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My mind was far more tired than my body and I simply followed after Walter without much awareness or thought as to where we were going.

I didn’t bother trying to remember the dark and winding corridors.

I had so many questions about Tartarus and what my new life was about to be like, but that curiosity was also cloaked with indifference that didn’t feel quite normal for me.

Perhaps it was the Tartarus scabies or rash, whatever venereal-sounding ailment Walter had called it.

The little voice in the back of my head, the one that would have been figuring the fastest way to help Cal’s sister and then get us both out of here, seemed muted and replaced with a tingle of mischievousness that was definitely not there before.

“You hungry?” Walter shouted over his shoulder as he continued to dodge stray walls. It was fascinating watching the man maneuver through the maze of hidden doors and holes.

“Are you a rat aesthetically or morally?” I blurted, surprising myself.

“Can you still eat when you’re dead? What can I do now that I’m dead with no powers?

” A small tickle of a menacing air touched the back of my neck.

No powers. Did they all come here with no powers, or was I the only one?

That felt like something I really needed to find out for my own protection.

The shifter snorted. “To answer the first question, I suppose I’m a rat in all aspects.

The problem remains in you assuming rats are morally inept or lacking good character simply because they are rats.

” His deep brown eyes held me in my place.

“To answer your second question, you are dead, but sometimes that only opens the doors you were too afraid to open yourself.” My sigh must have been audible because he smiled.

“Yes, you have the Tartarus itch and bad. You’re thinking about hitting me right now, aren’t you?

Oh, this is gonna be fun.” Amusement danced in his eyes.

He was right. I had felt like hitting him just then. Fuck, that wasn’t really like me. “That’s it then? I’ve changed to a monster already? I’ve been here a half hour and already I’m one of you? No offense.”

He slapped my arm and leaned back against a smooth white wall, clearly enjoying this.

“Nah, I keep telling you. The itch is strongest when you first get here. Do a couple things that you wouldn’t normally do and it will fade…

unless it doesn’t, but then that was really you the whole time.

You just hid it. Move the box behind you and pull the lever. ”

I did as he requested, only pausing for a moment to wonder why there were so many random doors and secret hallways within this place.

It was the Underworld after all. Should I really be surprised by a plethora of oddly hidden passageways?

It was probably how they let the monsters out when they needed to feed. “Who normally takes these routes?”

“I do.” He flashed a grin my way before opening another flap of the wall and crawling through.

The width of his shoulders stopped him, and with a distant chuckle from the other side of the wall, he angled them, one at time until they escaped through the doorway.

“To be honest, this is the first time I’ve gone through as a man and not a wolf or rat.

” Sensing my hesitation from the other room and my lack of following, he thoughtfully added. “You’ll fit. You’re smaller than me.”

My mouth fell open. Who was he kidding? “Smaller than you?” I was as tall or taller than his hole-in-the-wall crawling ass.

“You know what I mean, less muscle,” he said, brushing off my objections. “Two more turns and we’ll be there.”

I made a point (with a small flare of dramatics, possibly) of making sure he witnessed the resistance that my very wide and not at all small shoulders struggled against the edges of the opening.

I heaved in a breath of the stale, dusty air and pushed my shoulders back as I cleared the distance between the two of us.

We were in some sort of a chamber. The scent of burnt clove and cassia coiled around my nose.

I couldn’t focus on a single object as my gaze bounced around the small but busily decorated room.

Vibrant red, violet, and navy silks were draped all around the ceiling and walls in an exotic fashion.

Soft, glowing lights were scattered behind various parts of the fabric, illuminating the room with the seductive tints of the draperies’ colors.

A simple bed sat in the modest space, made up neatly with matching blankets and pillows.

To the side of the room sat a tidy-looking set of shelves with so many candlesticks shoved into it, I doubt you could have fit one more.

It reminded me of the candles I used to seal letters to Cal with—at least until we got the book and communicated through that while she was in the human realm.

A pang of sadness stabbed into my chest. I reached for my head and felt around—my skin held no remnants of the wound that killed me.

The heaviness pulled harder at my spirit and I realized grief was settling in—everything had changed.

My eyes clenched shut. Now I had nothing to help me remember our time together, not even a scar to remind me that our friendship was real, that I didn’t belong here.

