The sensation of her arm gracefully unfolding to point the gun at the stranger’s head was surreal.

Her body but not her doing. Which created a huge disconnect in her mind. As though if she bit her lip, blinked really hard, or pinched her arm, she would wake up back home, with Nik asleep beside her. She would watch him sleep, poke the little air bubble in his cheek caused by his snoring, and then smile and shake her head that nothing could wake him when he was out cold. She’d roll over, he’d mumble something, and those big, strong arms of his would wrap around her waist and pull her close.

It sounded wonderful. She yearned for that simple life, not the twisting, never-ending nightmare she now lived.

“Don’t move,” Secret said, using Alara’s mouth. Her voice was still her own. She had that, at least.

Blue eyes flecked with embers stared back at her. The stranger’s face was handsome, for an older man. A few wrinkles striped his forehead and around the contours of his mouth and eyes, and his dark-brown hair was streaked with gray. He had a stern set to his bearded jaw and a hardness about his eyes that suggested he was not a man to toy with.

The shock on his face mirrored her own.

Who is he? Alara snapped at Secret. Dammit, you made me point a gun at this man’s head. If we’re resorting to murder now, you’d better start giving me some answers!

He’s a high-ranking official of the Order, Mistress Black’s coven. He’s the one who ordered Gerard to kill your family.

The floor dropped out from under her. The quake of shock that rocked her body might have sent her to her knees had Secret not kept her standing.

“Oh God,” she rasped aloud, barely able to siphon enough air into her lungs to speak. It felt as if her lungs had stopped working, along with her brain.

Simon’s dark brows stooped in confusion.

Alara waited for the anger to hit, to drive her to pull the trigger.

Pop! The sound of the bullet tearing his brain to shreds.

Bam! The sound of his lifeless body hitting the floor.

Those were the sounds of revenge.

She pictured killing him over and over in her head, tried imagining the satisfaction of avenging her family’s deaths.

…It wouldn’t come. The relief from anger, the ache of despair.

And that was when she knew that no matter how many people she killed, no matter the reason, it would never bring her family back. They were gone, forever. And no amount of bloodshed would ever resurrect them.

Tears flooded her eyes, making her face hot.

Alara’s brain locked up as she stared back at Simon. How was she supposed to feel, staring at the face of her family’s executioner? Scared? Shocked? Betrayed? Enraged?

After a few more seconds of shell-shocked silence, the surprise on his face faded, and he composed himself. He cocked that handsome head to the side, studying her face, as if trying to place her. Realization lit up his eyes. “Alara Crescent,” he said, his deep voice raspy. The strong stink of cigarettes clinging to his pores told her why. “Or is it Johnson now? Congratulations, by the way.” He started to rise.

“The safety’s off, just so you know,” Secret said. Again, her voice, but ten times more threatening. “Sit down.”

He obeyed, carefully sinking back into the chair. Those blue eyes never blinked as he watched her, a small smirk propped up on his mouth. “How did you find me?” Those long, elegant hands folded themselves in his lap, as if this were a casual meet and greet and she didn’t have a gun pointed at his head. “Well? How did you sniff me out?” The smirk broke into a grin.

Sniff him out, indeed.

Alara’s annoyance grew. Cocky bastard. He meant for his ease to scare her. Tough shit, as Nik would say. This warlock was messing with the wrong wolf, not intimidating her in the least. Thanks to her time at Court, she knew his type well—the men and women whose heads were so swollen from power, wealth, and an inflated sense of self-importance that they thought they owned the world and everyone in it.

“I have my ways.” Secret had spoken for her again.

Alara was happy to let it. She couldn’t think right now. Her head and heart were only so big, and there were far too many powerful emotions tumbling around inside of her.

Highways of silence stretched between them. “I am sorry for the barbaric way your family was killed,” he said at last, sounding anything but. “They weren’t supposed to die that way.”

“But they were supposed to die. I was supposed to die.” Secret didn’t fight for control; it let her speak.

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

Her mouth formed a hard line, and her eyes turned to ice. “Save your fake apologies for someone who gives a damn.” Secret jumped in. “Now, give me the blade.”

Simon stiffened, shifting his body to hide something tucked inside his jacket. Alara caught a glimmer of a ruby in the hilt of what appeared to be a dagger.

Alara stared. Something dark and unbidden scraped across the surface of her memory.

There it was, the dagger her father had used to kill her mother. The same dagger Gerard had driven into her baby sister’s heart.

She growled, possessed with the sudden urge to rip this man’s throat out with her fangs.

We’re wasting time, Secret snapped. “The blade, now,” it said through Alara’s mouth.

Though he was still turned away from her in a useless attempt at hiding the dagger, he didn’t bother denying he had it. Good. At least he wasn’t going to treat her like an idiot.

“What do you need it for?” he asked instead, still not moving.

