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This was the male who had plucked me from the forest floor and buried me alive. I didn’t want to go anywhere near him. He’d just killed my guard, for reasons unknown. Not that I gave a shit about the guard, but I wasn’t excited to hang out with this guy either. Things were already shitty, but they could also get much worse. My vision had shown me that and answered the question of who Oliver Kelley was stealing and selling effigies to.

The male growled. “We don’t have fucking time for this. You want to keep the gag on, keep it on.”

I did not. Shit. I moved up to the bars. He couldn’t exactly do much to me while I was locked in here.

He reached through and dragged the fabric down over my chin, and I quickly stepped back. “You’re the one who hired Kelley to steal effigies? Why? What are you planning to do with them?”

“Question time will come later. First, I need to get you the fuck away from here before it’s too late,” he said, flipping over the dead male on the floor and searching his back pockets.

I took several more steps back. “I know you killed that guard at the museum, and you buried me alive. You disguised what you are, but I know it was you. You’re a goddamned monster. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

His black eyes sliced to me. “The museum guard was a piece of shit, a thief, and a lot worse. He was on Kelley’s payroll and stole several effigies for him, and I needed that to stop. I disguised what I am because Vesa couldn’t know it was me. And if you’d stayed aboveground, either Vesa and his lackeys or Kefir’s warriors would’ve found you and you’d already be dead.”

“You’re telling me you were protecting me?”

“Obviously,” he said as he shoved his hand in the dead male’s jeans pocket.

“And if you’d stayed in your damned house, behind your wards, we wouldn’t be in this mess now.”

I moved back to the bars. “There’s nothing obvious about it. You literally buried me alive. And what do you know about my house? Have you been watching me?”

“Not all the time. You had protection. I did track you after you were aboveground, though. You were safe, then you fucking showed up here with Vesa.” He scowled at me. “And you act as if you’ve never been underground before.”

“Why the hell would I have been?”

He glanced up. “Because you’re a bat shifter.”

“So?”

He frowned. “Vesa never taught you?”

“He taught me nothing. I’ve only just met him. He was absent my whole life. And considering the way things are going, I’d say that was a good thing.”

Daire muttered a curse. “No wonder you freaked after I knocked out Vesa. I tried to explain when my people moved in to take him, but you screamed and clawed so much it was easier to knock you out as well. I assumed once you woke, you’d know what was going on and wait for me to come back and dig you out.”

“No, I woke up convinced I’d been buried alive and left to asphyxiate. So I’m gonna need a bit more information, thanks,” I said.

He yanked up the legs of the male’s jeans. There was a leather pouch strapped to his ankle. Daire pulled out a knife, sliced the pouch off, and opened it, producing the key. He looked up at me. “Vesa was bringing you to Kefir, your great grandfather. He needs you as a sacrifice to appease the demon he made a bargain with a very long time ago.”

He quickly unlocked the door. “What kind of bargain?”

“Eternal life. When he found the demon Nomas’ effigy, he summoned him, and bartered his queen to that monster not long after they mated, agreeing to do the same every hundred years with the next queen that came of age.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“There’s a reason you look different, Rose, and it’s not just because you’re half witch. The white wings gave it away. You were born to rule the colony. As the time to renew his bargain with Nomas approached and none of our female’s wings turned white when they reached maturity, Kefir knew he was in trouble.” Daire grabbed my arm and led me out of the cell. “He’s been desperately trying to find another effigy. He didn’t have an offering for Nomas, so he needed to make a new bargain with a different demon. Then Vesa showed up and told him about you.”

“So he had an effigy all along, he was just missing the sacrifice he’d promised to its demon?”

“Yes.”

I jogged to keep up. “And you don’t want this?”

Daire scowled. “No, very few want Kefir as ruler. The elders are afraid of him, the rest of us want him dead and the new queen to take her rightful place.”

“And I’m…the new queen?”

His dark gaze slid back to me. “Yes.”