Kimba nodded, solemn as ever, but her eyes sparkled with affection. “As it should be, soul bonded. As it should be.”

  They were quiet for a few moments, watching the snow fall in the night sky. Then Rory asked, “What are you going to do about Osiris?” She felt Kimba tense beside her and the sharp pain radiate through their bond.

  “He’s got to make his own decisions. Just like I’ve got to make mine. We may be soul bonded, but we are still individuals,” she said, her words sounding much more sure than she felt. “But between you and me, I’m reminding myself that I shouldn’t eat him because he’d no doubt give me indigestion after being in hell for so long.”

  Rory laughed. “At least you’re keeping your sense of humor. But, you know I’m here, if you need to talk. Or just go on a flight and leave this crap behind for a while.”

  Kimba nodded as she took several steps away from Rory and then, in a whirl of magic, returned to her dragon form. “I know I can always depend on you, Rory. But there’s no time for a break.” She stomped one of her huge feet, scratching the ground, getting everyone’s attention. “We begin tomorrow, after a good night's sleep,” she told them. “The world cannot wait. Your need to process changes cannot keep us from moving forward. This is the life of a warrior. You adjust at a moment's notice. You learn quickly. You fight without apology. When the dust settles, then we can deal with all the other stuff that had to be put on hold.” She let out a snuff of smoke from her nostrils and then added, “My mate will either sit on the sidelines and prove he’s useless, or step up and be the ruler he once was.”

  Liam whistled low. “That’s a burn with a capital ‘b.’ If anyone can bring him around, you seem more than capable.”

  “I will leave you in Kimba’s capable care,” Sepheron said. “I will return as quickly as I can. But, I feel there is something I must address.”

  Kimba nodded at the king. “We will be here when you return.”

  “I will be quick,” he said and then used his powerful legs to push himself out of the cave, his great wings expanding, catching him on the wind. They all watched until he was out of sight.

  Rory felt Aston step up beside her. She took a deep breath, reaching for his hand as the rest of the group stood and gathered in a loose circle. She tried to find the right words, some kind of rallying cry, but all that came out was, “Let’s not die today, okay?”

  Gabby grinned. “Speak for yourself. Almost dying is what makes it fun.”

  Liam whooped. “That’s the spirit! Wait, what?” he looked at his mate. “There will be no ‘almost dying.’ If you want fun, I’ll show you fun. If you want dying, I can give you the little death.”

  “Somebody stop him now,” Elias said, as he shoved at Liam.

  The other couples laughed at the water elementalist’s antics, and Rory appreciated the lighter atmosphere.

  They talked for a while. Rory was fascinated by what the other soul-bonded couples had to share with them–their adventures and battles with dark elementals and acolytes. Her heart ached for them anytime they mentioned friends that had not made it out of battles, and she wondered if that would be her one day. She looked around at the people in the cave and hoped with everything inside of her that they would all make it through this so that in the future they would all one day be telling the younger generations about their triumphs without the pain of the losses.

  She leaned her head on Aston’s shoulder, soaking up his warmth as Crey regaled them with how he won Tinley’s heart after she’d rebuffed him for over a year. She closed her eyes and let the sound of their voices wrap her in what she knew would be a short-lived peace.

  “There can be no peace without war, Sweets,” Aston said through their bond. “Just as there is no light without darkness.”

  “I think you should stick to your books, Babe,” she told him. “Your pep talks sort of suck.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “When the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, but finds none. Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order. Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.” Matthew 12:43-45 ESV

  Richard Groat was doing something unexpected. He was going out . . . on a weeknight. Recently divorced after fifteen unhappy years, Richard couldn’t remember the last time he went out, and especially not on a weeknight. Certainly, it would have been with Lorraine, and it would have been something she had wanted to do. She never used to let him go out alone with his friends, few though they were, and she never used to let him pick what they did. Not that they ever did much of anything after the kids were born.

  So, when a few of Richard’s co-workers at Maxwell Petrochemicals asked him to go to a bar after work to celebrate an employee's birthday, the words”I can’t,” were halfway out of his mouth when a profound realization froze the reply on his tongue. He could. He could not only go out, but he could—heaven forbid—actually enjoy himself. The thought made him slightly nervous. Enjoying oneself was something other people did. Richard went to work, he came home, he ate Lorraine’s terrible cooking, he was ignored by his two teenage children, he watched television, and he went to bed. In that order. Day after day, week after week, year after year. Rarely during that twenty-four-hour cycle did Richard enjoy himself.

  He nodded at Rita McKay, who was staring at him expectantly. Rita was another chemical engineer who worked in the office across from his. She too was divorced, though not so recently. “Yes,” Richard replied slowly. “Yes, I think I’d like to go out.”

  Now, a few hours and several Long Island Iced Teas later, Richard was out. And he found he quite enjoyed being out.

  The demon stared out through the eyes of the tavern’s innkeeper. No. He shook his head, an action which the man mimicked like a marionette. That’s not what they call them nowadays. This wasn’t a tavern. It was called a bar. And the human he’d possessed was called a bartender. No matter. Ahriman wouldn’t be here for long, and he cared nothing for what the man was called. Yet, the demon could certainly have fun inside this host. After all, the human females were practically purring at him, daring him with their eyes to invite them somewhere more private. Oh, what he could do to these pathetic weaklings, bound in slavery to their carnal desires? Alas, Ahriman must refrain; he had something much more important in mind.

