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“I’m not lying,” his voice lowered, to almost a plea. “I never said those things to her. I didn’t sleep with her or even give her more than a single glance. She was just War’s fiancé. We weren’t even friends.”

Her elbow slammed into his left arm, collapsing him then she thrust her hips and dumped him over to regain the top position. “I’m going back to Adalon. Back to War. He needs to know he’s with a cheating manipulator, and he doesn’t need to feel guilty about betraying his cousin because it was the other way around. I don’t know what you two have planned, but it’s over.” She moved to get up, and he vanished from beneath her, and stood in the way of the manor.

“You’re not leaving until this discussion is over.”

“Get out of my way,” she snarled, low and venomous.

“Hit me.” He held out his arms, leaving his body and face open for assault. “Hit me, stab me, do whatever you want until you can speak to me with a clear head. I can take it. I deserve it but not forthatreason.”

Her fist opened and closed at her side, and she ground her teeth, tucking away Soulender. “You make me crazy.”

“I’m not letting you leave this time. I don’t care how long we have to fight.”

“You know, I never even slept with War back then. Not even once. Not until I was reborn as Layala.”

“I wouldn’t even care if you did at this point. I need to know exactly what you saw and where.”

She took a deep breath, attempting to calm her coursing anger. “At your castle in our bedroom. I had just gotten out of the bath and while I stood in the hallway, I heard you talking.” Her mind flashed to the scene of Varlett knelt between his thighs and she shook with rage. The sky darkened, not from storm clouds but like the sunlight couldn’t penetrate the realm, as if it fell from the sky. Hel glanced up briefly and his jaw muscles twitched. The goddess of night saw him perfectly in the dark, saw everything, from the grass in his disheveled hair to the bead of blood at the corner of his mouth. “After I saw and heard everything, I left. I couldn’t stay. You hurt me too much.”

Hel lifted his palms in a way one might stave off a threatening animal. “Valeen, I know you’re angry but think about it. I don’t believe War is capable of magic like this, but Varlett is a master sorceress. Even back then she was gifted. She’s unusually talented with magic. I know you think that is what you saw, but it never happened. I swear it.”

Light crept back in as if the damper on the sun lifted. “What are you saying? I saw what I saw. I heard you.”

“I believe you. I’m sure you did see that, but it wasn’t me.”

“Are you saying she made me see it? Created some sort of illusion. Only you are capable of something like that. Something good enough to trickme. Magic is detectable. I would have felt it.” Valeen scanned every inch of Hel’s face searching for the lie, but the god of mischief was notoriously hard to read. Any magical oath, or even truth serum Presco could give him couldn’t be trusted. Hel was too powerful, and smart enough to outdo them. Zalefora, the goddess of truth would be the only one to definitively see a truth from a lie and even if she was one of the few goddesses she trusted, she couldn’t contact her—and it wasn’t as if she couldn’t lie, too.

Maybe he only regretted his choice after he lost her. Maybe it was only then he realized he loved her, but it was too late now.

“There are few capable of magic that good but she’s one of them. There are ways to cloak magic. I’ve seen her. I know her.”

“Supposing Varlett was capable, why would she? And how could she know about Synick?”

“She was engaged to War. He knew all these things. He might have told her, thinking nothing of it. She was going to be his wife, and he must have told.” He pressed his lips together. “But why? I don’t know. It makes no sense. She was a dragon princess, poised to be the wife of a god.”

Valeen narrowed her eyes. She wanted to believe him, and at the same time she didn’t because if it were true that meant everything happened over an illusion, over one young dragon sorceress who had no business dealing with gods. And that illusion would have had to have been phenomenal. She evensmelledthe dragon in that room and left no hint of magic. She knew things she shouldn’t have like Valeen’s insecurities about only being used as a vessel to create powerful heirs. How could she know that?

Valeen shoved her hands into her hair and began to pace. But Hel was deceptive, intelligent, and a master manipulator when he wanted to be. It would be easy for him to come up with a story like this to win her back… “Did you tell the council I had Soulender after I left? Because they knew.”

“No. I would have implicated myself by doing so. Someone else knew.”

“If Varlett knew I killed Synick, she knew I had Soulender.” She stopped pacing and a cold chill ran through her body. “Remember the person who blackmailed me into getting the demon prince’s ring? I never saw her face. What if it was Varlett? She could have created an illusion like that with the power of that ring.” All things she thought were separate issues, now fell together. She looked up at Hel. “Holy All Mother, she said I’d remember something that happened between you and her and I could never speak of it. Her stipulation was silence, or I’d break my end of our deal. I think… I just broke it.”

Hel looked paler than usual. “Because it wasn’t real, and she didn’t want you to realize it by talking to me or even War. Do you think I’d have helped you get your journals if I’d had an affair with Varlett and only used you? If I had a secret like that and I even considered you knew, I’d have done everything to prevent you from finding this out. If I did that and was so desperate to get you back now, I would have burned those journals, and I probably would have killed Varlett to keep her mouth shut.”

Well, that was certain to be true. “Not if you loved her.”

His hands trembled at his sides. “I don’t love that bitch. I never have,” he growled. “I asked for your forgiveness ahead of time for fighting against you, for what I said about only wanting bragging rights and the wager with Synick, not for this.”

Synick. In that room with Varlett, he called himUncleSynick. Hel rarely if ever called him Uncle. “But we’d talked about having a child. How could she have known?”

“You came to me, and you brought that up, not me. I never did. Not one time because I knew how you felt about it, and I told War when you did. I thought he was happy for me but maybe he’d been in on this whole plan with Varlett. He loved you then and loves you now. Maybe he wanted you enough to plan this with her.”

She thought back on it. It had been her who asked if he wanted a child. She felt like it was right. He was her mate. With him it felt safe. The All Mother had blessed her, and she trusted him. “I don’t believe War would do that.”

“Funny how you trust him straight away but not me.”

“You are deceptive by nature. He is not.”