“How do you know Sheila?” a girl’s voice asks, drawing all eyes to the hallway as she struts toward us in her true form.
Dark, short hair is styled in a bouncy bob cut, and she’s dressed in a pair of black jeans and a black, midriff showing v-neck shirt vest. Just like most of our world, she’s stunning enough to be seductive. Of course… then she could kill you with very little effort. There’s a reason Alyssa refers to our world as being full of deadly beauties, and this one was designed to kill as efficiently as a bitten fey.
“I saw her in a vision,” I say, ignoring Gage when he starts cursing me for exposing my secret. I’m not worried about this girl telling anyone, considering she’s not exactly on good terms with anyone who would be interested in me.
“And?” the girl prompts, crossing her arms in front of her.
“And I went to speak with her. I’m trying to find the slave rings and shut them down. But I don’t know how to find them. She said you could help me, so I came to see if you’d be willing.”
She narrows her eyes at me, and her blood red lips slowly curl into an eerie grin. “So she told you what to expect before you got here, and yet these fools storm in unaware? I don’t think so.”
A red glow forms around her slowly, steadily growing in warning. Shit. Stupid dark user and idiotic incubus.
“I said Sheila told me. I never said anything about them knowing.”
She tilts her head, seeming to still be weighing my words for lies. Unlike the alpha female, this girl can’t sniff out a lie, and her time in slave prisons has her untrusting and paranoid—rightfully so.
“Prove it.”
Gage steps up, trying to shield me like I’m a damn damsel in distress, but I shove him hard. He barely moves, but it pisses him off enough to earn another glare for him.
“I know what you truly are,” I say, refusing to look at the confused expressions I can feel Gage and Dice sharing.
“Oh?” the girl asks, trying to seem as though this is all of no consequence to her.
“Yes. And I know that people would pay a lot of money for a demon with a conscience. Which is why I’m here. They’ll come. The only way to shut them down is to go on the offensive.”
“Demon with a conscience,” Dice scoffs in disbelief. “Bullshit.”
The girl’s smile spreads, and it actually creeps me out a little, because she’s naturally ominous.
“You realize there are more rings out there than one person can ever really destroy.” She skates over the fact I’ve just basically exposed her secret—one that shouldn’t be possible.
“No there’s not. There are only a little more than a handful of major rings. Shut them down at the source, and the small ones will crumble. People need leaders. And very few people are capable of leading such rings. We kill the sources. The rest will fall under the chaos. It’ll set a precedent of what’s to come to anyone brave enough to try to step up.”
The girl’s smile slowly falls. “Ambitious. You sound like you have a death wish to me.”
“Sounds the same to me,” Gage adds, not being the slightest bit helpful. Why did I bring him with me? I’m starting to see why Kane hates him now, and it’s not just because Gage and Alyssa dated.
“I’m not going to lie; I’m not afraid of dying if it means saving hundreds of innocent people. My life is not more valuable simply because I’m no longer trapped behind bars.”
Finally, I see her eyes shift, and the girl I’ve been trying to appeal to loses the red gleam in her otherwise golden brown eyes. The red power buzzing around her begins to slowly evaporate, and she takes a steady breath.
“Then I’ll help you. I’m not afraid of death either. Besides, there’s someone I need to find.”
Sheila told me to expect this. It’s how I knew I could convince her to help us.
“Your sister,” I say, nodding. “Was she in the same ring as you?”
She pulls the choker off her neck, exposing a barbed ring tattooed onto her flesh. The barbed ring has branded her as well. She really has been traded too often, all of them searching for the highest bidder.
“I don’t know where she is. But I heard talk of three others like me. One has to be her. I spent five years in the rings. It’s really not that long,” she says grimly. “My twin sister was stolen at age six. I’m not sure what I’ll find because of how much damage that amount of time can do, but I have to try. I hope you have more than an incubus and a dark user, visionary.”
Ah, shit. How does she know what they are? Gage revealed his power, but Dice hasn’t.
“How the fuck do you know what I am?” Dice demands, quickly making sure to step behind Gage when the girl looks over to him.
“I walk between dead and alive better than anything you’ve ever encountered, worthless fey. I sense power. I read it. Which is why they want me so damn bad. I can tell if someone is fey or not, and if I’m around them long enough, I can tell you every fucking power they have.”