The thought that I’d never get to see her again felt incomprehensible.

When she had been in the human realm, I had missed her, but at least then I was able to talk to her and feel her presence.

It helped knowing that one day the writing and the distance would be gone and we would be able to lean on each other in person.

You can’t grow up depending on a friendship in the way we did and simply move past it.

I knew I would grieve our friendship forever.

She and Mendax were a perfect storm of thunder and lightning, and though you could have one without the other, when they were together, the whole atmosphere changed, each exposing a beauty and strength they couldn’t have had without the other.

“You all right?”

I blinked a few times and realized I had been frozen, staring at the cabinet filled with candles.

“Yeah, I’m good. Just processing everything.

Is this your bedchamber?” It seemed a bit seductive with the lighting and decor.

To be honest, I’d have thought it would be a bit more manly looking, but it smelled like sex and that somehow fit his aesthetic.

A choking sound came from the muscular fae. “No, I have Eletha. This is…a different kind of room.” He smirked. “It will likely be filling up soon, so we should move on.”

I snorted. “Yes, it very much seems as if you ‘have’”—I air quoted—“Eletha. Especially when you ran into a hidden maze to get away from her. You flirty son of a bitch. I’ve been doing it all wrong. And what kind of room is this?”

The shifter let out a crack of laughter.

Despite him being from the land of death and darkness, Walter was surprisingly likable and easygoing.

“Okay, Eletha’s not mine…yet.” His face turned to mine and I saw the determination practically pulsing be hind his irises.

“But stars willing, she will be.” His words were filled with a hopefulness I was far too familiar with.

“Also, this is the room where the ladies bring the paying customers. These rooms are used like a brothel for the pros.”

I swallowed my own loneliness down. My eyes roamed his hard expression, looking for anything that might clue me in a little more on this seemingly odd pairing, and then, like a bolt of lightning, it hit me. “She’s a dog.”

The hair on my arms immediately prickled at the sound Walter made. “Sorry, not a dog—right? A wolf? Wolf-dog? Fuck, what is it?” Another reverberating sound from Walter’s chest shot straight to my instincts, reminding me that he wasn’t always as friendly as he was with me.

“Eletha and her sis?—”

My schooling came flooding back to me so fast, I began choking on my own gasps.

“Eletha and her sisters are the Shepherds of Eromreven! Suns! No wonder she won’t give you the time of day.

She’s a fucking Shepherd. You called her the warden!

” My back hit the nearby wall, startling me all over again.

Oh suns, had I said anything I shouldn’t have?

I had told her about Adrianna, but there was no real reason why that would be an issue, at least none that I could think of.

If anything, she might be able to help me return Adrianna’s powers and pendant.

Surely one child leaving Tartarus wasn’t a big deal.

Walter’s eyes remained uncomfortably hard on me.

“Yes, Eletha and her sisters are the Shepherds of Tartarus and the daughters of Kaohs, but since the other sisters have left, they call her the warden of Tartarus.”

The air crackled between our stares, and I knew that my future in this pit of death very likely depended on my next words.

The Shepherds were always portrayed as three hideous lupine-like monsters that chose which tier you went to.

It had been obvious Eletha was far from a monstrous-looking beast, at least in her fae form, and I could almost hear Walter’s internal dialogue, daring me to say a single word about how beautiful she was .

“When will I meet the other sisters? I guess it’s a good thing you and Mendax are close with Kaohs then, huh?

If you plan to make him your father in-law.

That has to be a point in your favor.” Relief washed over me when the Unseelie broke his stare abruptly and moved toward the door across the room.

I followed him out, with a thousand questions about the wild room we were just in.

“You will never meet Eletha’s two sisters because the two of them abandoned the Underworld to run off to the human realm with a couple of idiot human men and got banished.

Eletha was no better, barely missing her own banishment by running off to marry some stupid fae.

Only one of her sisters remains here, and she is the last person you want to meet.

And it is most definitely not a point in my favor that Mendax and Kaohs are close,” he mumbled under his breath.

“Why is that?” I questioned.

“Because I was the stupid fae Eletha ran off to marry. Mendax told Kaohs, and Eletha was hauled back here and never allowed to leave again. Kaohs despises me.”