“You had one job!” her father bellowed in her face. “To use that pussy for something useful!”

Rage began to move through Annwyl. The way it used to. But back then . . . she’d had no outlet. She’d been too afraid to challenge the man who ruled the Southlands. So she’d curl her hands into fists and dig her nails into her palms until blood dripped onto the floor. She’d had no voice then. No power.

“I was not put here by the gods to whore for you!” she screamed in her father’s face.

Without even hesitating, her father shoved her away and swung, just like he used to do all the time when she angered him . . . but this time Annwyl caught his fist and held it; the pair stared into each other’s eyes. Their mutual rage growing and growing until—

“Oh. Excellent. You have her.”

Annwyl looked to her left and saw the demon lord she’d tried to kill sitting on something that those with bad eyesight might call a horse.

And behind him was his personal army of demons. It was not a big army. Not like Annwyl’s. But they were demons, which meant they were probably much deadlier than any army she’d ever faced before. Even dragons.

The men who had come with her father began to panic, trying to back away, but the demon lord raised his clawed hand to soothe them.

“No, no. No need to fear. We’re not here for any of you.” He pointed one claw at Annwyl. “We’re here for her.”

Her father, never a man to back down, replied, “When I’m done with her.”

“I need her alive, human. I know this is hard for you to hear, but she has great work to do.”

Shocked by that, Annwyl dropped her father’s hand and faced the demon lord and his army.

“Great work? For you?”

“Absolutely. Even now, Chramnesind is about to unleash his Zealots on your armies and the armies that have joined your cause. They will be wiped out. And that’s when you will return.”

“Why would I return?”

“To bring this world to yours. All of it under my rule.”

“And why would you need me to do that?”