Smoke wafted from his nostrils as he jackknifed to his feet. “You would do well to fear me, little girl.”

“Fear is your way in. The door you sneak through. I choose to remain at peace.”

He stepped around the desk, his body nothing but a husk for murderous rage. “I want to help your man. He and his friends fight their darkness when they should embrace it. Only then will they know true freedom and strength.”

True strength. The way to Baden’s heart.

The burn returned to her gums and fingertips, reminding her she wasn’t helpless. She was armed. “What do you know of freedom? You, who are bound to your pride, want only to enslave others.”

Biscuit, Gravy. Come!

“I will bring Baden to heel. I owe him,” he said. “Perhaps I’ll start by giving you to my army, allowing them to sate their baser needs with you. The warrior will be distraught, I’m sure, and—”

The dogs burst through the door, wood shards raining in every direction. They stopped to flank her sides, strange buzzing sounds accompanying their growls. She looked down, praying the pups were okay.

Flabbergasted, she reeled back. Their teeth...their teeth moved. They had two rows up top and two rows on bottom, and both rows spun round and round like the blades on a chain saw.

Lucifer looked at the pups, then at Katarina. His eyes narrowed with calculation. “I collect information, and I’ve heard things. If you want Baden to bend to your will, I can arrange it. I can also make you immortal.”

The bend to her will thing? Not just no, but never. What a hypocrite she would be, superseding his right to choose. But the immortality thing... Was only fooling myself when I said no, letting fear lead me.

Fear this male must have sensed.

Because, if she’d agreed to try, but Baden couldn’t find a way, she would have to live with disappointment and he would have to live with failure.

“What do you say, Miss Joelle?” A slow smile bloomed. “Shall we bargain?”

26

“There is no theory of evolution. Only a list of creatures I’ve allowed to live.”

—Xerxes, Sent One

CAN’T PURGE THIS RAGE.

Destruction’s roar was an endless scrape against Baden’s mind. The beast craved blood, pain and death as never before—or barring that, he craved satisfaction with Katarina. He needed one or the other, and nothing else would do.

“I’ll ask again.” Baden lifted Galen off his feet, pinning him to the wall. “Where is she?”

Galen’s mouth opened and closed, but he could only gasp for breath.

“Where. Is. Katarina?” William had flashed away seconds after referring to Baden as his brother, without telling him anything more about the wreaths. Soon after that, Taliyah had arrived at the safe house with pictures of Katarina. She’d smirked as he’d viewed the images of his woman smiling at Bjorn and Xerxes, as if the two were her favorite heroes.

When she left me, she looked at me as if I was a monster.

Taliyah had said, “Don’t bother going to the club. She’ll be gone before you arrive. I’ll make sure of it.”

He had tried to flash to the club, thinking of the place as his home—will murder the Sent Ones for touching what’s mine!—but it had been futile. Now he wondered if Hades had somehow fixed the loophole.

Next, he’d tried flashing to Aleksander, but it had proved futile, too. He’d tried flashing to Dominik with the same abysmal result.

Had he somehow lost the ability to flash entirely?

“We need her,” he shouted. “She’s our calm.” Their sanity.

“We? Our?” Galen finally managed to push out. “You want me to betray your girl?” He wedged his feet between their bodies and kicked. “We both know you’d kill me for that.”

Baden stumbled backward, losing his grip. “You don’t care about her, and you don’t care about me. Stop pretending.”

“You’re right. I’ve never cared about anyone but myself.” Galen straightened his collar and brushed an invisible piece of lint from his shoulder. “Do you want to know where I was the day of the assassin’s attack?”

“Not anymore. Tell me where Taliyah has taken Katarina!” Before I snap.

The warrior pretended not to hear him, saying, “I was in town talking to a therapist about the best way to help Legion.”

“I don’t need to know—”

“Yes, you do need to know. You don’t want to change your opinion of me. You don’t want to believe I’m trying to be the right man for her—the right friend for you. To you all. I would have brought you here, would have helped you, without any incentive, but you offered the one thing I couldn’t refuse. Now I’m going to help you whether you want me to or not.”