They looked up at the same time, ready to fight, and saw me.

“Shay?” Gus gasped. “What are you doing here?”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We’re…” She looked around. “What are we doing here and where is here?”

Vespar growled with his hands clenched in fists beside him, “I was shot. We were in the basement and then…” He looked at Damien and jerked forward a step. “He’s a messenger.”

“So is she.” Gus gestured toward Aumae.

Both of them ignored my siblings.

“Shay? What’s going on?” My sister gentled her tone.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Damien cut me off, “There are three messengers coming. See them? Destroy them because they’re here to destroy you.”

“What?” Gus clamped a hand on my arm. “What are we going to do?”

“Fight.” Damien cast a look at her. Idiot.

I hid a smile when Gus asked me, “Shay, is that right? Are they—”

“Gus. Shut up and fight.” Vespar stood beside her, tense.

“Male demon—” Damien started to say.

Vespar interrupted him, “I have a name.”

“—you will fight alongside Shay. Female demon.” Gus narrowed her eyes, but didn’t make a comment. “You will fight with Aumae.” Damien ignored both of their reactions and gestured beside him.

“And you? What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to take the leader.” Damien took a deep breath and stretched to his fullest height. “I’ve met Mayorn a few times.”

“What about the human?” I heard Aumae ask Damien.

“If things go badly, we can bring him out. They can’t be around humans that they aren’t sent here for. He’ll repel them, but right now they don’t know he’s here. They can’t sense him through my car’s trunk. It’s been sealed.”

Aumae nodded, satisfied with his response, and I cast a nervous look over the other messengers. They looked powerful, more powerful than any of us combined.

“Don’t think like that, Shay.” Damien looked at me. “You’re more powerful than all of them combined. You’re a first descendant from your father. You may be even more powerful than him.”

I didn’t feel it. I felt like a weak human at that moment, but as the three messengers drew close, I knew it was game time. They stopped, and the leader approached alone. His eyes skimmed over all of us, but lingered first on me and then moved to Damien, who had moved out in front of us. He proclaimed himself our leader with those two steps.

“Donai, I’m surprised to see you here.” His smirk said otherwise.

Damien rolled his eyes. “No, you’re not. You’ve always known this would happen. You’ve always wanted it. And it’s Damien.”

Mayorn wrinkled his long nose and grimaced. “You’ve become like a human, taking their name for you. Donai is a good name. You should remember your heritage.”

“I do.” Damien flexed his hands.

He grew tired of baiting Damien, so his eyes skimmed over me, studying. I forced myself to stand strong as I felt him trying to pierce into me, to see my insides. As he kept poking, trying to get past my walls, I started to grow angry. It shimmered over me, up from my ankles and around my waist to my eyes. I snapped them open and knew I’d turned into the messenger they wanted to see.

Instead of Mayorn seeing into me, I saw into him now. I pierced his walls with no fight and sifted through his insides.

He was outraged and battled me to get out, but I refused to move. When he realized he couldn’t get me out of him, he became further enraged and lunged at me, snarling. Damien cut him off, tackling him and throwing him to the side of the road.

Mayorn threw his blond locks back, glaring and seething at me. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

“Mayorn?” one of the other female messengers asked, nervous.

“She’s in me. I can’t get her out. Get her out! Kill her!”

The other one wasn’t as scared. “We can’t. Sachiel wants her alive.”

“I don’t care. She’s in me, and I can’t push her out.” He shook his body, then lunged for me. His eyes pierced mine with red in them, red for blood. ”I will kill you. Take heed of this warning. I will kill you.”

“Like hell you will,” Kellan growled, appearing from nowhere. He stood behind Mayorn and plunged a dagger into his back. Fire burst out of his eye sockets, mouth, and fingertips before he exploded. Then Kellan tossed it to Damien, who stabbed the messenger he was beside. Aumae turned to the third one and opened her arms wide. A light came from them, like she had spread wings, and shone in the female’s eyes, blinding her. Kellan swooped in, caught the dagger back from Damien, and slit the messenger’s throat. She fell to the ground, wide eyed, as blood poured out of her, darkening the gravel around her.

“That wasn’t hard.” Vespar glanced around beside Gus, who was scratching her head.

“They were the appetizers.” Kellan stood beside me, holding my gaze. His eyes were steady, looking into me with a deep intensity. He wanted to tell me something, reassure me, proclaim something, I wasn’t sure, but then the look was gone as his eyes slid over my shoulders. They caught on something in the woods behind me and stayed there. I turned, too, my heart pounding, and gaped. It wasn’t what I saw, which was a set of twenty pairs of eyes, watching us from behind the trees, but it was what I felt.