Page 83 of Hell Fae King

“Melek,” I breathed, urging him to fly faster, or to overcome this stupid spell and blink to Ajax’s side because my mate had justvanishedunderneath a mountain of monsters. Or at least they were large enough to create a mountain from the dragon and two other large breeds of Nightmare Fae that had collapsed on top of him.

I had almost lost Az. I wasn’t about to go through this again with Ajax, too.

“I’m descending,” he promised me as my stomach turned from the drop. But it felt too slow, too stagnant as the campus stretched out over the broken horizon. “But we have to be careful, little angel. This is very likely a trap,” Melek warned me as he took his sweet time delving into the paradigm.

Vivaxia’s magic was everywhere, but so much of it was a harmless mirage. Some of the blocks had been real, preventing us from entering the paradigm, but once I felt Ajax’s pain, I knew where to look.

Typhos seemed unconcerned with the spell now that I had used my bond with Ajax to pull us beyond the wavering mirage that cloaked an otherwise delicate net. Or I had… siphoned a hole through it. I wasn’t entirely sure.

Either way, the Hell Fae King had taken the opportunity to address a problem in his kingdom. The air sizzled as his powerful form blazed through, his confidence creating literal flames as he crashed into the ground.

Rock and dirt sprayed into the air, but it was a calculated landing. Not a single pebble strayed my way, and when Melek landed, I scampered onto the ground and my fingers twitched at my hip for a blade.

Of course, none was there. I hadn’t exactly beenweaponstraining a moment ago.

Keeping a weapon on me at all times had been my norm for many years. Even when I’d attended classes at the university, I kept one out of sight for the occasional supernatural nuisance or whatever shit my father surprised me with. But it seemed that ever since I had found myself wrapped in my destiny, I was constantly without a blade.

You don’t need a weapon, little angel,Melek assured me in my mind.You are one.

I glanced at Typhos when he said that, because I was a siphon designed to tap intohispower.

And what a power it was.

The Hell Fae King parted the gathering of wild Nightmare Fae with a wave of his hand. I’d spotted at least six so far, and fires and chaos in the distance suggested there were more to contend with.

The creatures in his immediate vicinity keened and cowered in his presence as a strange flickering energy swelled over them like a tidal wave.

What is that?

All beasts in the Hell Fae Realm bowed to their king, even ones that had gone feral.

At least, that was what Typhos had expected. The initial shock of our arrival had disrupted them, but only momentarily.

That foreign energy snapped right back into place, and that was when they coiled.

“Cami!” Melek shouted, both out loud and inside my head as my soul heeded the panic in his voice. I crouched and ducked out of the way just as a wall of scaly flesh slammed into the ground where I had been standing a moment before.

Is that a dragon?

“Stop!” Typhos roared. The power behind the single word slammed into my chest, and my body wilted as if it wanted to obey, but the command hadn’t been for me.

The group of at least six Nightmare Fae, as well as a few Hell Fae types, simultaneously pounced on the Hell Fae King. He disappeared from view, but Hellfire spiraled into the sky in response. The heat swept upward, not actually aimed at any of the fae, but it served to spread them out.

He wasn’t hurting them. Only driving them back so we could better manage their numbers. While there weren’t exactly many of them, Nightmare Fae were… large.

But the Hell Fae King could handle a few beasts. This was his domain, after all.

Satisfied that Lucifer would be fine, my gaze tracked the broken ground, searching for the mate who had drawn me here, the one I still couldn’t feel at all.

Ajax.

I spotted him crumpled on the ground and covered in blood. My eyes widened as my chest constricted. I couldn’t feel him, but that didn’t mean?—

Pain splintered across my spine as a jagged claw raked its way through my flesh. A scream followed, but it wasn’t my own.

A Banshee slammed to a stop in front of me, her eyes wild and wrong.

Wait… not a Banshee,I thought, my brow furrowing.