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brAM

I nfernal Grove was alive. Not in the way enchanted forests typically breathed with the whispers of wind through branches or with the way they magically sprouted flowers along the path, but in a way that made my skin crawl .

The trees loomed in unnatural angles, black bark pulsing with veins of crimson light as if the entire forest had a heartbeat. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and something acrid.

Dark magic aside, this grove was made with demonic magic. History books claimed that the fire and earth fae sacrificed demons to create this grove. It held many demonic ingredients.

Every step we took forward sent a ripple through the dense, almost liquid shadows stretching between the trees.

“The shadows aren’t natural,” Dex muttered, his gray eyes glowering at the trees. “I can’t even fucking use them to shadow travel in here.”

“We won’t need to shadow travel until after we leave the forest,” Jesper assured him as he led the agents and us with confidence. His white hair was a stark contrast against the dark backdrop of this fucked up forest.

“Still, I don’t fucking like it,” Dex growled, keeping his focus on Pandora and our surroundings.

He wasn’t the only one with his head on a swivel. We were all the same.

“None of us do.” Jesper’s brown eyes flickered with focus, assessing the dangers lurking in the unnatural grove. “But this is our target location.”

Hunter, Skel, Reed, Dex, and I were circled around Pandora as she walked. Her long black hair swayed in its ponytail. She was stunning, even in the eerie glow of this grove. Black leggings, a tight tank, and boots—practical, and hot as Fates.

I shoved down the thought.

The deeper we went, the harder it became to breathe. A familiar pressure settled against my chest, like the weight of old memories clawing their way to the surface.

Nostalgia almost, bitter and laced with pain, coiled around my rib cage. My fingers twitched involuntarily, and Chaos stirred within me. He paced just beneath my skin, as unsettled as the other chaos manifestations in my body.

Everyone else seemed to be as on-edge as I was, so I tried not to think too much into it.

Maybe it was just the demonic souls sacrificed to this grove by the fae warning us to stay away.

“It’s just ahead,” Jesper told us.

The dark magic ritual site emerged from the dark like a festering wound. The clearing holding the ritual site was burnt in a perfect circle, but that didn’t surprise me. What did was that it felt like I’d been here before.

At the center lay a slab of stone, half-buried in the soil. The surface was stained with more than the thick, old blood coating it. Dark magic circles were painted into the rock.

Every fucking thing reeked of sulfur, heavy and cloying like a rotting corpse.

I felt sick.

Reed’s violet eyes flickered toward me, but his expression was unreadable. “You have a memory being blocked,” he said softly, furrowing his brows. “Deep in your subconscious. You’ve been mistaking a memory as a nightmare.”

I stiffened. “How do you know that?”

“My magic can sense it. I don’t know. I’ve never sensed something like this before, but I think…I think I can bring it forward….”

I flicked my gaze back toward the slab, and a chill shot down my spine. “Do it.”

“This place is already trying to force the memory out,” he told me, his gaze searching mine. He was in full demon form, now. As if he was searching for the memory in my subconscious. “It’ll be easy for me to bring it out. Are you sure?”

I hesitated.

The thought of seeing what my mind had locked away made my stomach churn, but the pressure in this grove was suffocating me. My father’s voice echoed at the edges of my consciousness, cruel and sharp. I knew this wasn’t something I could keep buried forever.

“Sybil has fucked with all of us. It could be connected to her,” Dex muttered.

“If it can help with this mission, it may be good to try it,” Hunter agreed, and Jesper nodded his agreement.

“Bram?” Reed raised a brow. “What do you want me to do?”

“Do it.”

Reed’s fingers brushed my temple, and the world around me dissolved. I wasn’t in the grove anymore.

The repressed memory slammed into me like a spiked club to the skull, something Father had done to me many times before. Suddenly, I was in the past. I was a shadow of myself watching from the outside.

It was a day after Grandfather died.

My father’s grip was tight around my wrist as he dragged me forward and tossed me in front of the slab—the exact same one that loomed before us now.

The scent of blood clogged my nose, fresh and old all at once.

A man lay on the slab, trembling, his eyes wide with fear. “Stop it! I’ve done nothing to you!”

“You were born nobility.” Father’s voice was cold, devoid of any humanity. “Watch, son.”

I didn’t want to.

I tried to turn away, but my younger self stood frozen in place, horror locking my muscles as my father raised the blade.

I’d seen this before. It was a recurring nightmare…only in the nightmare, I was the one on the slab.

The man gasped, one final breath before the blade sliced through flesh, and blood splattered onto the stone.

The vision shattered.

I gasped as I came back to the present, knees hitting the ground. My head pounded, my heart racing as I clenched my hands into the dirt.

Chaos let out a sharp whine as he manifested, pacing furiously around me, unsure how to help.

