This whole time, I’ve been pretending to be something wholesome when being wholesome meant denying this part of me.

I let the blood drip down my fisted hand to the ground, my bare feet stepping over the droplets as I begin to walk in a counterclockwise motion.

“To the gods that dwell beneath my feet,” I call out in Sarmatian, “give me power, and I will give you blood.” My voice sounds deeper, stronger, surer as I speak.

I sense something beneath me moving toward my offering. The blood on the floor evaporates, and thick, smoky plumes of my orange magic rise up, streaked with veins of inky black. Dark magic.

Distantly, I’m aware that my power is falling on the wrong side of good and evil. But too much of me thrills at the thick ropes of power I drag up from the earth. It’s so much more magic than what the ground usually offers up.

We hunger for more, mistress…more blood. We have missed the taste of you…

I let my blood continue to fall as I pace the perimeter of the circle. “From air, I breathe. With fire, I burn. From water, I drink. To earth, all shall return.”

Blood magic is destructive magic, and I drag that destruction along with every step I take. It batters at the ward, and I sense the walls that entrap me weakening. The ground begins to tremble, but this time, Memnon isn’t responsible for it.

“Sky above, spirits below, my blood you take.” The coven was a match; this is an inferno. “This ward unmake.” My gaze falls to Luca. “This spell I break.”

BOOM!

Power floods out of me, shattering the walls of the spell circle. It sweeps across the room, blowing the salt away and throwing the men backward.

I stand there, wounded and bloodstained, as my magic retreats into me, clearing the air.

Fearsome mate, I felt that, Memnon says down our bond. I swear I hear the sorcerer’s low laugh. The Fortunas made a mistake trying to capture a true Sarmatian queen. I hope you make them pay for it.

I am. With that, I pull away from our connection. I grip my dagger tightly and stride forward, the pads of my feet stepping on all those old, nearly forgotten bloodstains. Magic still lingers in those stains, stale and fetid but there nonetheless. I pull it into me, and the stains hiss as they simmer away.

This power came from the blood of my coven sisters, my mage brothers, and my lycan friends—them and perhaps other innocent supernaturals who were forced to give up their lives. It’s wrong to form another’s pain into power, but these individuals have already suffered. I won’t let it be for nothing.

Both Luca and Jacques are pushing themselves up from where they’ve fallen.

I draw together my magic⁠—

Luca incants beneath his breath, and a split-second later, a curse hits me in the abdomen. The magic impales my torso as though it were a stake.

I stagger, choking on the pain, then fall.

SELENE! Memnon roars. The building shakes violently.

Luca drags himself the rest of the way up from the ground, his arm still outstretched. Tucked under his other arm is the hateful Book of the Damned. It still smokes, that acrid power wafting off it.

“Fucking cunt,” he spits out. “You think you can best me? In my own home? I haven’t survived all these years on might alone…”

He continues speaking, but I stop listening when I sense those beings in the ground beneath me. They clamor close, lured in by my spilled blood.

They can have it.

“Take my blood but spare my life,” I whisper. “Feast instead on Luca Fortuna and Jacques Allard.”

My blood sinks into the floor, drawn down by the creatures beneath me.

A moment later, the ground trembles, and a crack forms beneath my legs. It slithers forward, breaking concrete and heading right for Luca. Another crack branches from it, moving toward Jacques.

As soon as the crack reaches him, it widens to a fissure. The building creaks under the pressure.

“Fuck!” Jacques curses as one of his legs falls through the growing opening. The earth continues to shake as he attempts to pull his leg from the hole. He’s almost gotten himself out of the fissure when the ground beneath his hands and upper torso falls away. His body is swallowed into the earth, and the last thing I hear is his echoing cry.

“What in God’s name have you done?” Luca shouts as the other crack follows him across the room.

I’d love to answer, but the crack beneath me now widens. I drag myself away, crying out a little as the pain in my stomach darkens my vision.

The earth shakes again, and the floor beneath the sorcerer crumbles away. Luca drops The Book of the Damned to lunge for solid ground, but it too gives way under his body. His hands manage to catch the lip of the concrete floor, exposed rebar jutting out from it.

Luca’s eyes meet mine for an instant, and I see true terror in his eyes. Then the concrete lip he holds onto collapses, and the sorcerer falls.

He’s barely disappeared from sight when the ground begins to seal back up, the building shrieking and swaying as it does so.

Above me, the lights in the chandeliers flicker.

Rejoin us, Empress. Your blood tastes better when it comes with your flesh…

As the voices speak, the floor beneath my own legs disintegrates.

Oh fuck.

It feels like a direct portal to the Underworld has been ripped open beneath my feet.

I scramble to get to more solid ground, crying out as the movement tugs at my injuries. More of the ground falls away beneath my stomach, and I swallow my fear as my bloodied hands grip the smooth, chilled concrete for dear life. I struggle to pull myself farther out of the hole, but my muscles are shaking, and my strength is waning, and every time I move, I feel like I’m tearing through a bit more of my innards.

I don’t know why I’m fighting this. If these gods that dwell beneath the earth want me, I’ll have to live in the sky to truly stop them.

At the thought, my grip loosens, and I slide a little deeper into the fissure.

Don’t you dare stop fighting. Memnon’s voice rings out down our bond.

The double doors blow open, and my soul mate strides in, his magic billowing around him like churning storm clouds. His hair is stirring, and his eyes glow the faintest amount. He himself looks thoroughly torn up. His tux is in shreds, and claw marks run along his forearms, legs, and back. He even has a gruesome set running along the underside of his jaw.

I make a small sound at the state he’s in, and the noise draws his eyes to mine. The moment he sees me, his magic barrels across the room. It molds itself around my body and drags me forward, out of the chasm.

I scream as the movement jostles my innards.

“Selene!” Memnon roars.

I can no longer see him, not when his magic surrounds me. But then, I feel his hands on me.

He murmurs a quick spell, and my pain vanishes. An instant later, he pulls me into his arms, sitting back on his haunches to hold me, his hand moving to my abdominal wound.

Before he can press a healing spell against it, the ground shudders again, dislodging his grip on my stomach and sliding the two of us forward. It feels as though the earth itself is trying to pitch us into the massive crack Memnon just dragged me out of.

Mistress…join us as you once did…

My eyes move to the dark opening down, down in the deep earth, and I grit my teeth.

“No,” I say.

Memnon gives me a curious look before following my gaze. He studies the fissure for several seconds, then returns his attention to me.

You’ve been speaking to the Hungering Ones, haven’t you? he says down our bond.

They didn’t seem so bad when I was facing down a demon, I admit wearily.