Grabbing a bottle of Chiller from the blue icebox that was sitting on the counter of her kitchen, Luna twisted off the cap and chugged down the contents like they were the best thing in the world. When she was done, she harrumphed and dropped the empty bottle into the receptacle, turning to Arild as he entered. “So, who’s first on your list?” he asked, pulling a dark blue shirt over his head. It settled loosely around him, and Luna had to blink, mentally shaking herself as she tore her gaze from him. His eyes didn’t miss a thing as he smirked and moved to her side, his midnight wings folded tight to his back as he reached for a bottle of Chiller. The drink was silvery white in color, tasting of peppermint and spinach mixed with ingredients only found on Rislyn. “Well?” he drawled and chuckled to himself as he moved to the table. She followed him and leaned her hip against it.

“Someone named Adela.”

“Nairue?”

She smiled. “Endahli. They’re fun to interrogate.”

He chuckled. “I bet.”

“What will you be doing?”

He shrugged. “I think I’ll do some more spying on Zurenlov’s little minions.”

“Oh,” she said with interest. “let me know what you find?” He nodded and pulled her to him, giving her a hot, lingering, passionate kiss. She melted into the kiss, her tongue licking, stroking, and dancing against his. Heat slowly gathered between her legs, and Luna groaned as she pulled back with a silent curse. “Get out,” she growled and took several steps away from him. Smirking, he melded with the shadows. He stared at Luna for a long moment, sighing inwardly as he made his way outside.

Dressed in a loose-fitting light blue shirt that matched her pants, Luna ran her hands through her hair and groaned as she looked around her empty kitchen. With its transparent silvery-white walls and ceiling, the floor was the color of ocean and cool under her feet. The counters and cabinets were white, and the oval-shaped table in the center of the room was covered with a thin, midnight-blue tablecloth. She sighed and moved to the icebox, retrieving four bottles of Chiller. She slammed the lid shut and hugged the bottles to her chest as she channeled her magic. A beam of bluish-silver moonlight appeared in front of her, and before she could change her mind, she ripped open a portal and stepped through to the other side. It immediately closed behind her, and the humid climate of Mirinia surrounded her like a warm, wet blanket. She growled, because she really, really hated the feel of it on her skin as it clung to every inch of her. To add to it, the twilight dimension burned her as she stood there and looked around. It was nowhere near as bad as the light dimension of Shiarelle, but still, it was extremely annoying as fuck. She sighed, inclining her head to the female nairue that stepped from the shadows. Without a word, she handed over one of the bottles. She nodded her thanks, her silver, emerald-green eyes boring into the side of her head. “Not a word,” Luna growled and glared at her.

“Oh, spill. You know you want to,” the female said with a knowing smile as she opened the bottle and took a gulp.

“Zella,” she warned and bared her teeth. “I will stab you.”

She laughed and drained the rest of her drink. “Fine, fine, have it your way.” Luna sighed, rolling her eyes as she began walking. Zella followed close behind her as they made their way into the dark cover of trees.

“Anything happened while I was gone?”

“Your mark is on the move.”

“Which one?” she asked dryly.

“Adela.”

“Perfect.” Luna smiled, pulling the shadows to her and reveling in its cool embrace. “I do love myself a good hunt.” She sighed and leaned against one of the trees. “Is she still here?” Zella nodded, standing guard as she cracked open another bottle of Chiller and chugged. She shuddered, the ice-cold liquid spreading through her like… well, like ice. “Ah,” Luna said with a contented sigh and straightened. “Will you be coming along?” she asked and crushed the empty plastic bottle in her hand.

“I think I’ll stick around for a while,” Zella said with a shrug, and she nodded as she made the remaining two bottles disappear into her air pocket of darkness. “Want me to stay hidden?”

“Mm-hmm.” She inclined her head in acknowledgement, and then she was gone. With one last look around, Luna too, melded with the shadows. Oh, she thought with a sigh. This is going to be fun. With that, she detached herself from her emotions. Luna felt nothing but the emptiness inside her as she floated out of the trees and into the open.

