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Six months has passed since Torture died and Verelus kidnapped Belladonna. To say Anguish was broken was an understatement. My brother was fighting to do as Gaia had bid him, but it was hard for him to even pull himself from the bottle, let alone to take over the daemon world. In my opinion, Gaia should be out here hunting for Verelus if she still expected Anguish to build a kingdom. He was fighting himself at this point to do her bidding, to make her happy while Gaia sat watching as it all unfolded. I was fucking done with Gaia and her fucking demands. She was good at demanding everything from us, expecting that we do everything she wants with no reward, no thanks, and no help. The only way Gaia was helping us was to send us her daemon slayer who was, in my opinion, useless. Lucian tried to tell us that Safir was a warrior for Gaia and should be feared but I hadn’t seen anything special about the male. He studied the scene at the church where he and Lucian spoke one on one and after that the daemon slayer left and began his hunt. The Queens had crossed paths with him several times, but he was having as much luck as we were at finding Verelus. Verelus had been causing havoc around the world, causing disasters that were creating uncertainty in the world. It had been a month or more since any sightings of Verelus. He had gone quiet which made me nervous.
The only one who wanted Verelus as much as Anguish was Myckie. She was feeling the loss of Torture like no one else. Torture was my brother but, in some ways, he was her male. Myckie never allowed Torture to mark her as his or maybe he wouldn’t out of fear of being tied to another. Either way, Myckie was feeling the same pain as Anguish was. She was my best friend and my partner as the head of The Queens. She was also the closest thing Torture had to being loved. The only bright side at least when it started was that Myckie had chosen anger to deal with her grief instead of sorrow, which meant she was determined to find and kill Verelus no matter what it took. The problem is her desire to kill Verelus was becoming an obsession. We had been riding from one place to the next with Myckie driving all of us to our edge.
Today we were in New York City. Arch was busy trying to rebuild The Hall of Records and was alerted to a situation brewing within New York. Arch reached out to us letting us know what he had been tipped off. Verelus had been doing more than just going after humans and hellborns, he was now going after the daemon world as well. He had built an entire army out of fearcions. Fearcions were daemons who had no abilities. They were black figures with clawed hands, long teeth and were cruel when they attacked. They were used for mercenary work because they held no allegiance to anyone, including one another, or at least they didn’t before Verelus. He was using the fearcions as a way to try and take control of the daemon world. Fearcions were appearing in daemon territories working as hit squads. Most daemons were too busy trying to protect their territory to be able to do anything more than kill a fearcion. From what we were hearing Verelus hadn’t been seen, just the fearcions.
The ride to New York was long and not as much fun as it would have been six months ago. Prior to Verelus, when we were traveling, it was fun. We would ride in a formation of two lines, Myckie and I would be side by side with the others behind us. At any point and time, one of our females would cut off another. Usually over the roar of our engines you would hear cursing as one female took on another. There would be nights where we would plan to stop at bars and feed our desires for sex. As a female daemon, we had to feed our bodies with sex and desire or we would begin to secrete desire to those around us until we got what we wanted or went berserk.
That was no longer the case. There was no laughter, no fucking around with one another, or feeding. I couldn’t remember the last time we had been out partying. We bounced from state to state and sometimes hopping countries and cleaning up messes Verelus was creating. We were exhausted. Myckie was just a shadow of herself.
We arrived in New York City late afternoon. The sun was already setting as we climbed off of our bikes in the garage. We didn’t have a home like other daemons and our territory was wherever we were hunting. That meant we had to have safe houses all over the world. New York's location was a small apartment building that sat only a few blocks from Time Square with a small parking garage under the building. We all stood up and began to stretch our muscles from the long ride. I waited a few minutes before I spoke.
“Harlow, make sure we have supplies. We will need enough for the next few days.” I ordered.
“How many days of supplies do you want?”
“Three days.” I answered.
“Do you really think we need three days of supplies?” Myckie asked.
I stripped out of my leather jacket, tossing it on the handlebars of my bike.
“As much as we are hopping from place to place, yeah.”
“Fine.”
I growled softly at Myckie’s response.
“Harlow, take Raine with you.”
“Got it.” Harlow answered.
“Kenzie, I want you, Morgan, and Indra to start your search as to where the attack could happen.”
“We’re on it.” Kenzie answered.