  Lucifer was awakening. Rushing out of hell and into the over-world, Ahriman had felt his lord’s mind, pursuing him like a great cat. It wasn’t conscious thought he heard, more like a presence—a shadow of malice and hatred, terrible in its power. The other demons had felt it as well. He could sense their fear, bordering on hysteria. Ahriman knew Lucifer wasn’t yet fully awake, but he soon would be. And Ahriman would help with that awakening. The more destruction he could sow, the more powerful Lucifer would be. The lesser minions were running amok, committing petty acts of minor destruction or sowing discord. They were wasting their opportunity to serve the dark lord. Ahriman would be found doing something that had a lasting effect. He would be rewarded. The demon just needed the right person to come along. And now, Ahriman had found the man he was looking for.

  Richard felt a tiny shock of electricity when the bartender’s fingers brushed his as the man passed him another Long Island Iced Tea. And that was the last thing he would remember for some time. Rita, who’d been glancing around the bar, possibly looking for someone more interesting to talk to, sucked in a gasp. “What?” he asked her, a look of confusion on his face.

  “Your eyes?” she replied. “They seemed . . . I don’t know. That was weird.”

  “What?”

  “They seemed to go dark for a second. I could have sworn I saw them go completely black.” Her brow furrowed as she shook her head and took another sip from her drink.

  “Maybe it was a trick of the light,” Richard muttered, looking away from her, as he felt a trickle of sweat run down his back. When he let himself look back at Rita, he felt a powerful desire to reach across the space between them and slap the disgusted look off her face. Instead of acting on that impulse, he lifted his hand and ran a finger down her arm. “Would you like another drink?” he asked, his voice rough as two warring urges rose in him.

  Rita slowly pulled away so that his hand fell off of her arm. “What are you doing?”

  Richard smiled, and judging by the sudden unease on his companion's face, it didn’t set her at ease the way he’d hoped. “I’m offering to buy you a drink. Is that seriously offensive to you?” That this bitch thought she was better than him caused the proverbial hackles to rise on his neck.

  “I invited you as a friend, Richard,” she said, her voice taking on a haughty tone as she lifted her chin in the air. “Not a date.”

  He let out a snort, took a pull from his drink, swallowed, and then bit out, “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not exactly my type.”

  The irritated look fell away from her face, replaced by shock and then anger as her cheeks filled with blood, causing a vein to pop out on her forehead. “What is your problem?” She shook her head at him and seemed confused as her eyes bore down. “I must have totally misjudged you. I didn’t realize there was an asshole hiding under the nice-guy act.”

  Richard hissed at her, causing her to push further away from him where they sat at the bar. He felt his hand twitch with the need to grab her throat but reached up to tug at the too-tight collar of his dress shirt. He glanced around. There were too many eyes. He couldn’t choke the life out of the woman next to him no matter how badly he wanted to at the moment. Richard stood abruptly, causing the stool to fall back and hit the floor with a loud clatter. Without a word, he turned and headed for the door.

  “Richard,” he heard Rita call out, “you didn’t pay your damn tab.”

  Rita watched her co-worker rush out the door like his ass was on fire. “What the actual hell?” She muttered as she looked down at the fallen stool and then back to the door he’d just exited. In all the time she’d known him, she’d never heard him be rude to anyone, or come across as sleazy, which he most certainly just did.

  “Need a refill?” the bartender’s voice drew her attention.

  Rita turned back to the bar and pushed her glass toward him. “Make it a double.” Her eyes drifted up to the large television that hung above the bar as a line of text ran across the screen that said “news flash.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “I’m thousands of years old . . . I think. I’m not exactly sure how old I am, and I’ve recently found out people have been fiddling with my memories. But I know I’ve been around a long time. And I thought nothing could surprise me. But being thousands of years old, I should have realized there are no certainties in life. As such, there is an opportunity for surprises every single day.” ~Osiris

  “Once upon a time, I had your loyalty. I had your everything.”

  “I am Kimba, the light queen of the soul elementals, the fifth element lost to the memories of our people.”

  “And I am your mate.”

  The woman’s words played over and over in Osiris’s mind as he stared out of the large cave entrance. The crisp winter air should have been uncomfortable to him considering where he came from. Osiris frowned at the thought. Did he come from the underworld? Perhaps the cold doesn’t bother me because I come from somewhere else?

  And maybe pigs were flying alongside the escaped demons in the human realm? And that man begging for iced water in hell has finally gotten a cool glass and a bowl of refreshing fruit to go with it.

  All of those things felt more likely to Osiris than what was actually happening. The whole damned world had been flipped upside down, and he was left dangling like a bat with its leg trapped on a branch. He was blowing in the wind while the insects he usually ate flew around him, laughing and taunting him. Okay, maybe he was being dramatic. And perhaps his metaphors were getting a little out of control, but seriously, what the actual hell?