Adela darted from one building to another as she quickly made her way to her destination. She was dressed in all black, and she silently cursed the nairues and their ability to blend with their surroundings. The female endahli kept her empathic side locked down the best as she could as she slipped through a door and stepped behind it. Unlike a nairue, she couldn’t turn into an intangible shadow. When it came to anything stealthy, she really wished that she was one of them. She was pretty stealthy herself, but they were a god damn fucking master at it. All she could do was heal and feel emotions on an extreme level. It was really, really distracting, and it always happened to her in the most inopportune time. She peered around the flimsy door of the abandoned building and squinted into the gloom. Her stomach suddenly churned with dread, and she quickly pulled her head out of sight. Her heart pounded loud in her ears as she fought the OVERWHELMING urge to hyperventilate. She didn’t have to see it to know that someone was out there. She barely sensed it, and she wouldn’t have thought anything of it, except that her insides felt like they wanted to escape her body in the most nauseating way possible. Whoever was out there, she knew that they knew; just as she had. Fuck, she thought. She was screwed, and they knew it, too. She held back a groan and gulped nervously, her mouth suddenly going dry. Her skin crawled like a million skittering spiders, and she held back the visceral urge to scream. Adela looked around, not even daring to breathe as she strained to hear something. Anything. Of course, the only thing she picked up were the sounds of the wind and rustling leaves. She continued to look around, taking in the collapsing cardboard boxes and the broken crates lining the walls. Cobwebs stretched from one corner to another, and as for the windows and the floor, thick layers of dust had accumulated over a long period of time. Three of the four windows had been smashed in, though some of the glass still remained in its frame. Of course, things like a slashed throat or massive loss of blood wouldn’t kill her, but some of the glass were large and strong enough for an improvised weapon that could be used to easily cut off her head. Hell, it was good enough to gouge out her heart, and if the wielder had brains in them, they’d coat it with either liquid sunlight, moonlight, or in her case, fog. She grabbed the handle of the door and gripped it hard as she broke out in a cold sweat. There was no use in hiding, the nairue—because she was pretty sure that it was one of them out there—could hear her heart pounding from a million miles away and scent her emotions. She slowly drew breath through her nose and held it as she forced herself to calm. When she didn’t feel like she was going to faint, she released her death grip on the door handle and stepped out from behind it. If she was honest with herself, she was a little surprised that she hadn’t gotten stabbed in the back while she was busy focusing on not passing out from terror overload. Adela almost swallowed her tongue as she came face-to-face with the very last person that she would ever want to see. “You must be Adela,” Luna Verity Rayne purred and smiled, revealing a pair of sharp, needle-like fangs that dripped venom. Her silver, ice-blue eyes bored into her own, amused. By what, she didn’t know, and she wasn’t about to ask. “I was beginning to wonder if you would ever come out at all.” Her stomach bottomed out as fear threatened to overwhelm her, leaving her feeling nothing but ice-numbing terror.

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“Stop it,” she choked out and tried vainly to get air into her lungs.

The nairue arched an eyebrow and inclined her head, as if confused. “Stop what?” she asked, all innocent-like as she took a step toward her. “I’m not doing anything.” Adela held up her hands, as if that could ward her off.

“Whatever you’re doing, stop it.” The assassin ignored her and took another step forward, until her hands made contact with her stomach. Still smiling, Luna wrapped hot fingers around one of her wrists, all but scorching her skin as she stroked the hammering pulse there.

“I just have one question. You think you can answer it?” The endahli glared at her, saying nothing. “Why are you working for Zero? Out of all the nairues you could choose to work for, why him?”

“He has my two-year-old daughter,” she said and gritted her teeth. Her eyes widened, and if the situation was anything but dire, she would have smiled, pleased that she had caught the assassin a little off guard.

“I beg your pardon?” she said, and the endahli could have sworn that she heard a low sibilant hiss behind those words. If there was one thing that set Luna into a blinding, murderous rage, it was anything that had to do with children. She stared into the female’s wide, terrified piercing blue eyes and growled low in her throat. Releasing her hold, she took a step back from her. It was that, or she was going to end up crushing every bone in the female’s wrist. She shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. Oh, fuck it, she was going to blame it all on her being straight up horny and unable to think logically. That was a good reason, right? Luna mentally snorted at herself and rolled her eyes. She turned and walked to the wall and all but brained herself against the dirty stonework. Behind her, the endahlian female let out a strangled scream, gasping as her pain registered to her.

