“Nameless One…kill the girl.”

Osiris’s mansion. Their bedchamber. The vast bed. I clawed at the memory—the dream—trying to tear it into pieces, but I couldn’t stop it.

The blade cut through the young woman’s throat like her skin was made of nothing but mist. I could hear myself screaming to stop, but the words never left my silent lips.

“I want to see you eat her soul.” Isis’s whispers poured into my ear. Her hand slid up my arm and over my shoulder until her fingertips fluttered across the back of my neck. My pulse raced so fast I could feel it beating on my tongue.

“Devour her soul.” Osiris’s compulsion tore through me, driving me to my knees. I caught the dying woman’s face in my hands. Her brilliance shone, the light inside her welcoming and embracing me, like all good souls did. She looked at me, her eyes dulled by magic, and I fell into her as the two gods watched. The second I latched onto her soul, the consuming high gushed in. The deeper it flowed, the harder I pulled, so hungry for the light, until I had all of her embraced. And then, in that breathless, mindless moment, I wrapped the darkness around her and made her mine.

The liquid, intoxicating sound of Osiris’s deep, rich laugh caressed my mind.

Isis’s lips burned on mine. I thrust my tongue in, starved of her. She laughed and was gone, leaving me swaying on my knees, my soul burning, and the high riding me hard.

“Mm… our monster,” the goddess mused.

The room shifted, or I did, and settled again. Osiris was gone, and the dead girl’s body had vanished. Isis was lounging at the table, naked but for a gossamer gown. Blood clung to the edges of the crystal glass in her hand.

“Are you ever sated?” she asked.

I ran my gaze up her smooth legs, over her thighs and the curve of her waist, to where the wispy material clung to her breasts. I imagined my mouth there, my tongue running over her hard nipples. She’d arch under me, responding to my touch. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind a warning fluttered but soon died. Isis came alive under me—so smooth and so forbidden. I ran my hand lower. She parted her thighs, giving me permission. I kissed her lips, tasting honey and sweetness, and pushed my fingers between her legs as I drove my tongue in against hers. Breathless, I was mad for more.

A gasp—hers or mine—and I snapped open my eyes. My apartment, draped in shadows.

I darted my gaze around and straightened in the chair. The bed sheets outlined Chuck, asleep in my bed. Everything else was right where it should be. Nothing had changed. Nothing had happened. But my heart was racing, pounding its way out of my chest and pulsing hot blood through my veins. Adrenalin buzzed like an electrical current, as did magic too. Lust had me painfully aroused.

“Just a dream.” I didn’t like the way my voice trembled. Didn’t like it at all.

Rubbing my hands over my face, I tried to sweep the dregs of the dream away, but they clung on like the whispers of the damned. Around and around the images spun, conjuring the taste and the feel of the goddess under me.

I staggered to the kitchen, flicked on the light, and blinked back into harsh reality. Coffee. Lots of coffee. Vodka too. Both would chase the dream from my head.

I searched the cupboards and found the empty vodka bottle. “Damn you, Shu.”

A whisper of a warning tickled my neck and I spun around, lifting a hand to block—

Isis plunged a dagger into my gut and punched it right up to the hilt, delivering a shock of cold.

She caught my shoulder and pulled me into the blade, yanking me close. All I could see were the fine kohl lines outlining her brilliant eyes. Power pulled tight between us, mine and hers, but hers rose up like a mountain, filling the room, the apartment, the building, and folding in around me, making me small inside her embrace. She could crush me under the weight of it. The smallest of smiles in her eyes told me so. I was nothing to her, nothing but sand and dust.

She twisted the blade. Fire surged up my insides or ripped them out; I couldn’t think around the pain to tell the difference. Her lips were on mine, her tongue sweeping in.

Withdrawing, she whispered, “Bad monster,”

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I breathed her words down, feeling them harden like ice around my heart.

“The girl is mine.”

“Don’t…” I rasped.

“Mm,” she purred, “aren’t you sweet.”

She pulled the blade out and stepped back. Weakness rushed in. If it weren’t for the counter holding me up, I would have fallen.

“Nameless One…you should know by now not to interfere.”

I held her gaze and felt her slippery soul moving inside her. “Let her go.”

I couldn’t help the compulsion; it came like a reflex, adding weight and intent to my words, but it washed right off her.

“Oh, that would be nice, wouldn’t it?” She tapped the blade against her chin, leaving a smudge of blood—my blood—on her flawless skin. “But no. She’s the last girl.”

She turned and glided barefooted into the lounge.

I thrust out my left hand. “San!” Stop!

Isis laughed. The power in that laugh whirled around me, squeezing me tight, until it was all I could do to stay standing. On and on her laughter wove.

