She continues to hold onto his hand, looking utterly perplexed.

“I could be petty and tell her my name,” I inform them, just to let them know I’m a high-road sort of girl, as I go phantom again.

I siphon out, not really sure where the fucking hell I’m going, since I’m not too good at this. But I focus really hard, letting the burn guide me.

All four of them appear just as I land, as though they somehow freaking followed me.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I snap, but our dramatic surroundings steal my attention. We’re directly in the middle of the fray.

“Never mind!” I shout when Jude spins and slices through five men at once with a weapon I don’t recall him having before we left. “You can totally stay,” I add when Kai takes down two rushing us.

He does this with hardly any exerted effort. It gives me a boost of confidence that they won’t die too easily.

Gage spins in the air, kicking one man solidly on the chest hard enough to launch that man into a beast’s mouth.

Without a second thought, I dart out in front of a charging beast that squeals when it spots me and dives under the ground. Thankfully, that freaking terrifying, four-headed thing was old enough to be scared of me.

“For the record, I didn’t mean to actually go to the battle first. I was hoping we could get details and formulate a plan,” I call out. “I’ve never been here, so I don’t know how I just landed here.”

“No, you were going to do all that alone,” Ezekiel growls as he slices off a man’s head.

“Now’s so not the time to continue that argument, dear!” I chirp, punching something that has tentacles and leaves a slimy trail on my hand.

“Gross,” I groan, quickly ducking as something flies over me.

We’re right in the thick of it, and all the hooded soldiers are mixed in with men in capes—really? Capes?

Not superhero capes, either.

They look like Spartans, right down to the armor and footwear, and they’re not hideous. I wonder if they really are Spartans.

“I just got an idea for my next harem,” I say to Jude, who growls at me as he slices through something.

I think that prick slaps my ass. If not him, it’s one of these really stupid soldiers who will lose a hand later.

I notice men in tuxedos turning into Spartans as they leap over us, firing pulses of sharp power from their hands that spews into the fray.

Gage spins again, and as he does, his shirtless body is covered with something leather and armored, just before his boxers turn into some sort of black leather warrior thingy I know better than to call a fringe skirt. Something tells me that would be a bad thing to say aloud.

Gladiator flashes through my mind.

A sword appears in his hand, glistening under the fires that are shooting out just above his head. When he comes down, something dark and oh-so alluring drills out of him, almost conducted through that sword.

I practically gravitate toward the power like it’s intoxicating.

The horde of beasts charging us shrivel and collapse before turning to mummified carcasses. He lands on his feet, his eyes staring at the sword in his hand like he’s as stunned as I am.

He looks down at his new apparel with the same quizzical brow, and when our eyes meet, we actually have one of those silent conversations that I found impossible a few minutes ago.

What the fucking hell just happened? Why is there a thickly fringed leather skirt hitting just under the knees on that fine male body and showing peeks of those muscular upper legs? Will that pierced dick fall out of that leather thingy underneath, since it looks like it’s barely holding all the goods in?

Okay, maybe it’s not the exact same conversation. But it has to be close.

Blinking out of the trance, he spins, using that sword to slice through men.

Jude dives, grabbing someone’s abandoned bo staff, coming up just in front of me before a giant beastly woman almost catches me off guard.

The same thing happens. Sort of. His clothes change to be an exact replica of Gage’s, and the bo staff turns onyx. It glistens as he brings it across her middle, sending her thundering down to the ground as he yells with the effort it takes.

As he brings that bo staff back down, a curved blade forms at the end of it, turning it into a scythe as the blade connects with her neck. Just as she turns to dust, he stands and slings the scythe outward, obliterating everything in its immediate path, ashing the line of rebels who are charging at us with their mangled faces and barbaric weapons.

These are just the soldiers, not the ones we should be wasting effort on killing. We need to find the source and cut off its head.

Whirling around, I spot Kai as he drops to the ground with a sai in his hand, ramming it into something’s neck.