“Myckie, come with me.” I grabbed her by the arm and began to drag her inside our safe house. I felt the eyes of the other females as they watched Myckie and I.
Myckie began to pull against my grip as I locked my hand tighter around her upper arm. She was three inches taller than I was, but it didn’t matter. I ignored her as I typed in the code. We entered the building with Myckie getting angrier as my grip tightened around her arm.
The inside of the building had hardwood floors that were blond with cream walls. Lucian had ensured that the place looked expensive with black and grey artwork hanging on the walls giving a contrast to the look of the building. Myckie began to push at me, forcing me to readjust my grip on her. A new struggle began between us. She had no desire to deal with me or what I had to say but she was going to.
Myckie and I reached the first apartment which was mine. I unlocked the door one handed, with Myckie trying to pull her arm free from my grip. She had reached forward to grab a hold of my head just as the door popped open. I pushed Myckie inside. I slammed the door shut.
Each apartment was a large open space. As soon as you walked in there was a narrow hallway that opened to the living room. The kitchen was small and to the left with a marble bar. The same wooden floors were in each of the apartments. The walls were white with only a single couch sitting against a wall. Off to the right of the living room was a bedroom with a bathroom. Each apartment was kept simple to ensure if we needed to use the place at a drop of a hat we could. This safe house wasn’t used as much as other locations. It meant that the place was kept clean and didn’t need a lot of decoration.
Myckie turned to face me, growling and showing me her teeth.
“What the fuck?!”
“You need to get your shit together!” I yelled at Myckie.
“I have my shit together. That’s why I’m on this fucking ride. That's why I have been riding nonstop for weeks.”
“Is that the only reason you’re here, just to hunt Verelus? I thought it was because you wanted to be.” I snapped at Myckie. Myckie was panting as her anger rose. I took a breath before I said anything else. “I know you are hurting with the loss of Torture, but I need you to get your fucking emotion together or you will get one of us killed.”
“Go fuck yourself, Izzy!” Myckie turned away from me.
I stepped forward and spun her around.
“I know you loved Torture even if he couldn’t show you the same love, but this shit has to stop now.”
Myckie lowered her face close to mine.
“You know nothing of how I am fucking feeling. Torture was just another daemon male who I liked to fuck. Now get the fuck out of my face.” Myckie pushed me.
That was a wrong move. I took a step back to steady myself. I swung with a closed fist and knocked the shit out of her. Myckie took a step back and spit blood from her mouth. She glared at me for only a second before she returned the favor and hit me back. I looked at her for a moment. I stepped up again and hit her in the face again. Before Myckie could respond, I became lost in my anger. I grabbed a hold of her long braid and head butted her as hard as I could. Myckie’s body swayed a bit, but I didn’t wait to see if she was going to go down. I knew how strong Myckie was. My headbutt was going to slow her but not stop her. I swung my fist again and again into her face. I felt her blood shoot from her nose and onto my face. Before I could get another hit, Myckie hit me on the side of the head. I let go of her hair as I tried to steady myself. She jumped on top of me. I felt as my body hit the hard floor, knocking the wind out of me. Myckie began to beat my face relentlessly. I scratched and clawed at her until I could take hold of her. I threw her to the left and watched as she slid across the polished floors. Her body hit the wall. I didn’t wait as I stood up and walked over to her and grabbed her by the throat and pulled her up. I slammed her body against the wall as I placed my face close to hers.
“Do you feel better or should we keep going?” I demanded. Myckie growled at me as blood ran down her face from several places. “I’m fucking done.”
I released Myckie as she slid down the wall. I walked away from her thinking we were done. I had made my point. I needed a fucking drink and some sleep before we hunted as one. Before I could get to the door, Myckie was on top of me. I went down as her tall figure tackled me. She hit me in the kidney causing me to grunt. She hit me again and leaned forward, grabbing by the hair.
“You’re fucking done? WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?” Myckie screamed.
She slammed my face into the floor. Spots filled my vision. I used my elbow and swung at her face. Her grip on me released suddenly as her body fell to my right. I rolled over as Myckie sat up. She looked at me as she began to break. I watched as her face scrunched up as she screamed and yelled her pain. Tears streaming down her soft brown skin.
I looked at my partner in crime, my best friend, and felt as if she finally found her release. I sat up and tried to touch her, but she gave me a look that said if I touched her that she would continue our fight. We sat on the floor bleeding as Myckie screamed her pain away.