Page 169 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

Her eyes widened.

“You made one mistake, Zaraiah.” I straightened. “You thought I needed protection from him. But really?” I smiled, and it felt like one of Kaz’s smiles—all teeth and promise. “He needs protection from me.”

The doppelganger laughed, harsh and bitter. “Pretty words. But you’re still just a healer playing dress-up.”

“Am I?”

I reached for that place inside where light and shadow met. Where my mother’s legacy tangled with everything Kaz had taught me. Power erupted outward—not an attack, but a display. The beach itself seemed to dim as shadows rose like wings behind me. But threaded through the darkness were veins of pure light.

Both Zaraiah and the doppelganger flinched.

“I’m going to kill you both,” I said matter-of-factly. “Then I’m going to tell my husband exactly how you died. How you plotted against him. How you tried to sell me to his enemy. How you failed.”

“Wait—” Zaraiah started.

“No.” I raised my hand. “You had your monologue. You revealed your master plan. Gloated about your cleverness.” Shadows sharpened into blades in my hands. “But you forgot the most important rule of villainy.”

“What’s that?” the doppelganger asked.

“Never give your opponent time to counter-monologue.”

Zaraiah tried to shield herself, but she was already wounded and slow. My shadow blade drove toward her heart, punching through the first layer of her magical protections—

And hit something solid.

A figure materialized between us—the doppelganger, his form already shifting, taking the blade meant for her. He didn’t even scream, just locked eyes with me as my shadow magic tore through his chest.

“Go,” he rasped to Zaraiah.

She was already scrambling, pulling something small from her belt that she crushed between her fingers.

“Nyx!” I commanded, but too late.

A crystal shattered in a burst of acrid smoke. It made reality itself hiccup. The air around Zaraiah rippled, and suddenly there were three of her, all running in different directions.

Nyx’s jaws snapped shut on empty air where the middle one had been. The illusion dissolved into wisps.

“Fuck!” I yanked my blade free from the doppelganger and spun toward the other two Zaraiahs, but they were already dissolving too. Decoys. All of them.

Her voice drifted from somewhere in the darkness beyond the beach, already distant: “Tell Kazimir I’ll be seeing him soon, darling.”

I sent a spear of light magic toward the voice, but it hit nothing. She was gone. Nyx was circling back, furious at having been fooled.

I turned back to the doppelganger. “Your betrayal killed Sims.” The words tore from my throat, raw and vicious. “My friend.”

Nyx landed beside me with a ground-shaking thud, her silver eyes fixed on the doppelganger. A low growl rumbled from her chest.

The doppelganger laughed wetly. “Fifteen years of planning. You think… killing me changes anything?” Blood—or whatever passed for blood in his kind—bubbled at his lips. “Others will come. The demon realm remembers. We always remember.”

I looked at Nyx. Her scales shimmered with that strange pink-black iridescence as shadows rippled across her hide.

“Kill him,” I said coldly.

Her jaws snapped shut around the doppelganger’s throat. For a moment, nothing happened—demon flesh was notoriously resilient, able to heal even from grievous wounds. I doubted if we’d actually kill him but merely send him back to his realm. Then Nyx’s peculiar magic flared, purple-tinged shadow fire igniting along her teeth.

The doppelganger’s form rippled one last time, cycling through faces in what looked like panic—the dean, strangers I didn’t recognize, and then… Pip. Those wide, anxious eyes staring up at me. Those freckles. That nervous, earnest expression I’d seen a hundred times bringing me tea or hovering in doorways.

His scream cut off as something fundamental inside him was severed—not just his physical form, but the demonic essence that animated it.