the neighborhood as possible.

By the time the explosives were set and they were on their way back to the palace, the building burning behind them, the mesmerizing golden liquid was a distant memory.

Chapter 21

Fey couldn’t sleep.

She tossed and turned, pushing the sheets away, only to pull them back over herself a moment later. She couldn’t get comfortable, couldn’t get settled in her skin.

The adrenaline from their mission that evening had faded hours ago after they’d finished their report to Dameon, and she should have fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep after her bath. But something gnawed at her, something had her shifting uncomfortably on her bed, unable to lie still.

She was thinking about him.

She didn’t want to, especially not after tonight. She was exhausted, and all she wanted to do was sleep. She didn’t want to have her head full of thoughts of Alastair. Alastair kissing her. Alastair touching her.

Alastair’s hand around her neck.

I’ll be right here if you’re ever looking for some fun.

Fey snarled and rolled over again in bed, kicking at her sheets.

He’d awakened something inside her that night in the club, and instead of fading over time like she’d hoped it would, it was growing. She’d tried taking care of the problem herself, her mind full of thoughts of him, her fingers between her legs. But even as she’d shuddered her release, biting her hand to stifle her cries, the ache had returned with a vengeance. It wasn’t enough.

Fey growled in frustration, turning over again.

It wasn’t any use. She was going mad lying here in the dark with nothing but her thoughts to occupy herself, and a dull constant ache between her legs.

There wasn’t anything left to do.