Page 40

TYPHOS

Several Minutes Earlier

M y ethereal wings disappeared as I landed in the Morpheus Kingdom—specifically just outside the Strigoi Palace.

While I assumed Nos was waiting for me somewhere inside, I’d opted to take the longer route. It would give me a chance to gather my bearings, a pause I greatly needed.

Because I didn’t feel right.

Maybe it was the power burst Camillia had sent through Vita.

Or maybe it’s because I know what I’m about to face , I thought, aware that I’d been away from this kingdom for far too long. Specifically, the Strigoi side.

There’d been a lot of turmoil here.

Turmoil founded on the lack of available mates.

Strigoi needed Sigils to thrive. And my Source— my gates —had made that rather difficult since females weren’t typically granted entry into this realm.

Sighing, I took in the courtyard around me.

The disturbing scent of wilting flowers assaulted my senses. Roses dripping with blood, I noted, eyeing the towering fountain situated in the middle of the violent red scene. A blood-red moon hung behind it, framing the picture in a gruesome display suitable for a vampiric playground.

I frowned at it. The Strigoi were like vampires in that they fed on blood, but they weren’t normally so… dark .

The land around me felt melancholy.

Sickly.

My heart squeezed in my chest. Because this was only going to get worse once Nos died. He was the Strigoi King, one of my prized lieutenants.

Though, he hasn’t been all that reliable lately.

When was the last time he even attended one of my lieutenant calls? Toward the beginning of the trials, perhaps?

I wasn’t sure.

Which… which said a lot about how I’d performed as this kingdom’s Hell Fae King.

Another sigh escaped me as I followed the petal-laden path around the palace toward the front entrance. The flowers actually seemed to crunch beneath my shoes, a grinding that echoed eerily in my ears.

Since when do roses even make that sound? I wondered, glancing over my shoulder. A trail of bloody footprints littered the ground, causing my lips to curl downward.

Surely that’s a bad omen…

Fuck. This was going to be a long and exhausting visit.

“Your Majesty,” a Strigoi guard greeted when I reached the cathedral-like doors of the Strigoi Palace.

His dark eyes didn’t hold any of the characteristic red they should have had, suggesting he was hungry.

“King Nos has been asking for you. He’s in the throne room.

” The door creaked open without him having touched it. “If you’ll follow me.”

The throne room? I wondered. If he’s expected to pass today, then why isn’t he on a deathbed?

I pondered that as the guard took me through the uncharacteristically empty halls of the dark palace.

I remembered it being more… vibrant… the last time I was here.

“Where is everyone?” I asked the guard after he had taken me through a series of staircases. The throne room was near the top of the palace, if memory served.

The guard paused at an ornate door, his hand resting on the handle.

“The Strigoi have been dying, Your Majesty. The blood fields have been withering from Rot, so many of us are being forced to hunt in other realms. And, well, most Strigoi have not been successful in alternative methods of survival.” His fingers tightened on the handle, making his dull veins bulge.

“Now that you’re here, hopefully that will change. ”

My chest constricted at his words. Strigoi operated like a hive mind with their royal bloodline being their primary source of power. And the blood fields were what empowered that bloodline.

If they were rotting, like this guard claimed them to be, then all of Strigoi kind was at risk of death. Because if the royal bloodline perished, they would die, too.

Why hasn’t Nos reported any of this to me? I wondered.

I’d disciplined the Morpheus Kingdom and the Netherworld Kingdom after the whole Monsters Night incident by disqualifying them all from the Hell Fae Bride Trials. My thought had been that since they’d run off to another realm to find their own mates, they no longer needed what I had to offer.

Cruel, perhaps. But it’d been a logical punishment, too.

A few of my lieutenants had complained.

But not Nos .

In fact, I hadn’t heard from him at all.

Which was strange since apparently his son, Sabre, the heir to the Strigoi throne, had relocated to another dimension—a development I’d learned from Hades, not from Nos.

