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He gripped her chin, forcing her to look at him. “Who was it?”

“I don’t know.” She could barely catch her breath. “He was huge, massive horns, red eyes. His skin was a strange bluish-gray.”

“Fuck.” Hel slammed the door shut without ever touching it and led her over to a stone bench in a nearby alcove. “Where are you hurt?”

After sitting, she lifted her dress to show him her bloody calf. With a frown, he crouched and lifted her leg to get a better look at the wound. With his palm hovered over it, a warm glow and heat brushed her skin. By the time he moved his hand the wound was healed. He reached up and touched her neck, sending a chill through her. She couldn’t see it, but it was bound to be bright red and maybe already bruising. “Who was he?”

“Who I feared would come. The demon prince from the underrealm.”

If he was immortal as Thane said, how could they ever beat him? And if Hel feared him… Layala gripped his wrist as a warmth emanated from his hand over her throat. “We can’t kill him?”

“You don’t need to worry about that right now.”

With a shuddering breath, Layala leaned back against the wall. Even though she was healed, and nothing hurt, the buzz of the fight still coursed through her veins, her hands trembled from it. “He sounded like you.” She gulped. “He imitated your voice somehow.”

The fury rolling off him was palpable. “And you went to him?”

“No. I was about to tell you what a complete asshole you are, but who I thought was you, wouldn’t come out of the shadows.”

He rose out of his crouch and sat beside her on the bench. “Fuck,” he murmured. “When I heard the terror in your voice… Gods, I haven’t been that scared in a long time. I forgot what fear felt like.”

The pessimist in her wanted to say it was because she was his life source, but it was more than that. Even she couldn’t deny it. “How did you know where I was? At that moment I forgot to say.”

“I didn’t. I just followed my… instincts.”

They sat quietly for a long time. Neither of them felt the need to speak or fill the silence. All that was needed was the comfort of two souls who felt like they didn’t belong, and the soft music from the ballroom drifting from several hallways over.

“Thank you for coming,” she whispered.

He nodded as he stood then held out his hand. “Let’s get you to your room, love.”

* * *

Layala’s bathsmelled of lemon and thyme. Wisps of steam rose around her, curling the hair around her face. All she wanted was to relax tonight. After the disaster at the masked ball, and five nights of mage training with Vesstan, and only him, nothing could be better than this.No thinking of male elves who insist on torturing me in one way or another—that thought only brought to mind how Thaneless her bed had been and how much she wanted his lips all over her at this very moment.

She couldn’t believe the fortitude he had to stay abstinent this long when all it would take was opening the door to her room and there she was, waiting, and willing.

Layala lifted the box of cards Hel left and popped it open. If she had patience, she’d look at each one, but she shuffled through until she found Valeen. The tickle in her stomach was either nerves or excitement but she didn’t know which. Much like the statue she’d seen, the image painted on one side was of her sitting on a throne, legs crossed. What she’d mistaken for snakes were black vines wrapped around her arms with blooms at her shoulders, the night crown adorned atop her flowing black hair. The card, like the others, was outlined in a decorative golden border and at the top it read:Valeenand the bottom:Goddess of Night.

Tif’s hands then face popped up over the lip of the tub by Layala’s shoulder. “Oooo, pretty… That’s you.”

“I believe it is,” Layala murmured. She reached over to the small, rolling table beside her and plucked a glass of blush wine off it and brought it to her lips.

“Can I have some? Just a teeny-weeny thimble?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Tif pulled a thimble out from behind her as if she’d been waiting to ask all night. “It will be a girls’ night tonight! We should have invited Piper and Aunt Evalyn.”

“It’s a girls’ night every night for us, Tif,” Layala complained and took a long gulp of wine. “Next time I’m going out for girls’ night. I’ll even take you with me.”

Layala tipped her glass and filled Tif’s thimble. The little gnome grinned deviously. Layala picked her up by the back of her dress and placed her on the side table so she could sit rather than stand on whatever thing she’d dragged in there to reach the top of the tub.

“We go out and I’ll yodel!” With her legs spread and both hands wrapped around the silver thimble she tipped it back for a drink. “We could do a duet! I bet you can sing. You just look like one of those elves who has a lovely voice.”

Layala chuckled. “I can carry a tune, but I don’t know if it’s lovely,” and took another sip of wine. She turned the card over; her brows rose. A description was written on the back.

The goddess of night is said to be created from a fallen star and an ancient flower that blooms only at night, not born of another or formed in the womb, making her one of the seven primordials. She is night personified, riding a white chariot pulled by two onyx, winged horses.