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Chapter Twenty

ARABELLA

T he darkness was all around, filling her mouth and throat. It was so thick that Arabella couldn’t breathe.

“Let him in.” It was Arden’s voice, but it sounded distant. “Submit.”

She wanted to scream, to fight, but she couldn’t move from where she lay on the altar. Soon, her entire body started shaking as the darkness filled her. It felt like every cell was splitting in two.

You’re everything I hoped you’d be, came the voice of the Everdark in her mind, rumbling like a great presence had awoken from the deep. His voice sounded like the rippling waves from a collision of stars—and the desolation that remained in its wake.

She struggled to remain conscious as her body continued to seize.

Elias, she thought as her mind grew hazy, wanting his face to be the last thing she saw if she was to die in this place.

You’re my blood, the Everdark hissed. You must accept that you are part demon if you’re to survive my entry.

That was impossible. She was human and fae and nothing more.

“The shadows don’t speak to the shadow fae,” came Arden’s voice.

“At least, not those who are fully fae. The Everdark taught me this. It’s how I knew you were different.

Only those who also possess demon blood can awaken the shadows.

That was how we knew you were here when the zaol chased you.

You’d spoken to the dark, which summoned us. ”

The darkness billowing through her hummed as though in agreement.

Her mind reeled, and she wanted to ask just what it meant to speak to the shadows. But she forced her mind to focus on the present.

Allow me to unlock the demon magic within you, and you will have more power than you ever dreamed , the Everdark said. All it needs is a key to unleash the torrent of your potential.

Again, the darkness pressed into her, and it felt like her veins swelled with the onslaught of power.

Suddenly, her head smacked against the stones and her body began seizing. Spots formed in her vision. She was going to lose consciousness, and soon.

I’m not a demon , she thought. I’m nothing like you .

“You’re going to kill her,” Arden said, his voice closer now. Was that a hint of concern in his tone? “You must go slower. If you don’t, she’ll die.”

The darkness blasted out into the cavern, filling every space until there was nothing but the impenetrable dark.

She heard a thud on the stones and wondered if the fae prince had been blasted backward.

She can take it, came the voice of the Everdark. She will accept me .

Distantly, she realized the greater demon must be able to speak into both her and Arden’s minds at once.

Slowly, she slipped into unconsciousness, barely clinging to the will to fight this presence—this greater demon.

My grandfather ?

Then the torrent closed over her.

One moment, she was on the cool stone altar, and the next she was in a place of darkness—just like where she’d dreamed of Elias.

Black stretched in every direction. There was no horizon and no end.

Similar to her other dreams, her skin glowed with a gray-white light.

“Granddaughter.”

The Everdark’s voice was as fathomless as deep space. If she wasn’t careful, she knew she’d fall into that dark and never find her way out.

As she glanced around, she couldn’t see him in this formless landscape.

Just what kind of greater demon was he? What sort of powers did he have? She’d never heard of the Everdark before nor had she faced anything like this. Had he just tried to kill her? Was she already dead? And why was she in this dreamscape again?

“I’m not your granddaughter,” she said as she turned again. But when she looked around, there was nothing but unending darkness.

Glancing down, the creeping shadow vines moved around her feet in twisting, agitated motions. They were semi-translucent and had a myriad of thorns. In the midst was a single white rose. The vine extended up to her as though offering her the flower.

She didn’t accept it.

“Is this some sort of an apology?” she dared, feeling a presence shift before her. “I’ll have you know I have a bad habit of holding grudges.”

Glancing up, she spotted a figure darker than the night itself.

It was shaped like a man but didn’t have any discernible features. There was no face, no skin, and no clothes. It was a deep shadow in the vague shape of a person, but the blackness within it swirled like a crackling thunderstorm.

Even without a mouth, she sensed that it smiled. The sensation unnerved her. Gooseflesh rippled along her skin.

“It was important that we speak without interruption,” the Everdark said in that deep, fathomless voice.

It was then she realized that he spoke aloud. His words were no longer in her mind.

Hands curling into fists, she said, “You claim we’re related, but I find that hard to believe. How can a shadow fuck a fae?”