Pandora’s voice cut through the haze. “Bram?”

I staggered, breath hitching, and I grabbed my head. More memories flashed before my eyes, flooding into my brain rapidly. My father’s cruel voice dripping with disdain as he spoke of nobility, of their corruption, of their supposed sins .

That wasn’t his only victim. He…killed more than one person on that stone. The one from my memory Reed had helped me access opened a floodgate.

“Bram,” Pandora pleaded with me. “What’s happening? How can I help?”

I barely registered her on the ground next to me. My hands clenched into fists against the dirt.

The weight of the past bore down on me, suffocating.

“It’s a memory he repressed about this place,” Reed explained, but his voice was strained.

Had he seen it, too?

“My father—” I choked out.

A serial killer.

The only known demon serial killer that hasn’t been caught yet.

“What about him, Bram?” Pandora coaxed me.

“He’s been killing nobles for years…right there.” I pointed a shaky finger toward the slab.

I barely registered the others reacting to the information.

Dex and Skel swore under their breaths.

“You’re okay, Bram,” Reed assured me as he bent down on my other side. “Everything you saw was in the past.”

Hunter kneeled in front of me, his voice cutting through the fog in my head. “The serial killer that’s been evading the council is Harry Hemlock?”

I managed to nod.

Dex let out a humorless laugh. “Fucking Fates, Bram. Both our sperm donors are sick bastards.”

“No kidding,” Skel muttered, shaking his head.

“How do you know he’s the serial killer?” Pandora asked gently, her hand running the length of my spine.

A tremor shook me as I forced the words out. “He took me here. He—he killed them right here. He told me it was a lesson. That all nobles deserved it.”

Silence stretched between us.

“What the fuck?” Dex uttered.

“It’s true. What he saw wasn’t a nightmare like he thought it was. It was a memory buried in his subconscious. This place triggered it,” Reed told them.

Pandora had always known I struggled with my past, but this was different. This was the raw, bleeding wound at my core, laid bare for her and her other mates to see. I hadn’t even known I was this fucked up.

Shit, even those agents had to see this side of me.

But they didn’t turn away—none of them did.

“No wonder Dark Veil used this site to set up shop at. The energy here is perfect for their vile plans.” Jesper’s expression hardened. “We have a serial killer to find, but first, we need to deal with this ritual site.”

“Bram, listen to me,” Hunter said, his voice cutting through everything else. “You need to destroy this ritual site. The altar. The slab. Take your power back from what your father made you witness here.”

“I’ll destroy the dark magic first.” Pandora pushed to her feet, stepping toward the dark magic radiating from the site.

Her dark smoke crept out, rolling forth and devouring all of the dark magic within the slab, sigils, and the dark magic circle. Traps around the slab that had been set with dark magic crackled violently, resisting her pull, but she didn’t stop. She absorbed every last drop of dark magic like the fucking goddess she was.

She sucked all that shit back into her, but as soon as her magic settled, she doubled over and vomited the dead magic back out in a sickly tar-like mess.

“I’ve got you.” Skel wrapped his hand around her ponytail so what she purged wouldn’t get on her hair.

“You’re getting even better at that.” Dex rubbed her back as she straightened up.

Reed handed her a mint. “You okay?”

She took it with a weak nod and popped it in her mouth. “Thanks.”

“Your turn, Bram.” Hunter’s gaze kept mine as I rose to my feet, shaking but steady.

Jesper gave me a nod. “Step back,” he told his agents, and they listened.

The student who usually shadowed him was gone today, and I was fucking happy for that. Something was off with that girl.

Chaos tilted his head, staring at me as if waiting for my command.

“Destroy the slab and this entire area,” I told him, funneling chaos magic into his form rapidly.

Chaos grew in size and surged forward. He let out a guttural snarl, his massive form nearly eclipsing the slab as the infernal glow from the trees pulsed.

I let the raw chaos of my magic take hold.

My lesser manifestations formed—my three other wolves, the serpent, and the monstrous hawks born from my rage and power. Anger raged. They ripped into the stone with unrelenting fury. Claws shredded the altar, fangs tore through cursed rock, and in the end, all that remained was dust and pebbles.

When the site was destroyed, my other manifestations faded.

Chaos turned to Pandora. He jumped up, placing his large paws on her shoulders, and licked her face.

“You did so good,” she cooed at him, giving him pets as Demo slithered from Pandora.

Demo rushed forward to help, winding around the ruins of the ritual site as if ensuring none of it remained. When she was sure it was destroyed, she threw her head back and howled.

Chaos pulled back from Pandora and trotted over next to Demo, tossing his head back and howling with her.

I let out a shaky breath. The heavy weight on my chest finally lifted. The past my father had given me still haunted my mind, but it didn’t own me anymore.

And this place?

It was nothing but rubble.