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Synopsis

Kara's drastic ceasefire deal with the formidable demon Imperator Dekkak slowed the attacks on Earth to a trickle, but her troubles are far from over. The god-like demahnk are desperate to return to their own kind, but unless they can stabilize the demon realm, they'll be forever exiled--and they've subjugated Kara's beloved Mzatal to further their hellacious cause. One faction of demonic lords and demahnk has a plan to fix their world, yet their salvation would come at the expense of Earth.

Meanwhile, Kara is wrestling with government bureaucracy, backstabbing allies, enemy lords, as well as the powerful young demonic lord Ashava, who's packing the drama, angst, and rebellion of the terrible teen years into just a few months.

Kara's in a race to stop an apocalypse, but in order to prevail she'll have to make a terrible sacrifice or risk losing everything she holds dear.

Excerpt

Chapter 1

Mzatal stood facing away from me, hands clasped behind his back, and framed by the glass wall of his solarium. Beyond, demons wheeled and sparred above the restless, sunlit sea, their bellows clear and resonant.

Surely if I didn't move, didn't breathe, I could hold on to this moment.

"Zharkat," he murmured. Beloved.

My resolve evaporated. I wrapped my arms around him, rested my cheek against his back, breathed in his familiar scent-like petrichor with the faintest whiff of sulfur. I would take whatever moments I could get.

"Boss." My term of affection for him, our private joke-one I thought I might never have a chance to speak again.

He turned in my arms and cradled me to his chest. I sighed into the comfort of the embrace, relaxed for the first time in ages. The deep thud of his heart amplified into a rumble of thunder, a perfect complement to our communion. After a time, he eased back and laid his palm against my cheek. The demons were gone, and lightning streaked through roiling clouds. Warmth filled eyes the color of the storm, and a flicker of a smile touched his lips. "I miss you."

My throat tightened. "Miss you, too." I wiped a trickle of blood from his temple. "I'm so worried about you. About what Ilana has done to-"

He held a finger to his lips. With his shushing exhale, the solarium phosphoresced, flowed away. Stars shimmered in a moonless sky, crickets rasped, and a soft breeze carried the fragrance of rain and pines. We sat on the back steps of my house, his arm around me. Weedy grass stretched unbroken to the surrounding trees, and deer grazed near a trail leading into the woods.

Home. My haven and retreat. Like it used to be. Before it became a militarized compound.

Mzatal tightened his arm around me. "Do not worry for me, beloved."

"How can I not?" I tugged his braid and found it bound so tightly it felt like steel cable. "I just wish I knew how to fix the worlds. How to free you."

"It would seem impossible."

"Doing the impossible is in our job description. Together we can do anything."

"Even if we aren't together." A smile I felt to my core lit his eyes as he echoed my thought from what seemed like an age ago.

"I'm just so tired of it all." I buried my face against his neck, sensed the arcane flare of my sigil on his chest-the scar he had sculpted to remind him of our connection. Of himself. "Oh! I have a ring for you. Made from-"

"Not here. Not yet." The intensity in his voice set the earth shaking.

A reyza bellowed, and an icy vortex sucked away the peace of home and deposited us back in the solarium.

Mzatal gripped my shoulders, eyes flint-hard on mine. "Worlds are breaking." The demon-glass wall shattered into a billion iridescent shards that reminded me of something I couldn't place. Wind whipped at my hair, and a flight of reyza-somehow merely the size of geese-swarmed in, screaming profanities. Their aerial antics toppled a gimkrah from its pedestal, scattered scrolls, and sent a portrait of demonic lord Seretis crashing to the floor.

"Could you not?" I snarled.

But they shouted louder-"No no no no no! Watch out!"-drowning out Mzatal's words. I tried to read his lips, his thoughts, but-

I jerked awake to a crash and David Nguyen yelling in the back yard. "Dammit, Prikahn. I told you to hold the rope steady. You almost killed me!"

"I am not beholden to you, tailless chekkunden." No mistaking the threat in the demon's growling tone toward the compound's arborist.

I scrambled up from the desk and flung open my office window, letting in a wave of frigid air. The Jontari reyza Prikahn loomed over Nguyen and his two assistants, wings spread and lips pulled back from fangs as long as my hand. A branchless pine lay downed between them. Nguyen held an idling chainsaw that had zero chance of injuring the demon should violence commence, while Dagor-a reyza half the height of his comrade at a mere nine feet-crouched nearby, a red pulsing orb of rakkuhr gathered in his clawed hand, ready for a strike. Bryce Taggart, head of security, and three of his team stood a debatably safe distance away, monitoring the uncertain situation.

"Prikahn!" I hollered. "You're sure as hell beholden to me. Don't make me come out there!"

The warlord pivoted my way, sinuous tail thrashing. "I will not abide disrespect from this unscarred weakling, Kara Gillian." He thrust a wicked claw in Nguyen's direction.

