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O NE X ANDER

Pain lights up my body like a billboard in Times Square.

I can’t hear anything over the blood rushing through my ears as fire fills my veins. The sensation is so intense, so real , that I expect to find my skin blistering and melting off my bones. But it isn’t. Despite the stench being so harsh it singes the hair in my nostrils, my skin is blemish free.

Sharp pain ignites between my ribs, something akin to heartburn—only a hundred degrees worse. It somehow has the power to slow time and go on forever.

After an eternity, the sounds of Lucia’s throne room filter back in and the pain in my chest lessens, morphing into a pang of emptiness instead of the agony that moments ago threatened to bring me to my knees—like the demons before me are now. Their heads are bowed in respect or fear. I can’t quite decipher which, as my heart pounds and a chill fills the air despite the ornate chandeliers hung from the vaulted ceiling.

The demons are bowing to me. Their new ruler—their king.

My gaze sweeps the room, the deep red walls and black curtains, the marble floor now stained crimson and black, littered with demon ashes.

And then my eyes meet hers.

Camille doesn’t move.

Her eyes are dark, like freshly watered soil, and filled with confusion. Fear ripples off her in dark, smoky tendrils, her chest rising and falling shallowly, as if she’s struggling to keep her composure.

In an instant, Noah appears behind Camille and snakes an arm around her waist, hauling her toward the doors. Away from me. It ignites a fiery rage that has me visualizing how easy it would be to shred the hunter to ribbons. But I don’t move.

Camille’s gaze holds me in place like an anchor even as she’s pulled further away.

She doesn’t fight Noah’s grip or make a sound as her eyes stay locked on me until she disappears into the hallway, along with Harper and the hunters, whose names don’t matter.

I take a step forward, and my foot slides through the pile of black ash in front of me. What’s left of the queen. My mother . Perhaps I should feel something over that, but even as I search for an emotion, nothing comes.

Blake rises from where he’d bowed with the other demons, coming to my side and clapping me on the shoulder. “You trust me?”

When there’s no one left to trust, not even myself, I still trust Blake. My protector and confidant.

I incline my head just enough to answer.

“Good. Let’s go.”

We’re moving a beat later, Blake shoving me toward the front of the room to avoid the crowd of demons slowly getting to their feet. We slip through the heavy black curtains and walk down a short hallway leading to the kitchen.

“Blake—”

“Not yet,” he cuts me off sharply. The focus in his nearly black gaze has the question of what we’re doing dying on my lips. I let him lead me through the building, our shoes pounding the marble floor as we move at a dizzying speed that isn’t doing any favors to the thoughts racing around my head.

The cool mid-October air hits me in the face when Blake opens a door, and I realize we made it to the back entrance. The breeze is a small reprieve from the sheen of sweat covering my skin, but I don’t have more than a moment to appreciate it before we’re getting into my Camaro. It goes without saying that I’m not in the headspace to operate a vehicle as Blake slides behind the wheel and I drop into the passenger seat, grimacing at the flare of pain that charges through my limbs, cutting through the fog in my head.

Blake’s emerald eyes slide to me as he starts the car, and the concern in them is unmistakable.

“Where are we going?” I ask as he shoves the gearshift into drive and presses hard on the gas.

“Somewhere safe,” he mutters, keeping his gaze focused on the winding stone drive, putting distance between us and Lucia’s compound. His face is pale, his jaw sharp as he grinds his molars.

“Blake—”

He curses. “I don’t think you fully understand the magnitude of what just happened, mate.”

“I do,” I say automatically, tipping my head back against the seat as I struggle to fill my lungs. The weight on my chest keeps me from breathing without significant effort, which only proves to worsen the spinning sensation behind my eyes. I squeeze them shut, gritting my teeth against this feeling of not having control over myself. It slips through my fingers like water, and I grip the seat on either side of me until my knuckles turn white.

A muscle feathers along his jaw when I look at him again. “Please warn me if you’re going to vomit so I can attempt to pull over.” Blake’s voice sounds far away, as if he’s speaking to me from the bottom of a well.

I press my fists against my eyes and force out, “I’m fine.”

“Liar.” He sighs. “Just hang on. I’m taking you back to Seattle. I have a place there no one knows about. We’ll go there and come up with a plan to figure this shit out.”

Figure this shit out.

“I killed the queen, Blake,” I say in a detached voice, swallowing the bile burning my throat.

He nods. “I was there.”

“We both know what that means. What comes next.”

He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. “Maybe not.”

