His hands raised, Aidan tried that soft voice thing he did when he was trying to calm something out of control. Like a horse. Or a stampeding elk. Or Annwyl.

But Brannie knew. She was not crazed! She knew exactly what was going on and she wasn’t about to let anyone convince her otherwise! Even Aidan!

“Bran—”

“Nooooo!” she screamed in his face. “I’m not listening! I’m never listening! I will not allow any of you to drag me to my death!”

Aidan backed up. “All right,” he said to Keita. “I’m out.”

“Typical male,” Keita complained with a sigh. “Completely useless!”

Then Brannie’s tiny cousin swung her fist and . . . that was the last thing Brannie remembered.

* * *

Aidan watched the back of Branwen’s head collide with the wood crate before her body slipped to the ground.

And all that from one punch.

From Keita.

Now he and Kachka Shestakova gawked at the dragoness as she brushed one hand against another.

“Do you mean that?” Keita asked when she realized they were staring, her punching hand gesturing to a still knocked-out Branwen. “The first thing my father ever taught me was how to handle a male who didn’t understand the word no. And in the end, the difference between a persistent male and a crazed Branwen is negligible.” She smiled and motioned to the ship. “Now . . . shall we?”

* * *

The entrances to different hells were not elaborate or complex. Annwyl found out she could easily enter one without even meaning to.

She’d walked into at least five different ones so far and in the process had nearly frozen to death, burned to death, been eaten by flies, chased by snakes, and attacked by screeching harpies. Thankfully getting back to the hell she started in was not hard, either. She just had to turn around.

Who knew she’d started off in the “nicer” hell?

Well, at least the most tolerable. It seemed almost like a normal world for demons. There were houses and towns and roaming animals. But everything was tainted. And because Annwyl wasn’t, they would go for her. So she avoided the towns, the houses, and stayed off the main roads.

Despite her exhaustion, Annwyl just wanted to get out. She wanted to return to her troops, her kin.

At some point she had hit some kind of wasteland, characterized by dirt and rocks and a red, overcast sky.

Deciding to take a break, she dropped down by a deformed tree, her back against its lumpy trunk. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, but the branches of the tree kept trying to grab her. So she caught hold of the closest branch and pulled and pulled until she tore the branch off. Blood poured from the wood like sap and the tree made a strange mewling sound before the branches withdrew and left Annwyl alone.

“You fit in here quite well,” she heard.