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barroom, which was crowded with all manner of creatures that didn’t belong on this side of Hell. Many of them could have passed for human, or claimed human bodies for their own, but Berner was safe enough that they could appear in true form. As long as they didn’t cause trouble, the Heckmasters would let them live here as they pleased.
    She resented the Heckmasters’ dictatorship of the town. Who were they to declare demons should remain peaceful? Seere threatened to revoke this body if she didn’t abide by the rules. Aside from trying to tempt Eban into bed, she hadn’t lifted a weapon since Noem’s attack or charmed another male. Though she wasn’t sure how long it had been since she last walked the earth in her own form, she enjoyed the respite from Purgatory.
    Pushing between a pair of male werecats at the bar, she leaned across it and crooked her finger at the barkeep, a hooded crone whose eyes glowed silvery-white beneath her cowl. The werecats moved away from the bar with quiet hisses that showed their fear and left Rosemar laughing. She was much more powerful than they, even in this body. There wasn’t a creature in the saloon that didn’t recognize the strength oozing from her pores.
    â€œBlood whiskey,” she told the crone.
    In accordance with Heckmaster law, they couldn’t use human blood to flavor their drinks. Wystan preferred his whiskey neat, another human flaw she considered weak. Each month when drovers delivered fresh beef to town, the crone slaughtered one and added cow’s blood to her alcohol stores. It was a poor imitation of a real sacrifice, hardly slaking Rosemar’s need, but unless she crossed the town’s borders and sought her own prey, she was stuck with the bovine beverage.
    It was still better than what she’d been doing to sate her blood cravings. When this form had been too weak to leave the clinic, she’d resorted to catching rats and lizards that boldly scuttled around the building. There had been moments when she craved blood so badly she thought of murdering Eban, even if he was a delicate part of Seere’s master plan. Who would care if Seere destroyed her? She was a pawn to him, easily replaced, and death would have eased her misery.
    The whiskey warmed her as it traveled through her veins. It gave her a feeling of invincibility. There was nothing she couldn’t do, no one she couldn’t defeat in battle. No lover she couldn’t tame. She turned away from the bar and let her gaze drift over the saloon patrons. Succubi flirted and entertained the demon clientele. With no male humans in town, they couldn’t feed off souls, but it didn’t stop them from earning coins to spend when the supply wagons came.
    Concentrating, she picked a redheaded succubus out of the crowd, then a male lamiae, and drew them together from across the room. They retreated to a corner half-hidden in shadows.
    Rosemar believed in love. Thousands of years ago when humans were a young, weak species, she’d walked freely, wielding the power of love, making and breaking families, toying with human emotion, bringing the rich and poor together. Love was easier to manipulate than hate and had the ability to make humans just as miserable. She fed on their misery as much as their blood.
    The succubus straddled the lamia male, pressing her lips to his, curling her talons into his thin white-blond hair. Her hips rolled, pressing against his groin. A hot, painful burn started around Rosemar’s heart. Or rather, Beryl’s heart. Rosemar pursed her lips as she watched. Beryl knew this action, the lure of a customer, how to act as though he was the only man in the world. Rosemar had picked her battered body out of an alley in Dakota Territory, amused because a whore was the perfect disguise.
    The lamia’s bony hand pushed the succubus’s shift up, baring her long legs. She wasn’t an ugly creature and Rosemar admired the