Page 2

I heard one time in a tavern, decades ago, that if one ever landed themself in fae hell, they needed to establish dominance or they would be eaten alive and taken advantage of—it’s the only way to survive.

This was definitely not doing that.

An incredibly sassy whinny and stomp came from behind Walter, and my eyes landed on one of the most comforting sites I could have imagined.

It was Thistle, my floricorn friend. I hadn’t seen her since she had disappeared at the library of the Fates.

The feisty mare stood tall (not actually that tall) in the most handsome leather tack while giving the man holding her lead a good struggle.

“What the fuck is going on? What is my pony doing here?” I said aggressively.

“Let’s see ’em!” a haggard old wench with one eye shouted from the far right. “Show the testicles!” The crowd rallied with the wench.

They could probably look down my throat and see my spleen, my mouth was so wide.

Dominance, like the men at the tavern had said—it wasn’t too late. “Pipe down!” I shouted back at them using as much vocal fry as I could muster. The fae tittered back when my voice came out absurdly low and creaky. “Sit back down! I’m not showing you my testicles!”

Walter chortled.

The wench looked offended and sat back down with her brows raised. “A bit…testy ain’t we, Seelie?” Laughter rippled like ocean waves through the never-ending room.

I heard the same hiss and growl I had heard huddled in the corner. I turned to find that it had only been the raspy wheeze of Walter’s laughter. He was trying to keep a neutral demeanor, albeit quite unsuccessfully.

“Welcome to Eromreven,” he coughed. “Quite an entrance.” The room’s echoing roar of laughter felt like static in my ears. Several people had stood on their chairs chanting vile, lurid things. The entire room was quickly spiraling out of control. “Arrow, take Thimble?—”

“Thistle,” I corrected Walter. “Thistle to the mill.”

“What? Where’s that?” Did I trust Walter? I’d only known him for a short time before his death.

“She’ll be safe there, with the other horses. She showed up about ten minutes before you,” he replied.

Panic surged through me at the thought of her leaving. She was familiar and comfortable—two things I really wanted right now. “Can’t she?—”

“Shit,” Walter mumbled, cutting off my protests. “Silence,” boomed a voice filled with so much control and power in that single word, I nearly sat like a dog.

Without a second of hesitation, silence filled the room, save for the errant sound of a stray scooting chair.

My eyes landed on the master of the voice and I was surprised yet again.

She strode toward me with the grace of a panther.

The hair on the back of my neck rose in warning.

I may have lost my powers but not my instincts.

A curtain of long, black hair moved at her back, swaying like a pendulum behind her waist as she strode toward us, her large ivy-green eyes locking me in.

Her golden brown skin seemed to hold the fire of the lights on the wall as she strode past them.

She was beautiful and dangerous in a thin cream fabric gown with a tight, high-cut red bodysuit-type thing under it that gave me a glimpse of cleavage and an eyeful of curves.

A deep growl vibrated beside me, and I turned to see Walter had turned feral and was giving me a death stare.

“If you wish to see the rest of Tartarus, put your eyes back in your head before I take them,” Walter snarled.

Oh shit. “My apologies.” I quickly raised my hands in surrender.

I was not about to ruin things with the only friend I had here.

Besides, I had come to the realization that fate had probably not made a soul mate for me—not if this was what the Fates had planned for me.

I wasn’t meant to have someone of my own, and that was okay.

In truth I was rather grateful they never gave me a match, as I would have been forced to leave her in Seelie all alone forever.

Though would I still have volunteered to come here, had I been with the love of my life?

Doubtful. Still, I was only a man, and this woman was startlingly beautiful, though her dark power alone was enough to make me uncomfortable.

“Thank you for the alert, Walter. You may go now,” she said with a trace of scolding attached to her tone.

“He’s a friend of mine. I want him taken care of,” Walter said with a whisper of challenge as his eyes slowly roved the woman, making no attempt to hide it. My eyes darted back and forth between them, trying to figure out what was going on.

“Oh, don’t worry. He’s Seelie—and a royal. We’ll take care of him just as we do the rest of his kind.” Her dark eyes narrowed on me in the most odd and piercing way.

“Eletha, come on,” he gently pleaded, his challenging tone more of a whine now.

Eletha. Why did that name ring a bell?

The woman softened the tiniest bit at his words, then rolled her eyes and stepped up to Walter until her ample chest grazed his.

Now that was a power move.

She only reached his shoulders in height, but it was obvi- ous who the stronger predator between them was, which was baffling in and of itself considering Walter had literally been a captain of the Unseelie army, the Unseelie prince’s brother, and a fucking beast of a man, and I wasn’t just saying that because he could shift into rats and wolves and things.

Seriously, aside from Mendax, he had always been one of the most intimidating men I knew.

He could turn it on and off and be the most likable, friendly guy ever, but somehow that only added to his intimidation factor.

“I should send him to the first tier just because he’s a friend of yours.” Her brow raised ever so slightly in challenge .