I packed every lick of arcane potency I could muster behind my words. "You and Dagor damaged the tree, my property-against our agreement-and you will abide by whatever Nguyen says needs to be done to clear it." I paused to reinforce potency. "Are we in accord?"

Prikahn spread his wings wide, threw back his head, and let out a roaring bellow that rattled windows and sent birds flying.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're a serious badass," I muttered, then counted to three to honor his dominance display. "Are we in accord?"

Nguyen scrambled back as the warlord hefted the tree-surely a strain even for a demon as massive as Prikahn.

"Kri, Kara Gillian. We . . . Are . . . In . . . Accord." The demon snarled each word through clenched teeth, but folded his wings, a signal of acquiescence.

Prikahn loped off east with the tree, but Dagor went still, eyes locked on Nguyen. Only the tip of his tail twitched, and the gathered orb of rakkuhr throbbed like a beating heart in his hand. Shit. Sunlight struck him as clouds shifted. His battle-scarred skin glistened rich burgundy, and adornments of gold glinted on his arms, ears, wings, and horns. Dagor didn't appear as formidable as Prikahn, but I wasn't fooled for an instant. He was wicked-fast, a master of the arcane, and could more than hold his own in a fight with the larger warlord.

"Dagor!" I called. "Enough! It's over. Stand down."

He paid me no heed other than to issue a deep growl I felt more than heard.

Double shit.

Bryce's voice crackled through the desk comms speaker. "Kara . . . SkeeterCheater's ready."

My focus didn't leave Dagor as I fumbled my comms earpiece into place. "And I'm building potency for bindings, but hold on." Deploying the cannon-fired graphene net would probably snare the demon, but it would piss him off royally, making him triply dangerous, and no doubt bring Prikahn right back. Dagor was waiting for something, but what?

He was riveted on Nguyen, who was holding-

"Nguyen, you got comms on?"

Nguyen nodded just enough for me to see.

"Okay, listen." I kept my voice calm and confident, even though my gut churned and flipped. "You need to rev the chainsaw, wave it over your head, and give the biggest baddest war cry you can muster."

"Kara," Bryce said in a voice filled with what-the-fuck.

Nguyen didn't move, but his two assistants edged back toward Bryce's position.

"Nguyen. Trust me." I hoped beyond hope I wasn't misreading the situation. "It's demon social behavior. Dagor's waiting for you to show you're either as weak as Prikahn said, or that you're fearless and worthy. That's what you want to show him. Pretend you're Prikahn. Badass. Scared of nothing. Do it."

Dagor stood from his crouch, and the rakkuhr flared.

Nguyen remained frozen in place.

Time for Plan B. Net. Potency. Deal with the fallout later.

"Bryce, SkeeterCheater on three . . . two . . ."

The chainsaw roared. Nguyen swung it over his head and yelled, "I AM THE ONE AND ONLY DAVID NGUYEN! NO ONE FUCKS WITH ME! I DON'T HAVE A FUCKING TAIL, BUT I'VE GOT SCARS OF MY OWN AND THE CHAINSAW OF DOOM!" He followed up with a bloodcurdling bellow that was an impressive cross between a mountain lion and a gorilla.

I remained poised to act, but I'd spotted the demon's telltale flick of his tail. "Bryce, I think we're good."

Bryce didn't seem so certain. Dagor raised his hand, and crimson wreathed in black blasted the ground where the tree had been, sending up a plume of dirt and smoke, and leaving a two-foot crater.

To his credit, Nguyen staggered back but kept the Chainsaw of Doom revved and swinging. Dagor bugled, a piercing but non-menacing cry, and launched into flight.

Nguyen stopped the chainsaw and sagged to one knee. Bryce hurried over to crouch beside him. "We'll take care of Nguyen and mop up, Kara."

I gave a shaky laugh. "That's why I let you have all that juicy responsibility." I eased my hold on the potency I'd gathered, released it. "We got lucky."

"You made a good call. We get through this one minute at a time."

Neither of us addressed the elephant-or demon-in the room. We didn't have to. We lived with it 24/7. Though the four Jontari demons-Ambassadors? Observers? Foreign Exchange Students?-were oathbound not to harm, maim, or kill, one vexed flick of a reyza's tail could end a human-and they were getting surlier by the day. This incident had come closer to a bad outcome than ever before. Logically, I couldn't blame them for not being beacons of positivity. We were all stir-crazy and feeling the effects of the constant stress, and the demons had the added stress of being away from their home world. Yet understanding and empathy wouldn't make a lick of difference if it all blew up in my face.

These four warlords were here as a condition of the agreement I made a few months ago with the ancient Jontari Imperator Dekkak: her eyes and ears on Earth. But it was the two reyza-Prikahn and Dagor-who were my big headaches, both of them sick of Earth and chafing at restrictions.

