* * *

He saw it coming. Knew his daughter better than he knew himself, and he saw it coming. As soon as that idiot mentioned her unholy children she just started . . . screaming.

Like she used to do when she got into it with her brother. She’d scream and attack him and take him down to the floor even though she wasn’t even eight yet. She’d hurt him, too. But she was only a child then. A child with no skill and no strength.

But now?

Annwyl wrapped herself around the struggling Lord Phalet, her screams completely drowning out his. She dug her hands into his scalp and pressed her thumbs into his eyes.

Lord Phalet spun, trying to get her off, but Annwyl held on tight, unwilling to let go.

Then he screamed for help. “Get her off me! Get her off me!”

Several of his soldiers ran to aid him, grabbing Annwyl around the waist and pulling her one way while two other soldiers pulled Lord Phalet the other. Annwyl still didn’t let go.

The soldiers tried harder; Phalet’s screams getting more desperate.

Finally they pried her off, but her thumbs were covered in the remains of Phalet’s eyes.

The demon lord dropped to his hands and knees, spitting and screaming and bleeding everywhere.

But they still didn’t know his daughter. She wasn’t done. She wouldn’t be done until Lord Phalet was dead.

She fought off the soldiers holding her and managed to get a sword from one of them. As soon as she yanked that weapon free, several of the men she’d already killed once made a crazed run for it. Away. They ran away.

Annwyl swung the blade and took one demon’s head and then the leg of another.

She ran back to Lord Phalet and tackled him to the ground. She sat on him and buried her sword deep into his chest. But he wasn’t dead. The demons around here didn’t have their hearts in the same place humans did. Annwyl seemed to understand that now.

She kept him pinned to the ground with the sword and then pulled his dagger from his belt. She cut off his fine clothing and then began on his skin. Cutting, then tearing off whole sheets. Then she went for the muscle, ripping into that. First with the dagger, then her bare hands.

She dug and she dug, until she finally grabbed something and yanked it out.

Annwyl held Lord Phalet’s beating heart in her hand and got up.

Phalet was still alive, blindly staring up at her as she held the heart in front of him as if he could still see it.

And Annwyl was still screaming.

With that rage she’d had since she was a very little girl, Annwyl ripped Phalet’s heart apart until there was nothing but tiny pieces, littering the ground around her feet.

Then she leaned down, staring into Phalet’s face and screamed and screamed until he was gone.

Taking deep breaths, Annwyl stood straight, wiping her bloody hands on her chain mail leggings. When she faced the remaining dead who’d come for her . . . they ran.

None would face her again. Not now. Not ever again.

Even his idiot son ran. Pathetic boy that he always was.

He stood, however, and watched his daughter for a little longer. Their gazes locked and he saw the hatred he’d always seen in those eyes.

“Such a disappointment,” he told her one more time, before turning his back on her and walking away.

* * *

The baby demon animal came and stood next to Annwyl, brushing his snout against her.

The army was still behind her but no one said anything to her or tried to grab her. It seemed Lord Phalet’s plan was his and his alone. But unlike the dead she’d faced, the demons weren’t walking away.

They would take her back, she guessed. To that dungeon. Until whoever was replacing Phalet decided what to do with his live victim.

Still, seeing her father walking away from her . . .

Annwyl reached over and patted the baby’s side. “Hungry?” she asked him. “Would you like a chewy corpse?”

They looked at each other, and the baby’s sizable tongue swiped from one side of its massive mouth to the other.

Smiling, Annwyl coaxed, “Go on, baby. Go eat.”

He took off, running down her father, tearing into him with his giant baby fangs.

Annwyl turned around and faced Phalet’s army. They were still staring at her.

Letting out a breath, she asked, “So . . . what now?”

As one, the demon soldiers slammed the blunt ends of their spears into the ground, dropped to one knee, and bowed their heads.

Eyes wide, Annwyl looked at the mother demon animal standing beside some of the soldiers. They stared at each other a moment before Annwyl looked back at soldiers, opened her mouth, and said, “Huh . . .”

Because, honestly, she really didn’t know what else to say.

Chapter Thirty-Three

The Empress’s generals were impressive. Moving quickly as soon as the threat came into view, they rallied the troops and began to fight back immediately.

But the Empress was still undone by the loss of her youngest son, and her remaining offspring were having a hard time getting her to face her brother. Not in a one-on-one fight, but at the head of her troops in a show of fearlessness.

Her sobbing, though, made that impossible.

“Ma,” Fang tried again while Aidan and his brothers secured the windows and doors of the palace’s war room. “You have to stop this. Ren would want you to fight.”

“My Ren is gone! He’s gone! Why would I want to go on?”

“Because you have other offspring. And, of course, an empire to run.”

“Eh.”

Fang threw up her hands and walked away.

It was amazing, really, the way the entire family ignored the sound of rocks and lava balls ramming into their home; the crash of swords and shields. Instead, they all focused on their mother and trying to talk her into doing something. Anything.

As for Aidan and his brethren, they did what they always did. They protected the royals. It was what they were trained for. If Keita were here, and she still wanted to poison the entire family, that would be up to her. But Aidan wasn’t about to carry out anything like that.

“Ma, please.” Lei tried.

“My Ren!” the Empress suddenly burst out before throwing herself onto a large metal table, sobbing hysterically.

The Empress’s offspring huddled together, whispering. Aidan moved from window to window, looking outside to see if any of the enemy troops were getting close. He’d prefer to move the Empress to a more secure location but until she calmed down a bit that would probably not be possible.

Aidan glanced over and saw that the offspring were watching him. He had to admit . . . he didn’t like it.

He especially didn’t like it when Ju grabbed his arm and yanked him out of the room.

“You work with Rhiannon the White, don’t you?” Ju asked Aidan.

“It’s been my honor to protect, Her Maj—”

“Right, right. Whatever you say. Now we need you to use some of that skill on our mother.”

But Aidan didn’t know the Empress. He didn’t know anything about her.

“We need her to get up and face her brother.”

“But . . . as her children, wouldn’t it be easier for you to—”

“She never listens to anyone but Ren. But he’s dead, so . . .”

Surprised that Ren’s sister was taking his death so casually, Aidan didn’t really put up a fight when Ju shoved him back into the room and over to her mother.

The Empress had been placed back in a chair, but she was still sobbing, wiping her eyes with a cloth clutched in her hand.

The others watched Aidan expectantly. As if they hoped for some miracle from him!

His gaze flicked to each of them, wondering what he should do next. He had no fucking idea. But he also had nothing to lose at this point. So he borrowed knowledge he’d learned from Keita on the art of pissing someone off.

Aidan crouched beside the chair and took the Empress’s hand, being careful not to let the tips of those nail guards nick his human flesh. He’d heard rumors she had poison on them and, true or false, he didn’t want to take any risks.

“My lady, I know you are devastated by the loss of your son—”

“My perfect, amazing son.”

Clearing his throat, “Yes, your perfect, amazing son. And I have to say, I find it distasteful that even though your perfect, amazing son lost his precious life in a Zealot fort outside of Aberthol in the Southlands, your brother had the nerve, the audacity to lie to you and say that he held your perfect, amazing son captive all this time. You built your hopes on that. That he would return Ren of the Chosen to you . . . when he knew he never would. That’s a lie I know I could never forgive.”