Ren and Keita moved to the back of the cage. Not because they were in danger from her flame but so that pair could whisper through the bars while Brannie shifted to dragon again. Unleashing her flame on the lock, she pulled with both claws, tearing the door open once she’d softened the gold.

With the door open, Brannie realized that Ren and Keita weren’t talking, they were arguing.

“You sent Batu to my mother’s house?” Only an Eastland royal dragon would call the Empress’s Palace my mother’s house. “What were you thinking?”

“There will be an alliance.”

“He hates my mother!”

“Would you leave it to me? Now, let’s go. We have a war to end!”

Keita flounced off toward the exit and Ren turned to Brannie. “Has she been like this the entire time?”

“The entire time!” Brannie rubbed her forehead. “To be honest, I really thought all of us would be dead by now.”

“Oh, don’t worry. There’s still time for that to happen. Especially when Keita’s involved.”

* * *

Annwyl backed away from the false image of her father, and the faces of all the men she’d killed in her life. Their heads were back on, but she recognized them. They could be real. Those men she’d killed. She clearly remembered condemning many of them to whatever hell would have them.

But her father . . . her father had to be false. How could he be anything else?

She hadn’t killed her father. She’d never been brave enough. Someone else had done her the favor. But then her brother had taken over and things didn’t get better. Not for her.

Actually, not for anyone.

“What are we doing, Da?” an angry voice demanded from behind her and Annwyl recognized that voice, too. Without even looking, she recognized that voice. “You said—”

“Shut up, boy! Me and the great Annwyl the Bloody are talking. Don’t you see that?”

And that’s when Annwyl knew. She wasn’t being haunted by those she’d killed. It wasn’t her brain torturing her with her past.

How did she know that now? Because never in a million years would Annwyl the Bloody allow her brain to torture her over her idiot brother.

Because if anyone had deserved to die, it had been her brother, Lorcan the Butcher. When she’d taken his head, he’d earned every second of his pain in that world and this one.

Standing behind her, glowering, Lorcan reached for Annwyl but she slapped his hand away. That did what it had always done. Pissed him off. So he grabbed at her again.

Annwyl caught his grasping hand and twisted, turning her body at the same time. She dropped him to the ground and twisted his entire arm until she heard something break and her brother began screaming.

They were dead, but they could feel pain. That made sense since it was hell.

Releasing her brother’s hand, she faced her father.

“What do you want?”

“Is that how you talk to me? Your father? Your king?”

“Dead king. I’m queen now. I rule.”

“Not very well. From what I hear.”

“Who have you been talking to? Men I’ve already killed? I doubt they’d be fans.”

“You even killed your own brother—and would you shut up, Lorcan!”

His rage getting hold of him, Lorcan stopped screaming in pain and struggled to his feet, cradling his broken arm.

“You always take her side!” Lorcan accused.

Father and daughter rolled their eyes, having heard this particular argument since the day Annwyl had been brought to her father’s house all those years ago.

“You always say that,” Annwyl finally told her brother, “but he hates us equally.”

Her father nodded. “I really do. Of course,” he added, “at least you aren’t a whore for a dragon, Lorcan.”

“That’s because the She-dragons I know wouldn’t want anything to do with him.”

Her father turned those gray-green eyes on her. “You think this is funny? You don’t think I’m disgusted by you?”

“No, I just don’t care. And I do think it’s funny.”

“I don’t understand how you could do what you’ve done.”

“What I’ve done?” Annwyl asked her father. “You mean fuck a dragon? He was the best thing that ever happened to me. Speaking of which . . . you do know that you’re a grandfather, don’t you?” She smirked. “I’d love for you to meet the twins. Especially Talwyn. She’d adore you.”

Annwyl had to laugh at that, knowing her daughter as well as she did. But it seemed to her father as if she was laughing at him. Something he could never abide.

Her father grabbed her by the neck of her chain mail shirt and yanked her close. Like he used to when she was a child.

“You betrayed me,” he snarled at her. “You betrayed our name. You betrayed our blood.”

Fighting her rage, Annwyl told her father, “Get your hands off me.”

“You had one job!” her father bellowed in her face. “To use that pussy for something useful!”

Rage began to move through Annwyl. The way it used to. But back then . . . she’d had no outlet. She’d been too afraid to challenge the man who ruled the Southlands. So she’d curl her hands into fists and dig her nails into her palms until blood dripped onto the floor. She’d had no voice then. No power.

“I was not put here by the gods to whore for you!” she screamed in her father’s face.

Without even hesitating, her father shoved her away and swung, just like he used to do all the time when she angered him . . . but this time Annwyl caught his fist and held it; the pair stared into each other’s eyes. Their mutual rage growing and growing until—

“Oh. Excellent. You have her.”

Annwyl looked to her left and saw the demon lord she’d tried to kill sitting on something that those with bad eyesight might call a horse.

And behind him was his personal army of demons. It was not a big army. Not like Annwyl’s. But they were demons, which meant they were probably much deadlier than any army she’d ever faced before. Even dragons.

The men who had come with her father began to panic, trying to back away, but the demon lord raised his clawed hand to soothe them.

“No, no. No need to fear. We’re not here for any of you.” He pointed one claw at Annwyl. “We’re here for her.”

Her father, never a man to back down, replied, “When I’m done with her.”

“I need her alive, human. I know this is hard for you to hear, but she has great work to do.”

Shocked by that, Annwyl dropped her father’s hand and faced the demon lord and his army.

“Great work? For you?”

“Absolutely. Even now, Chramnesind is about to unleash his Zealots on your armies and the armies that have joined your cause. They will be wiped out. And that’s when you will return.”

“Why would I return?”

“To bring this world to yours. All of it under my rule.”

“And why would you need me to do that?”

“I cannot leave this world of my own volition. But you can bring me and my army to yours.” The demon lord dismounted from his horse and walked toward Annwyl. “And once there, Annwyl the Bloody, you will give me your children. The other Abominations will follow your unholy twins and your unholy twins will follow you.” He slid his hand behind the back of her neck, the claws scraping her skin. “Now, this may be where you’re thinking of sacrificing yourself in an attempt to save your children but that would be foolish. Because I can spend an eternity”—he yanked her close, his lips nearly touching hers—“a gods-damn eternity, making you pay for such a mistake. So choose wisely, one-time queen.”

He smiled at her and, waiting a heartbeat or two, asked, “So . . . what is your choice?”

But Annwyl couldn’t answer him. Everything had turned red around her. Not just the sky and the dirt . . . but everything. And she could no longer hear anything except . . . rushing waves? Right in her ears.

All Annwyl knew was that the demon lord wanted to use her children. Her children. And Annwyl . . . she couldn’t . . . she wouldn’t . . . she . . . she . . .