“That’s none of your concern.”

He squinted. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw them…” He shook his head. “Never mind.” That tall, graceful body stood. “Alara—”

“Don’t come any closer.” Alara wanted to back away, not because she was afraid of him but because merely being in the same room with the man responsible for ruining her life was overwhelming. The thought of him coming closer to her was unbearable.

Secret locked up her body as she was about to shrink into the corner, making her hold her ground. Alara’s teeth gritted.

Simon froze, both hands in the air. “I never meant for any of this to go this far.” Regret briefly flashed through his eyes.

“But it did,” Alara bit out. “And you’ll have to live with that for the rest of your miserable life, however long that might be.” Quickly losing her patience and ready to get the hell out of there and away from him, she said, “Last chance. Give. Me. The. Blade.”

He shifted his weight, swallowing hard. Sweat glistened across his weathered brow. “I can’t. She’ll… she’ll kill me…”

“Not if I do it first.”

The gun went off.

Time stopped as the bullet fired across the room, straight for Simon’s heart.

As Alara watched Simon’s imminent death unfold, a black pit of horror opened up in her stomach.

She was going to kill someone. She was officially going to be a murderer. Sure, she’d assisted in the death of her father. Yes, her paws were already partially stained red, but this was different. With this, she’d never get her innocence back.

Oh God. What had Secret done? What had she done?

Her quiet moment in the woods with her mate came to mind. Killing changes you. It blackens your soul, and once you cross that line, you can never turn back.

She started forward. “No!”

The air directly in front of Simon lit up with flames, a swirling, writhing vortex of fire and tendrils of Red Magic. Simon grunted, both hands braced behind the fire shield as it swallowed the bullet. The flames grew hotter, bluer, until their indigo light literally melted the bullet. With a final cry, Simon threw the shield downward, casting aside the ruined bullet in a puddle of metal.

Alara’s jaw dropped.

This was no ordinary Red Warlock. He was supremely powerful, more so than she’d ever suspected. No wonder he had a seat on Mistress Black’s inner circle.

Panting hard and deathly pale, Simon lifted his eyes to her. Anger burned there. “You’ll regret that,” he rasped, right as he launched a fireball at her.

Alara started to duck, but Secret took over, throwing up her hands. A pit of deepest midnight tore open the air in front of her, sucking the fireball inside before blinking out.

Any color left in Simon’s face leached out of his skin. “Black Magic? You’re a Crescent. There is no dark power in your family’s line. How is this possible?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Secret said with a wicked smile. With a flick of her wrist, shadows poured out of her fingers. They snaked through the air, wrapping themselves around Simon’s head. Choking noises sputtered from the cloud, and he grasped at his throat. The cloud vanished, revealing eyes round with terror. The vibrant blue of his irises, as well as the black dot of his pupils, had been blotted out by a milky white film. As he continued to gasp for air that wouldn’t come, he began flailing his arms, almost in a paddling motion.

What did you do to him? Alara demanded, watching in horror.

It’s an illusion spell. I made him believe he was drowning—his worst fear, Secret added with a smile in its voice.

You what?

Secret shrugged it off. You’d be surprised how many Red Witches and Warlocks fear death by water. Grab the dagger while he’s distracted.

Alara scurried across the room, reaching into his jacket and unhooking the dagger strapped at his waist. Her lip curled up at the vile thing. She wondered if her family’s blood still coated the blade or if they had had the decency to at least clean it off.

Alara looked at Simon, who still swam toward the ceiling as if trying to escape an ocean of endless depths.

A small smile of dark satisfaction curled her lips as she watched him die.

Good, she thought.

She caught herself, blinking. No. No, she wasn’t going to be that kind of girl, that kind of queen. If she allowed that darkness, that anger, to take over, she knew she’d lose herself completely. And she didn’t like the idea of who she would become.

Fight, Izzy whispered at the back of her mind.

Let him go, Alara said.

No.

Yes, she pressed, reaching for the magic.

Secret immediately blocked her. We need to get out of here.

Not until you release him! It hurt to say it, but it felt right. And she trusted her gut.

Fight, Alara. Don’t let the ugliness win, urged Izzy, all innocence and goodness, the light in Alara’s darkness.

She had been so much better a person than Alara. Why did she have to die?

“It should have been me,” Alara whispered.

Come on! Secret screeched.

An alarm sounded, and red light flashed outside of the office as the sirens wailed.

Secret swore. They must have found our incapacitated guard. Time to go.

Footsteps thundered toward the office. The doorknob rattled but didn’t give, right before someone started kicking the door, hard. The reverberations rolled through the floor and into Alara’s feet.

Jerking her arms upward, Secret yelled, “Barium steelio!” A thick, smoky barrier coalesced in the air in front of the wall containing the door and the window. Outside the office, the security guards pushed past the crowd of workers and began banging against the glass with the butts of their guns, fire extinguishers—whatever they had handy that was hard enough to break glass that had been clearly reinforced and, possibly, enchanted.