Oh, shit, the first tier. How had I forgotten about the tiers?

I couldn’t go through the tiers. Especially before I found Adrianna.

I needed to get the pendant to her so she could escape this place, and hopefully I could follow.

Tartarus was not just the playground of miscreants but also the punishing realm.

It was said—though, after seeing this room alone I don’t really know what to think or believe anymore—that when you went to the Underworld, you were sent to Eromreven, the waiting room of Tartarus, if you will.

There, you would be met by the three Shepherds, three of the most hideous and dangerous beasts alive…

or dead? Hmm…their life status was left out of the stories, but everything in Tartarus was dead anyway, the Shepherds would scour your mind and body before deciding where they wanted to send you.

It was also said that because they were so hideous and evil, they didn’t shy away from playing with their victims a bit, especially the male victims. I once had a private tutor tell me about a Seelie that landed himself in Tartarus for cheating on his wife repeatedly.

Apparently after his arrival in Eromreven, the Shepherds…

err…roughly fornicated with the man until he was torn into shreds and tossed to the ninth tier.

But that wasn’t the only reason the Shepherds were so dangerous and feared; they were the three daughters of Kaohs.

Not only did they have the god of the Underworld wrapped around their hairy, thick-knuckled little fingers, but it was said he loved his daughters with all the love he had to offer and, as any good father, did not like anyone that they touched and would cause their every day in Tartarus to be worse no matter if they were Seelie or Unseelie, male, female, or anything and everything in-between.

It was said he cared for nothing but his three hideous daughters and his protégé, a young man he had stolen from the gods to take his position.

Glancing around the room, I saw no hideous Shepherds there to violently molest me.

In fact, I saw nothing that rang true with any of the stories I’d been told.

For a quick moment, I wondered if all the bloodcurdling screams I’d heard had simply been a figment of my imagination. They had felt so…heavy .

“From the look of it, he wouldn’t make it past the ninth tier anyway,” she said, eyeing me slowly, pausing on where I still held my crotch.

I cleared my throat and moved my hands as far away from my dick as possible. The ninth tier was lust, and it was said you were met with the ghost of a Ladon dragon that would dip your body in hot coals before it ate you.

“Please, Eletha, I could use a friend here,” Walter practically whined, reminding me of a puppy being scolded. I had to fight a scowl in his direction.

To his credit, he clearly knew what he was doing, because her voice suddenly carried a gentler tone. “What about me? Am I not your friend?”

Walter swallowed. “I don’t want to be your friend.”

Was he blushing? I caught myself leaning in to watch the tense yet stifled chemistry between the two. It was chaotic and heavy, like it was being stopped short of its destination.

Walter slowly grabbed her hand and dipped down. “Please, as the ward of Eromreven, you are a force only?—”

This was getting awkward. He was literally on his knees begging her. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful to Walter for trying to keep me out of the Ten Tiers, but it seemed so unlike the man I knew, and I felt like I was intruding on a weird lovers’ quarrel.

When Cal had brought Walter into the castle as a pet rat, he and I had become friends…

not friends enough that I would expect him to beg the warden of Eromreven for me, but also when did he ever beg?

He was Mendax’s right-hand man. He didn’t beg for anything.

I was reminded that this man was here because he had died protecting Cal.

He had died because my mother, the Seelie Queen, had killed him.

I suddenly wanted to disappear into the wall behind me.

I couldn’t let him do this. “I’m only here to find a lost soul who goes by the name of Adrianna.

She is my dear friend Calypso’s younger sister.

She is Artemi and is unable to ascend to Moirai without the last droplet of her powers.

” I clutched the warm metal vine around th e pendant of ashes and raised it for her to see.

“The Fates have tasked me with freeing the child and then we both will be gone from this realm.”

In unison, their heads turned abruptly to me, each with their own surprised expression.

“Ughh, get up! Fine,” she grumbled, turning back to Walter as she curled her lip and stormed off, stopping where the first row of seated fae began.

She waved her hand in an irritated wide sweep and the rows began to vanish completely, chairs, fae, and all.

She continued this until she had cleared out what looked to be several hundred fae, each sweep of her arm quicker and more aggressive, until at last the seemingly endless room was nearly empty of the crowd, the room itself shrinking until it was the size of a large ballroom.

Walter and I watched, completely captivated, his eyes darkening with lust that I half expected them to pop out of his head.

“Thank you, you didn’t have to do that,” I said.

“Especially after what my mother did. I would have understood if you had let whatever it was that was about to happen, happen.”

The large Unseelie warrior tousled his brown hair, making it look somehow even better than before. I tousled my own hair. By now my chest had lost the warmth of heroism and had begun to feel heavy. The thought of never being able to talk to her again physically ached.

“Come, let me show you around. I want to hear everything and more importantly how you ended up here, but we need to get out of the threshold before Eletha comes back and sends you to the Ten Tiers just to spite me.”