Chuck. I had to get to Chuck, whatever it took. Blood spilled between my fingers, slick and slippery. I fell forward, against the doorframe, smearing bloody handprints on the wall.

“Isis, please.”

“Oh beg, please do. It’s been so long.” All around her the air glittered as if she were a being of light, of good. It was a trap, that light.

“Ace?” Chuck mumbled in a sleep-addled voice.

The ice around my heart shattered. Isis snapped her head around and fixed her sights on the girl sitting up in my bed.

“Run!”

I lunged forward, throwing everything I had into getting between Isis and my daughter. Isis merely swept her hand to the side, and invisible hooks punched through my chest, snapping me sideways. A moment of weightlessness took hold and then glass shattered around me. New York’s din blared too loudly in my ears. A shock of cold hit me, and then my back slammed into the scaffolding guardrail. Without that, I’d have fallen fifteen floors.

“Ace!” Chuck yelled.

She didn’t stand a chance.

“Wait. Isis. Stop.” I dragged strength from somewhere inside and struggled to my feet. “Anything. I’ll do anything. Don’t hurt her.”

Half stumbling, half falling, I scrambled back through the broken window and dropped to my feet. Capable of more than darkness. I could do this. I would do this—to save the girl.

“Ask anything of me.”

Isis cocked her head. Her eternal eyes shone like jewels. “I did.”

This wasn’t about me turning her down. It couldn’t be. “Something…there must be something. You wanna fuck? Fine, we’ll do it now. Keep me for however long you want. I don’t care.” I held out my blood-covered hand. “Please. Just let her go.”

Isis tapped the dagger against her thigh, leaving spots of red on her flowing gown. “Such a tempting offer, but really, this isn’t about you. It’s none of your concern, Nameless One. I kill the girl. All ends well. It’s very simple. Look away if her death pains you so.”

She took a step toward the bed, and Chuck scurried away, clutching the sheets against her like they might offer some protection. Her young, wide eyes swam with tears. She was brave, she was strong, but against Isis, that strength crumbled.

“Why? She’s just a scared girl.”

“The girl carries my husband’s son,” Isis snapped. “She must die.”

“C’mon! This is Osiris. He fucks anything with a heartbeat.”

“He is not supposed to impregnate them!”

“So the women had to die because Osiris lost his load?!”

Isis pointed the dagger tip at me and lined up her sights down the blade. “You do not stand in judgment over us!”

Yes, focus on me. Get mad at me. I stepped back, nudging up against my desk. City sounds buzzed behind me, and the cold air chilled me to the bone, or perhaps that was the blood loss hollowing the life out of my body. “Isis, you are the Queen of all Things. This girl is nothing.”

“I don’t want to kill her,” the goddess waved a hand, shooing my argument away. “I have to. It is written.”

“What is?”

“Thoth told me the son will sunder the king, my beloved. I do this for love, Nameless One. I wouldn’t expect a monster like you to understand.”

By the gods, a prophecy? Of course it was a prophecy. Nothing else would move Isis to act like this. “You don’t need to believe the nonsense written by zealots. Thoth could be screwing with you—”

“Thoth doesn’t lie.”

That we were aware of. “My queen, you’re more powerful than some thousand-year-old prophecy. The mutterings of mad priests are beneath you.”

My heart pounded, squeezing my every breath. Blood was running through my fingers and down my waist, cool and wet—as cold as the chill spreading through my body. My life, draining away like the seconds I had left.

Isis’s smile crawled across her lips. “Why take the risk?”

She moved in a blur of magic and mist.

I wrenched Alysdair free from its hiding place, raised the sword, and launched forward.

Isis sank her fingers into Chuck’s hair, pulling her upright. Chuck screamed. Her wide eyes sought me out, pleading with me to keep her safe. I’d told her I would, but she would never be safe from the gods.

Isis pressed her blade against my daughter’s pale throat. A bright droplet of blood welled. But I was there, Alysdair slicing through the air, so close. In a blink, it would be done. The sword sang. The blade flared, hungry for the god’s neck and Isis’s soul—

“Stop!” Osiris’s command slammed into my body, yanking me up short. I dropped, but his wife didn’t hesitate. She pulled the dagger across my daughter’s throat, parting flesh, spilling blood.

The blade cut as cleanly as it had the last time I’d used it against another innocent’s throat not so long ago. So quietly, it opened Chuck’s throat, pouring forth streams of dark blood down her chest and silencing her scream.

I strained against Osiris’s hold, the sword still buzzing, the power still lusting for Isis’s death. Harder and harder I pushed, until my thoughts swam in the madness and my body turned to fire, but the compulsion held. With every second, every silent, reaching gasp, my daughter’s chance of living her life died right before my eyes.