That barrier won’t last long, Secret said, heading to the desk. Your body isn’t used to magic, and your energy’s draining quickly. Search the drawers.

Alara started ripping open drawers and riffling through them. So far, they were stuffed with only office supplies and documents. What am I looking for?

Let me look. I’ll be faster.

A loud boom shook the room, followed by the sound of hundreds of glass shards hitting the concrete floor. They’d broken through the window somehow. She didn’t dare look up and break Secret’s concentration as the angry mob of guards began to beat on the magical barrier Secret had erected.

Come on, come on, Secret muttered, fingers flying. A warlock this powerful has to keep a stash of—aha! With a delicate click, Secret pushed a button underneath the top drawer, and a hidden compartment slid out. Alara had no idea what all this stuff was—bottles of shimmering liquid and opaque containers containing who knew what—but Secret obviously did. Grabbing a small silver pillbox, it dumped a handful of what looked like glistening white pearls into Alara’s hand.

What’s that going to do? Alara asked.

Save our asses. Close your eyes. Raising her hand, Alara threw the pearls down right as the barrier of magic finally broke.

An explosion of light was released from the pearls the moment they hit the floor, blinding everyone around her and sending a shock wave through the air that knocked them off their feet.

Alara was instantly on the move, guided by the doppelgänger’s killer instincts. Jumping onto the desk, Alara gripped the hilt of the blade with her teeth and leapt through the air toward the window. Her body Shifted in midair, and the beautiful umber-colored wolf landed on the cold, concrete floor of the production room. Her paws slipped along the muck; digging in her claws, she found better traction and sprinted toward the exit she’d used to waltz in there.

No! Go to your left! There’s another way out!

Veering sharply as gunfire split the water near her, she banked hard and bolted down a hallway. The guards thundered after her, swearing and screaming orders into their walkie-talkies.

Just as Alara was nearing the end of the hallway, a guard burst around the corner, gun aimed for her head.

Give me control! Secret screamed.

Being cornered front and back, Alara didn’t question it. Surrendering her senses to the doppelgänger’s expertise, she marveled at what followed.

It was a bloodbath, a beautiful, deadly dance between wolf and human. The guard was no match for her superior strength and speed. Ripping out his throat, she turned and clawed another guard, who didn’t fare much better. Blood slicked the floor, splashing on the white walls like some abstract painting.

And for a few seconds that would forever vibrate inside Alara as a warning, she relished the bloodlust. It was like being at the gym, a powerful release of anger, pain, and suffering.

Only, with Secret’s astonishing knowledge of killing techniques, the revenge she’d only dreamed of was now a crimson reality.

She was a warrior, an angel of death come to wreak her vengeance upon the evil of the Underworld.

And, for a while, she enjoyed every bloody second of it.

Some wolves had gotten drunk off bloodlust. It didn’t just happen to vampires and demons.

And they usually ended up living like rabid animals, going on a killing spree until taken down by some hunter or a larger monster.

By the time the carnage was done, Alara’s fur was soaked in blood. Its hot stickiness drowned her other senses, leaving the smell of iron and life burning her nose and tongue.

They encountered no one else and burst through the exit Secret had promised. The cornfield she’d come in from lay to the right.

The sudden rush of fresh air purged her body of the bloodlust, and she started coming down off her high. Her body shook as she lost her wolf form and morphed back into a human. The dagger slipped from her grasp as her naked body fell to the ground, her breaths coming in shaky gasps. She lifted her scarlet hands, staring at the blood coating them, which was caked under her broken fingernails. She stared. And stared and stared, unable to believe what she was seeing. She was coming apart inside. “What have I done?” she whispered. “What have I done?”

In the distance, doors burst open, and guards shouted to one another, coming her way.

Get up. We have to go before they see us.

Secret forced her up, grabbing the dagger as she stumbled toward the rows of cornstalks. Her feet seemed to catch every hole and twig. She fell at least five times, palms scraping the rough earth as Secret spurred her closer to safety. It felt as if she’d had the flu, died, and then been resurrected to be hit by a bus. Her insides felt ragged, as though someone had taken a meat tenderizer to them. The overexertion of magic had left her drained, while the guilt that split her conscience wide open left her mind feeling numb.

What have I done?

You can worry about it after we save ourselves. They fell into the cornfield, and Alara spit out dirt. Her elbows shook as she lifted her body, the soil sticking to the blood that coated her skin. Like a baby, she crawled along the earth, her feet trying to find purchase only to give out again.

It was so hard to focus, so hard to think. Every cell in her body felt fried, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Close her eyes and never wake up.

Never wake up.

She smiled a little—right before a hand shot out of the corn and grabbed her.