Let alone produce offspring from that coupling.

The Everdark took a step forward and then another. Even though it was several paces away from her, it felt far too close. Everything in her screamed to run, to fight, but she forced herself to remain where she was. She wasn’t about to show fear.

Shadows rippling, the Everdark said, “In the place between realms, anything is possible.”

Her eyes narrowed. “This is a dream.”

“Is it?” the greater demon rumbled, an amusement in his tone. “Have you not seen your mate in this place?”

She hesitated, countless words on the tip of her tongue.

The shadows shifted as though the demon nodded. “Have you noticed when he feeds on you that you wake feeling different? As though an erox had consumed your essence.”

“How did you know that?” she demanded.

Belatedly, she realized that by asking, she’d confirmed his suspicions.

“You haven’t yet learned how to shut me out of your mind,” the Everdark said. “Every time you are in the in-between, I’ve been here with you.”

“You’ve watched us fuck?” she said, crossing her arms as disgust curdled through her. “That’s not grandfatherly behavior.”

The Everdark took another step forward, and the shadow vines at her feet trembled. “I’ve been here your whole life. How do you think you found your way out of the forest all those years ago? Surely, you don’t think a mere child could have survived on their own.”

She opened and closed her mouth.

It was something she’d wondered her whole life.

Where had she come from, and how had the forest demons not devoured her?

She didn’t want to believe she could have some relation to a greater demon.

Moreover, just what was a demon offspring capable of?

All demons fed on others in some capacity—whether it's a person’s soul, life force, essence, or something else.

Would she hurt those she cared about with some demon magic?

This must have been how Elias felt when he’d been turned into an erox.

She considered her next words very carefully.

“You want me to believe that we’re related? Then explain.”

Something sparked in the Everdark’s shadows, as though he knew he had her.

“Prince Arden’s sister, the princess, was held prisoner in the Twilight Court.

She was forced to act as the king’s assassin for centuries against her will, forced to serve him as he slaughtered the shadow fae in the fae wars.

Her name was Myla,” the Everdark began. “When I came to the fae realm and found her, I offered to help her escape with her human lover, one of the king’s servants he’d stolen from the mortal realm.

Myla was pregnant. I could scent the desperation on her.

I told her there’d be a cost—that she’d be separated from her child, never able to see you again.

She refused at first, but when the king was about to kill her lover, she summoned me. And I answered.”

The Everdark stepped forward—only a few steps away from her now.

“I helped them escape through the gateway in the forest near your mate’s castle,” he said.

“I held the gateway closed as I expedited your growth in your mother’s belly.

She’d only been three months into her pregnancy.

In moments, she was swollen with child and going into labor.

I pulled you from her. But your mother went back on her word and attacked.

The magic of our bargain killed her at once.

Her human lover lashed out in a fit of rage, but he was a mere speck of sand.

He died in the forest, consumed by the soulless, becoming one of them. ”

For a moment, it felt like her heart stopped.

She’d never longed to meet her parents, not truly. But somehow, hearing they’d died horrible deaths—that her father had become a demon—struck something deep within her. A strange sense of despair swelled in her chest and tightened her throat.

The shadows around the Everdark trembled as he continued, “But your mother did something with her magic before dying that I’d missed.

She’d used every last drop of her abilities to lock your demon magic away and place a curse on me.

I couldn’t speak to you nor could you see me.

So, I guided you to the human village, clearing a path through the forest. This way, you could grow in power with the humans until I could contact you.

During that time, I returned to the shadow fae in the Abyss.

I knew you’d need an army when you took your place on the shadow fae throne. ”

Swallowing thickly, her mind reeled with this onslaught of information. “Why would a demon want a fae throne? Can’t you rule over one of the underrealms?”

“With a shadow fae on the throne who possesses demon blood, I can bring demons into the fae realm,” he said. “The fae have kept my hordes out with their magic. Only I, as a greater demon, can move as I please between realms. And I intend to claim the magic of their world. For us.”

She shook her head. “If Princess Myla placed a curse on you, preventing you from speaking to me, how are you doing so now?”