Right as he’s about to be charged from behind by a horned snake beast, my hand flies out, sending the beast soaring into the side of the monstrous black castle behind us.

Oh, thank you for you working, fickle power of mine.

Idly, I notice the stones on the crumbling side of the castle is glowing with the same onyx twinkle as Jude’s new scythe.

“Kai!” I shout just as a barrier breaks and rebels spill into the area he’s in, rushing him from all four corners.

I go phantom and zap myself there, but before we can fight, he takes on his own transformation, and the sai extends into a triton, coming down in front of me like he’s the one protecting me instead of the other way around.

I feel the pulse of power like it’s coming from me instead of him, but I know it’s really his. So dark, so mesmerizing, so…lethal.

Eyes start bleeding as the infected drop to the ground, screaming and writhing in agony. The next line attempting to break the rest of the barricade stumbles back.

A sense of pride washes over me, and a calmness joins it, weirdly enough. My hand runs up his arm as he strains to reach the next line without their invasion, trying to kill them all before they can escape to regroup and try again.

A warm feeling passes through me, and my chest brims with something almost intoxicating.

My eyes flick to Gage as I start walking through the crowd, feeling something whipping behind me. Glancing down, I see red fabric blowing in the wind with its gold trim, and feel the long slits that show off my legs, leaving only scraps of long fabric to drag the ground in premediated placements.

I didn’t create this one.

The air tingles over my midriff and exposed sections of my back, and gold jewels start forming at my neck, cuffing a portion of the dress into place as the rest amazingly forms all on its own.

Ezekiel makes his change with me, side-by side, as a staff of some sort forms in place of the sword he was wielding. A small blade pops out on the end of it as if punctuating the entire scene.

That blade is sparkling too much to be anything other than diamonds.

I love diamonds.

When he spins it, the rebels turn on each other, as if he just controlled them all now that the flock has been properly thinned.

I walk higher, looking down on the souls who need to be recycled. Rebels who need to be reminded of their place.

It’s hell for a reason, after all. It’s supposed to be oppressive down here.

And they’ve just disrupted the balance by breaching walls never meant for their attendance. Balance is far too critical right now.

I have no idea how I know, but I know what needs to be done to restore it.

My eyes scan the crowd below me from the perch I’ve picked. As they move to help with the attack on the lower castle doors, something just sort of naturally happens all around me.

Something dark and heavy runs out of me, almost feeling tangible as it slithers from my heart and starts down my legs, moving into the ground beneath me.

The ground cracks open as the small, visible, worm-like movements under the ground grow in size, doubling with each passing second on their rapid descent.

The red dirt flies and scatters into the air, and black liquid shoots out, spraying the entire line at the castle doors. Screams ignite in the air as something else rumbles free from me, quaking the ground around us as my eyes flutter shut.

Intuition demands I let go. It demands that I free whatever is trying to explode from me. Now’s as good a time as any to prove my intuition is an intricate part to all our self-discoveries.

As my fingers begin tingling, thrumming with a warning, I slowly lift my hands. White hot light explodes from them so abruptly that I stagger back, and it pulses into the air, creating a violent ripple.

“That’s new,” I say as it suddenly erupts into a massive ring of pulses that explode outwards.

People are launched in all directions, slamming the ground below as the ground around us quakes a few times until those pulses fade.

I realize it did more than that, when one by one, they all burst into ashes, the ground swallowing them up to take them to the throat.

I’m not sure how I know it, but again, I know it.

No more screams. The beasts I haven’t yet killed are fleeing as the disease Kai gave them starts becoming a flesh-eating problem on their retreat.

“Ungrateful lot, aren’t they? All they had to do was deal with their eternal punishment for their mortal sins, and they may not have been recycled to start the torment anew,” I chirp, feeling so much better now that I’ve gotten all that off my chest.

I turn to look at everyone we’ve managed to save—all the little bad guys who take care of the really, really big bad guys: My family and all.