First And Last - By Stacey Kennedy Page 0,3

confused.” I gave my temples a good, hard rub.

Misa laughed. “What’s there to understand? I told you repeatedly that we’re not what you think we are. Yes, we’re demons and must siphon souls to feed our world and our magic, but we disagree with our past leaders. We don’t want innocent souls taken.”

I had to laugh at the idea of such insanity. “You’re good evil guys?”

“Makes you like us, right?”

I did remember when she’d told me this awhile back but I thought she was totally nuts. The truth was, now, I did like her. Demons are the pure essence of evil and she denied her very own soul to live in kindness. That definitely put her on the side of the good guys. Still, none of this made any sense.

“Honestly, why have you chosen me? There were lots of powerful witches and warlocks here tonight. You could have picked any of them.”

Misa’s smile was shrewd. “Not as powerful as you. With you leading, it puts us in a position of great safety. No one can go up against you, which will keep our world and our wants, protected.”

Before I could process that, Zia said, “She’s right, Nexi. You’ve grown undeniably strong. You shielded Kyden against Magic—used your shield on another. I still don’t believe it.”

My magic always did seem to be stronger with emotional motivation behind it so it really didn’t surprised me anymore that my powers exploded when I needed them most. Besides, my mind just couldn’t break away from how insane this all was. “But I have no experience with leading anything. I’m only twenty-four years old for gosh sakes. I can’t do this.”

Azar placed a hand on my shoulder, his smile kind. “You were born to do this and we’ll be here to guide you.”

I waited a good ten breaths as I let my mind process the situation. It wasn’t going to go away and would happen whether I liked it or not. So, as they say, better face the music and find out exactly what they wanted from me. “Lay it on me then, what do I have to do?”

“First, we need to establish rules that your minions must adhere to.” Misa informed.

Suddenly, a horrific thought came to mind. “I don’t have to live here, do I?”

“You are the Ruler of the Underworld. You can do whatever you like—the rules are yours to make.”

My gaze met Kyden’s, relief palpable in my tone. “Well, that’s a bit of good news.”

“Indeed.”

“You can assign yourself minions to handle your daily duties, and to look after the world for you, if you don’t wish to live among us.” Misa continued.

Okay, easy decision. “I appoint you.”

“Me?” Misa gasped.

“Well yeah, you seem to know lots. You’ll do fine.” Better than I could do, and oddly, I trusted her. Yeah, I trusted a demon, never thought I’d see the day.

She started to bow, but I grabbed her arm quickly. “Please don’t. That’s just too weird.”

“As you wish, my…” she stopped herself and smiled. “Nexi.”

I smiled in return. Whoever guessed that I’d find a friend in Misa? I would never have thought it possible. Friends come from unusual places, and I couldn’t deny that when I looked at Misa, all I saw was a friend.

“We’ll be in nightly contact with you about situations that arise and matters you must deal with. It’d be my pleasure to act as your Siren to assist you and deal with most of the trouble without you. The role is normally given to a witch, but times have changed now, haven’t they?” Azar cut in.

“Great.” Maybe my involvement wouldn’t be as much as I thought. These two seemed to know what the hell they were doing. “So, you’ll only come to me if something really serious comes up?”

“As Siren, I’ll deal with anyone who goes against the laws you put forth. We’ll detain them here. Then, weekly you’ll need to come so they can stand before you.”

I sighed loud and proud. There went my whole plan to let everyone else handle it thing for me. “All right, got all that, so what do we do now?”

“We need to bring everyone back in so you can set in place the new rules.” Misa stated.

My gaze hit on every face here. “Er…I hope you are all going to help me with this?” I was glad to get a nod from each of them in return.

Half an hour later, we had rules to set the Underworld to rights. The crowd piled back