Page 78 of Dancing With Demons

I headed in Nik’s direction.

“Oi, listen up, you ignorant empty-headed fucks,” Ronin called out. “I’ve got something to say.”

I was wrong. Sabrina wasn’t the top graduate of charm school. This guy was.

Ronin stood up, towering over us all. Amazingly, all the chatter, scuffling, and flirting ceased immediately.

“All right, so here it is,” Ronin began. “By now, you’ve all heard word of a new alliance between Houses Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, and Greed that will become the empire of sin. You all want this,” he told them, not asked them. “You’ve pledged to your different Houses...” He gestured at the puffed-up, proud ladies behind him. “To make it happen.

“But it never will.”

The puff went out of those proud peacocks in a blink.

“What?” Raven screeched. “What are you talking about it won’t happen?! Why—!”

Ronin held up a staying hand, still grinning away. “It’s not that it won’t happen. It’s that it can’t happen because there’s one thing standing in our way—the exclusion of the House of pride.”

Whispers instantly broke out.

“What?”

“The House of pride?”

“Pomaris?”

“What’s Lucifer got to do with this?”

“Lucifer’s got everything to do with this,” Ronin announced, making the pig demon who said that jerk upright. “House Lucifer already has the best trade deals with the fae and the wolves, and he has almost every vampire coven working for him as his personal spies. Because of him and his blasted deals, the Others go to him first to bargain for everything—gold, land, goods. It’s endless.”

“Why should we care what the fucking mutts, leeches, and Others do?” Eris demanded. “What’s that got to do with us building our new empire?”

“It’s got everything to do with it,” Ronin said gravely. He looked so serious, his expression held me fast, gluing me to the spot—stealing all of my attention for himself. “Consider what will happen if we build our empire and cut House Lucifer out. Will he take it lying down? Will he fall in line and kneel at our feet?

“No,” Ronin stated. “What that slippery, tricky bastard will do is collect on every deal, and tug on the string attached to every trade and negotiation, and stand opposed to us. What he’ll do... is create the empire of the Others.”

Ursula gasped.

“He wouldn’t!” Raven cried.

“He would.”

Maybe it was because I’d gotten to know Ronin more intimately than I’d ever wanted over the last few days, but looking into his eyes then I could tell... he was full of shit.

“The clue is in the sin,” Ronin went on. “Lucifer is too proud to remain a lord while we rise up and take our destiny as emperor and empresses. So if we are to stop him from lifting up the lower creatures so he can build his own empire on top of their backs, we must unite the House of pride under our banner. All seven sins as one.”

“Unite?” Kama questioned. “What does that mean?”

“Unite?” Ronin repeated, holding his hand out to Kama. “I’ll tell you what unite means, my future queen. It means victory!”

“Yeah!” the crowd roared, making me jump out of my skin.

“It means domination!”

“Yeah!”

“It means taking back our world from the invading filth that dare to tell us what to do! Including the invading fallen angels!”

“Yeah!” “That’s right!” “Fuck Lucifer!”