“There’s no running from this. Unless I want to face treason for killing my own mother, I don’t have a choice.”

His only response is a quiet sigh as the dark sky outside opens to a steady rain. Thunder claps through the air in between flashes of lightning, and Blake puts on music as we get closer to Seattle, quiet enough that we can still speak, though neither of us do.

Instead, I replay the last moments of my mother’s life. I should feel sad or guilty over being the one to end her life. But the only emotion that registers is regret, and it has less to do with killing her and more to do with the consequences of it.

I’ve been heir to the throne for as long as I’ve been alive, but if I’m honest, I never truly considered the day I would come into the position. Lucia wasn’t going to vacate it for at least a century, and by that time, I would’ve come up with a plan to get out of taking her place.

“What’s going through your head?” Blake’s voice brings me out of the haze, and I blink a few times before clearing my throat.

“I’m trying to process…everything.”

He glances sideways at me for a moment before returning his attention to the road, where he speeds up to change lanes. “Talk to me.”

Scratching the stubble along my jaw, I admit, “I don’t know where to start.”

Blake nods, pausing before he asks, “Were you planning to kill Lucia all along?”

Part of me bristles at that, but another, newly stronger part nearly purrs at the idea. It calls to me, promising to quiet the unpleasant emotions warring in my chest.

“No.” Dragging a hand through my hair, I exhale a heavy breath. “When I saw her hand wrapped around Camille’s throat, something in me broke. I’ve never felt fear like that. I lost control of myself and acted on instinct. I couldn’t let Camille die, and I was prepared to do anything to ensure her safety.”

Blake adjusts his grip on the wheel before his words pierce the space between us. “Including sacrificing your own soul.”

I nod without a word.

Killing my mother to save Camille…it shattered my soul.

“You notice the change, don’t you? You’re a full demon now.”

Another nod.

“What’s it feel like?”

Wetting my lips, I tell him, “A space in my chest where I know something used to be but isn’t anymore. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but it’s new and uncomfortable. And considering I’ve never heard of a demon getting their soul back, I’d say it’s pretty much a done deal, so I need to get used to it.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

I shrug, grimacing at the flare of discomfort in my chest. “I made the choice. I have to face the consequences.”

“I’m fucking sorry, mate. I really thought we had a fighting chance.”

“Yeah,” I say, “so did I.” My chest tightens, restlessness making my knee bounce as I stare forward and swallow against the tingling sensation in my throat. The uneven tick of my pulse tells me I should feel something, like uncertainty or fear—and perhaps there are subtle hints of both weaving through my rib cage—but those emotions seem to be ebbing away.

I stare out at the traffic in front of us as the wipers clear the rain falling on the windshield.

The drive back to Seattle offers too much time to think. To come up with scenarios of what’s going to happen next. What Camille is going to do.

My chest constricts at the thought of her. Of the last look we shared. She’s likely questioning everything about what happened at the compound, trying to figure out why things went down the way they did.

What is she thinking right now?

Will she believe I didn’t plan to kill Lucia?

It doesn’t matter.

Whatever path my life was on with Camille just became a dead end. The best—the only —option now is to leave it behind. Leave her behind.

I shouldn’t feel the tug of discomfort in my gut at that, and yet there’s something urging me to feel something . It’s as if my emotions are locked behind a door I no longer have the key to. They exist somewhere, but I can’t access them.

That makes it far easier to move closer to complacency with the darkness that lingers closer to the surface than ever. It would be so simple to let go and give myself over to it. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what keeps me from doing just that. I suppose there’s a shred of humanity left in me, after all. Maybe that will fade in time, too, or perhaps not having a soul doesn’t mean a complete absence of human emotions like I once feared.

“Hey,” Blake says, and my gaze cuts toward him. “There’s a lot happening at the moment, but you’re not alone. I’ve got you, mate.”

All I can do is nod.

“Were you thinking about Camille?” he asks, cutting into my spiraling thoughts.

My temples throb until I realize I’m clenching my jaw so tightly I’m sure to crack a molar if I don’t relax. I blow out a breath. “You’re going to tell me to forget about her.” It’s not a question. Hell, she’d be far better off without me in her life, especially now. And yet, I’m not confident I have the power to walk away from her.

“Do you want to forget about her?”

“I want her ,” I say without hesitation. My desire for Camille didn’t vanish with my soul, but it feels darker. More carnal, possessive. Like I’ll destroy anyone that tries to keep us apart.

She. Is. Mine.

Nothing and no one will keep me from her.