They could be stuck here for a while, though. Dekkak had fulfilled her part of the bargain by rescuing Elinor from Xharbek, but I had yet to fulfill mine- acquire and relinquish to Dekkak all three essence blades, each the arcane prison for a millennia-old Jontari elder: Xhan, Vsuhl, and Khatur. Problem was, the demonic lord Szerain held Vsuhl, and a very closed-off and dangerous Mzatal possessed the other two. Piece of cake! The only bright spot was that I still had over two months until the agreed upon deadline.

I shut the window before returning to my desk-or rather tried to shut it, letting out a barrage of filthy words when it jammed open with an inch to go. After a brief and fruitless struggle, I gave up and left the window to think about its life choices. Hell, maybe the crisp January air would help me stay awake since, as always, I had a buttload of work still to do. That said, if there was a chance in hell a nap would take me back to dream-Mzatal's arms, I'd snuggle into the recliner in the corner and snooze the day away. To hell with obligations. But dreams didn't cooperate that way, dammit.

I stroked my thumb over the ring on the middle finger of my left hand. Mzatal's ring, which I'd someday be able to give to him. Beside it, on my fourth finger, rested its mate, both reforged from a ring he'd given me what seemed a lifetime ago, though it was barely over a year.

Pushing down the emotion that threatened to swamp me, I collapsed into the desk chair and slapped the spacebar of my laptop to wake it up. The yard beyond the window was nothing like the peaceful refuge of the dream. Instead of an expanse of grass to the tree line, my nexus-an arcane circular slab of obsidian-dominated the center, flanked by a rift to the demon realm on the right and a white-trunked demon-grove tree on the left. The tree was a sentient extension of Rho, the demahnk-Ekiri entity who had merged with the demon realm planet millennia ago in order to stabilize it. Beyond it, portable buildings crowded the woods' edge: workspaces, barracks for the security team, along with equipment and weapons storage.

Cory Crawford-my former sergeant from when I was a detective with Beaulac PD, and who was now known as Krawkor-emerged from the communications building and glide-walked toward the front gate, his trio of tails working in oddly harmonious conjunction with his prosthetic right leg. He'd lost his leg during the chaos and destruction of the ground zero valve explosion the previous July. Moreover, he was one of several humans who'd been affected by the mutagen flowing from that valve. It had triggered a bizarre podding process that involved merging with a demon-one of the mysterious and fog-like ilius-and he'd subsequently metamorphosed into . . . well, he was still definitely the same person on the inside, but now his skin was a constantly shifting canvas of brilliant color. Then there were the three prehensile tails. They not only helped him with balance and mobility, but also served as tentacle-like extra hands. Even better, he'd gained two valuable skills: a keen sense of the arcane, and the ability to counteract the constant and frustrating arcane interference that plagued our comms systems-a talent that I suspected was influenced by his prior expertise as a ham radio operator. Within a week of emerging from the demon pod, he'd overhauled and upgraded our system, and now carried a compact sound deck slung across his body like a purse, which he used to control and adjust pretty much everything related to compound communications.

A shadowy form wavered along behind him: the zhurn Sloosh, another of the Jontari warlords. Sloosh had hit it off with Krawkor-maybe because Krawkor was kinda sorta part demon now?-and also seemed to seek out humans for games and simple company, unlike the other three more standoffish warlords.

The fourth warlord perched atop the security office, silently observing everything with sharp eyes set in a face akin to a Chinese dragon. Weyix was a kehza, and though far smaller than the two reyza, he was a clever and dangerous fighter, as I'd learned from seeing him spar the other warlords. Every. Single. Day.

Weyix's gaze tracked Turek as the ancient savik made his way across the yard, translucent scales gleaming on his seven-foot-long reptilian torso. The only non-Jontari demon at the compound-and Szerain's essence-bond mate-Turek was well-liked and exchanged friendly greetings with every human he passed as they bustled back and forth, carrying out their duties of the moment.

Duties. Fuck. I scrolled through my to-do list. Everybody and their grandma wanted something, from reports to interviews to testimony. I'd returned only last night from a Congressional grilling in D.C., and my calendar was crammed with obligations. As the Arcane Commander of DIRT-Demonic Incursion Retaliation and Tactics-I carried the burden of responsibility for damn near everything demon-related, along with oversight of personnel, safety, tactics, and intel. Since making the "ceasefire" agreement with Dekkak, rift activity and demon attacks had decreased by about eighty percent, with the remaining twenty percent instigated by Jontari clans outside of Dekkak's authority. Yet that simply meant we could keep up-for the most part-rather than be overwhelmed. A DIRT response still happened a couple times per week somewhere on the planet.

Copyright © 2022 by Diana Rowland

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