Free Dire Wants by Stephanie Tyler Page A

it that way.
    Seb was turning into a puppet who had no control of his own strings—hand shoved into his back like a bad episode of
Angel
.
    At least he’d finally gotten the demon to admit who he’d been in life—a powerful warlord who deserved to burn in hell. Problem was, the warlord liked hell far too much to think of it as punishment. As he was in life, he remained in death, and Seb was now taking the full brunt of his punishments.
    The demon called himself
Kondo
, which was the Swahili word for war.
    Fitting.
    “The witch escaped!” Seb heard Leo Shimmin yelling as he got closer. “My best men are dead. It could’ve only been the Dires.”
    Seb agreed but didn’t say so out loud. Kondo did speak, though, and Leo wasn’t happy.
    When the man kicked through the door to Seb’s cage, as Seb thought of the octagon-shaped room at the top of the tower three towns over from the Dire mansion, Seb stood and readied himself for battle. The demon laughed softly in his ear.
    “You said the brand would mark me as the one.” Leo spoke through gritted teeth as he attempted to menace Seb. “You said it would work.”
    “
Might
work. Kate’s witch is strong. Discerning. I can’t change destiny.” Seb pushed Leo on the chest with both hands and the cop nearly flew across the room.
    Leo hadn’t sold his soul the way his brother had. Mars had been strong because he’d allowed a demon to possess him. Gwen had killed him easily because the demon had vacated Mars’s body before she’d borne down on him. Leo had refused the possession option; instead, his mind was guarded against witches’ spells, his blood poison to wolves, but he remained completely mortal and still in need of the immortal demon bodyguard who went everywhere with him.
    “She threw Finn across the damned woods,” Leo said. “You said she wouldn’t be strong enough to do that to a demon at this point.”
    “I guess I was wrong. These powers are unpredictable.”
    Leo Shimmin’s plans were less so, and so far-reaching, they chilled Seb to the bone. Capturing, experimenting on and killing wolves were horrible enough. But the weretrappers’ reign of terror had expanded exponentially since they had gained Seb’s help to include raising demons to possess, influence and use politicians for their personal gain.
    So the attack against humans and wolves was many pronged. Shimmin was looking for domination by using the supernatural—and smartly left lion shifters, vamps and most witches out of the equation.
    Those groups were currently flying under the radar, and word was, if they stayed out of the weretrappers’ way, they’d be left alone. Since those groups had no use for humans or wolves, their way of life wouldn’t be affected and their leaders were advising they turn a blind eye and let the wolves fight their own battles.
    Hell, even Weres, the form of the outlaw pack, were selling out their own kind and blaming the Dires in an attempt to save themselves.
    The weretrappers had succeeded in fracturing the supernatural world and using that divide for their own massive gain.
    The main flaw in the trappers’ plan that would return to bite everyone in the ass was the use of the dark arts. Although the Dires knew they could survive anything, going up against evil forces and legions of the dead was a deadly distraction, one that Seb had planned carefully.
    But the demons and the dead could quickly override his power and take over humans themselves.
    There would be no winners in this war.
    Leo paced the room, muttering to himself. After several minutes, he’d regained some kind of inner calm. “What’s set in motion remains. Nothing else matters.”
    That was a partial truth. Seb was raising an army that could capture the Dires, kill Weres and help enslave armies. “The Dire army is practicing,” Seb assured him. “Growing stronger, more organized. The Dires are still working on a way to stop them.”
    “With this army, I can get the money I need and