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      To Kresley Cole. A shining star, a talent beyond

      compare, beauty personified and one of the reasons

      I exist. I want to live inside your brain.

      To Nix of the Immortals After Dark for coming

      to play in my sandbox

      To Christy Foster for all your help online

      To Krystle for the wonderful title

      To Nora Roberts, an amazingly talented woman

      and writer—who just happens to be great at

      fixing toilets, too!

      To my editors Tracy Farrell and Margo Lipschultz,

      whose bountiful support blesses me more

      than I can ever say

      And LAST on this list:

      To Jill Monroe. I guess you’re okay. Kind of. (Fine. I

      love and adore you beyond what is deemed healthy. You are a shining star, a talent beyond compare, beauty personified and the other reason I exist.)

       CHAPTER ONE

      SABIN, KEEPER OF THE DEMON of Doubt, stood in the catacombs of an ancient pyramid, panting, sweating, his hands soaked in his enemy’s blood, his body cut and bruised as he surveyed the carnage around him. Carnage he’d helped create.

      Torches flickered orange and gold, twining with shadows along the stone walls. Walls that were now spattered with vivid red, dripping…pooling. The sandy floor was thick like paste, wet and colored black. Half an hour ago it had been honey brown, grains sparkling and scattering as they’d marched. Now bodies littered every square inch of the small corridor, the scent of fatality already rising from them.

      Nine of his enemy had survived the attack. They’d already been stripped of their weapons, hustled into a corner and bound with rope. Most trembled in fear. A few had their shoulders squared, their noses in the air, hatred in their eyes, refusing to back down even in defeat. Damned admirable.

      Too bad that bravery had to be quashed.

      Brave men didn’t spill their secrets, and Sabin wanted their secrets.

      He was a warrior who did what needed to be done, when it needed to be done, no matter what was required of him. Killing, torturing, seducing. He didn’t hesitate to ask his men to do the same, either. With Hunters—mortals who’d decided he and his fellow Lords of the Underworld made good whipping boys for the world’s evil—victory was the only thing that mattered. For only by winning the war could his friends finally know peace. Peace they deserved. Peace he craved for them.

      Shallow, erratic rasps of breath filled Sabin’s ears. His, his friends’, his enemies’. They’d fought with every ounce of strength they possessed, each of them. It had been a battle of good versus evil, and evil had won. Or rather, what these Hunters considered evil. He and his brothers-by-circumstance thought otherwise.

      Yeah, long ago they’d opened Pandora’s box, unleashing the demons from inside. But they had been punished eternally, each warrior cursed by the gods to host one of those vile fiends inside himself. Yeah, they’d once been slaves to their new, demonic halves, destructive and violent, killers without a conscience. But they had control now, human in all the ways that mattered. For the most part.

      Sometimes the demons did fight…did win…did destroy.

      Still. We deserve to live, he thought. Like everyone else, they suffered if their friends were hurt, read books, watched movies, gave to charity. Fell in love. Hunters, though, would never see it that way. They were convinced the world would be a better place without the Lords. A utopia, serene and perfect. They believed every sin ever committed could be laid at a demon’s feet. Maybe because they were dumb as shit. Maybe because they