  He let out a frustrated sigh and ran his hand down his face. One minute, he’d been wrapped up in his obsession with Shelly and making her his own, and the next, he was facing the possibility that everything he thought he knew was a lie.

  After dropping a proverbial bomb in his lap, Kimba, his supposed mate, had left, but not without one hell of a parting shot.

  “I do not know what our future holds, Osiris,” she said. “But I know it does not include you with another female. Give up this obsession with the human, or I will let her mate tear you to shreds.”

  “Bloodthirsty little female,” he muttered, slipping his hands into the pockets of his slacks. “Little?” He scoffed. “Hell, an hour ago she was the size of a city bus.”

  Osiris turned his back on the winter scene and walked deeper into the cave. The flames from the torches that lined the walls bobbed and weaved, causing shadows to dance on the stone. He took a deep breath and held it, relishing the cold air that burned his lungs, before finally letting it out. He was restless, like a caged animal, but trapped by what? There were no bars holding him in, nothing keeping him in this cave. Nothing but her . . .

  His feet began moving of their own accord. Osiris paced around the bed, the chair, and the unlit fire pit that took up part of the center of the cave. There were very few times in his existence when he remembered being unsure of his next move; though, now that he’d found out that he’d lost some of his memories, for all he knew his past could have been a constant mess of confusion and uncertainty. “Dammit all to hell,” he cursed and clenched his hands into fists, still resting inside of his pockets. “Pull yourself together, man.” Osiris hissed at himself. He was losing his mind. Everything that had once been in order was now tossed into the air. And it was coming down around him in a hot mess, landing at his feet, twisted, broken, and, in some cases, unrecognizable. This was his life. Something completely unknown. A man who’d been taken from a rock-solid place and hurled into the eye of a tornado of doubt in the blink of an eye. “Talk about a mind screw,” he growled. With a final, resigned sigh, he sat down on the bed and then flung himself back. Apparently, throwing himself about like a moody teenager was his new thing.

  Osiris closed his eyes, and immediately her image was there. Kimba. Not Shelly, the human female he thought he’d wanted. But Kimba, the woman, the dragon, the whatever, who claimed to be his . . . soul mate? No matter how he tried to shove her out of his head, she remained, with her direct gaze, proud, lifted chin, and defiant air. And despite how badly he wanted to say she didn’t intrigue him, he couldn’t. If he were honest with himself—though honesty wasn’t something on which he prided himself—he would admit he was beguiled. And damn if that didn’t just piss him off. “I’m supposed to be the beguiler, not the beguile-ee!”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that all hell has broken loose.” Radagast, the dark water king, folded his arms in front of him.

  Viscious slid his eyes from the night sky to glance at the other royal. “What gave it away?” he asked dryly. “All the demons flying around like monkey bats, or all the demons running around like toddlers on crack?”

  “You don’t seem concerned.” Radagast motioned to the sky. The denizens of hell swirled in circles overhead, set against a backdrop of heavy, gray clouds. Lightning illuminated the dark night every few seconds, revealing, in bright contrast, the winged abominations. “Why aren’t you worried?”

  Lamia, the dark air queen, purred, “Maybe the firestarter isn’t worried because he knows something we don’t.”

  Viscious snapped his teeth together, his ire rising at his fellow royals. “You know as much as I do,” he growled. “One minute, our world was demon free, then boom.” He clapped his hands. “Ta da, demons!”

  The dark earth queen, Nimue, chuckled. “Melodramaticic today, aren’t you, Viscious?”

  “I’m irritated, is what I am,” he said through gritted teeth. “You all are gawking like you’ve never seen a demon before. Instead of standing here with our fingers implanted in our rear ends, we should take advantage of this rare opportunity. Now is the time to strike against the light elementals. They’re going to be so busy trying to get this mess cleaned up, they won’t have time to follow up with their Marks.”

  “Hmm,” Radagast rumbled. “They’ll be easy pickings.”

  Viscious nodded. “Exactly.” He didn’t bother adding that the distraction had an added benefit for him personally. With the light elementalists fighting the demons, they wouldn’t be protecting a certain wayward baby pharaoh. “I’m going to increase the number of my acolytes searching for Marks,” Viscious said. “I would respectfully advise you three to do the same.”

  Lamia practically hissed at him, as he’d known she would. The dark air queen had always allowed herself to be too easily riled. “We do not need you to tell us how to run our acolytes.” She reminded Viscious of a cat with an arched back and hair standing on end.

  Viscious held up his hands. “I wouldn’t dare.” Yet he would. And their damn kingdoms would thrive off his wisdom if they would take his advice. He mentally snubbed his nose at the three other dark royals.

  Nimue cleared her throat and stepped toward Viscious. “We trust you, fire king,” she said, her voice soft. When she stood within touching distance, Nimue took a finger and ran it down his shoulder while tracing the motion with her eyes. “We trust you because we know your motives. When one of us is strong, we are all strong. If we are ever to defeat the light elementals, then we must work together. And now we are vulnerable after the debacle with the witches. We know you wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize our positions. Right?” She smiled, and it was all teeth.