“Stop, stop, I’ll tell you what I know. Just stop.” Luna stopped bashing her head into the wall and turned to her, blue blood streaming down her face. What are you doing? Arild yelled into her mind and growled. Female, you’re going to be the death of me. Luna smirked. I love it when you get all grrrrrr on me, she telepathically purred. It is… so hot. Luna, he growled. Please, please stop inflicting harm to yourself. His heat enveloped her, and she sighed as he took away some of her pain. After a moment, she relented. All right, she said with a dejected sigh. All right. I promise not to hurt myself. Now, go away so I can concentrate. With a harrumph, he left her just as abruptly as entering her mind. Luna wiped blood from her eyes, rubbing at the wounds on her head as she scowled at the endahli. Under her fingertips, her wounds rapidly healed, but the pain remained, pulsing and throbbing.

“Talk,” she hissed and walked back over to the endahli, who was hunched into herself.

“Like I’ve said, he has my daughter.” She straightened, looking anywhere but at the insane assassin. “This is war, he says. Collateral casualties are to be expected, he tells me. Heal my people, or she dies.” Luna inclined her head as she continued to wipe blood from her face.

“How long have you been with him?”

“Forty-two cycles of the moon.”

“Are there others?”

She nodded. “He has both females and younglings.”

“Just the endahlians?”

“No, he has the redarians and his own people as well.” Luna snarled, and she quickly took several steps away from the assassin as her eyes turned a dangerous, vibrant red. They bored into her like two laser beams, and with blue blood still dripping down her face, it was not a comforting sight at all. To make it worse, the terror gripped her harder, dropping her to her knees as whimpers and moans escaped her throat. She dug her fingers into the layers of dust and trembled uncontrollably as she fought to keep her sanity intact.

“Anything else?” the assassin hissed, and the air all but vibrated with her rage. The temperature dropped several degrees, and Adela could see her breath as she panted. Freezing fog coalesced around them, and her brain all but rattled inside her skull as vaporous tendrils caressed her, creating a sheen of frost along her skin. If she didn’t give an answer, and soon, she was a hundred percent certain that she was going to die. Her head felt way too heavy to hold up, and tears rolled down her cheeks as she fell onto her side. She convulsed, her eyes rolling in their sockets as Luna came to crouch before her. Adela knew that she was going to lose the battle with her empathic side. The shield that she had up was already halfway destroyed, and she was pretty sure that she was way past sanity and well into the land of insanity. She curled into herself, wrapping her arms around her legs as she tried to make herself a smaller target, but she knew that it was just only wishful thinking on her part. The assassin’s hands were shaking as she placed them on either side of the female’s head. A cold, black void surrounded her mind, and Adela sobbed with relief as the weight of Luna’s emotions were muted, to the point where she could think straight. It also muted the effect of her terror-inducing aura of darkness emanating from the assassin in waves. The endahli trembled and shook violently as she attempted to pull herself together. Luna waited, her hands still shaking as she resisted the urge to drain the female of her psyche and retrieve the memories that she wanted. Instead, she held her fracturing mind in a veil of darkness, waiting patiently for the female to get control of herself. At least, enough to string a coherent thought into a proper sentence. After what seemed like an eternity to her, the endahli finally opened her eyes and uncurled from her fetal position.

“I know where he is,” she gasped over the sound of splintering wood. Luna willed her hands to go still and glared down at her as she furiously, wordlessly cursed the universe. “I can show you. I swear.”

“Can you?” she hissed and resisted the urge to shake her. Adela nodded and swallowed hard as she stared up at the enraged assassin. She worked her shield back into place, hoping like hell that it didn’t crumble in the next couple of bells or three. Luna withdrew her hands and stood, watching as the female shakily pulled herself to her feet. She took in several deep breaths and slowly let them out as she stepped back through the door that hung precariously on its hinges. She pulled all of her pain and rage deep inside her, bottling them up for later, because she did not want to inadvertently shatter the endahli’s mind along the way to wherever they were going. If she did, she would have to start all over, and Luna was not in a mood to fucking play nice a second time around. She slowly leashed her power, and a few seconds later, the fog and the vaper cleared. Other than the appearance of new cracks in the walls and ceiling, it was back to what it was before she had arrived. “Let’s go,” she snarled and vanished into the shadows, silently daring the endahli to take a detour. Hell, she even silently begged her to do it. As of that moment, anyone who crossed her path would wish that they hadn’t, because Luna was seriously on the verge of committing genocide. The endahlian female took in a deep, shuddering breath and staggered from the decrepit building. She ran a shaky hand through her reddish-purple hair and flared her blue wings, flapping them as she launched herself into the sky. Luna was practically on top of her, and she smiled to herself as she followed in the endahli’s wake, her senses on high alert for anything and anyone.