So why have you been so quiet about all of this? I wondered as the guard opened the ornate doors to reveal Nos sitting alone on his throne.

I blinked, taken aback by the scene while memories danced through the familiar space. It was a bizarre sensation. Like hundreds of souls frolicked throughout the room. Only, it was bare. And so very… dead.

The bloody rays of the Strigoi moon clashed against the dust in the air, as if this were the inside of a crypt. It was more reminiscent of a graveyard than a throne room.

Which it shouldn’t be. This wasn’t the Netherworld Kingdom; it was the land of dreams.

The Morpheus Kingdom could play tricks on the mind, but this wasn’t an illusion. The decrepit scene before me was the result of a neglectful Strigoi King.

It was his job as the head of the royal Strigoi bloodline to maintain the blood fields, to ensure their life and prosperity in exchange for an abundance of energy.

But he’d clearly failed in that task.

And many others, I thought as I stepped into the room.

The stench of wilted flowers wafted around me even though we were far away from the courtyard now.

I searched for evidence of any discarded bouquets but only found a massive dais at the end and silver vines threaded through bare marble.

Those vines gathered around a blood-red design that glowed on the ground just beneath Nos’s tattered boots.

The hairs along my arms stood on end, my nerves prickling with every step I took through the room.

Nothing had felt right since I’d arrived.

Hell, I was pretty sure this sensation had begun before I’d left. When Camillia altered Vita. It was like a jolt to my mind, the energy coming at me from the wrong direction and leaving me off-kilter.

I’d hoped the longer flight and walk here would have helped clear some of that fog from my mind, but it was only getting worse.

And the dropping temperature of this room was not helping.

My dress shoes clicked across the chamber floor as the icy bite of the air prickled across any exposed skin. The Morpheus Kingdom wasn’t usually warm , necessarily. But I was certain it’d never been this cold before.

Nos’s red eyes watched me as I approached. He definitely didn’t appear to be dying. Actually, he was almost glowing .

Because he’s drawn in all the power of his territory, choking off his own people to keep himself alive, I realized. It was the only conclusion that made sense.

And here he sat on the very throne I’d gifted the Strigoi. The one I’d crafted from magic to serve as a power source in the absence of a Sigil.

“Whoever sits upon the throne controls the Strigoi Royal Bloodline,” I’d announced long ago.

Then I’d left it up to the Strigoi to determine their fate.

Nos was the most recent victor, with many kings having sat on this throne before him.

Yet seeing the Strigoi King like this now, all gluttonous and unrepentant, had me regretting my choice not to monitor the situation more closely over the millennia.

I believed in free will. Allowing my Nightmare Fae to thrive. But this was not thriving. This was dying .

I’ve greatly neglected my role as guide and protector here.

I’ve been too busy. Too overloaded to notice the Strigoi slipping right out from underneath me.

And now what power remained in this territory glowed at Nos’s feet, seemingly the only sparkle of life in the otherwise suffering territory.

At least until he removed the mirage cloaking the room—a mirage I’d felt when sensing the lingering souls in the room.

They were real.

And very, very dead.

Dozens of bodies appeared as his veil continued to rise, all of them fallen Strigoi. With one lone woman , I noticed. Did she come from that infamous Monsters Night? I wondered.

“You finally grace me with your majestic presence,” Nos sneered in a tone that had me arching a brow.

He might not be truly on his deathbed, but I could change that in a blink.

Of course, I wasn’t sure there were any Strigoi left to take his place on that throne.

Which had me reining in my temper and narrowing my gaze instead. “What have you done, Nos? Why would you do this to your people?”

Because I was certain that he was responsible for the “rot” the guard had mentioned.

But I’m the one who was responsible for him, I thought, a pang touching my chest.

A pang that just continued to grow rather than abate. The same pang that had been with me since Camillia had blasted Vita.

Frowning, I stroked my Source but didn’t find anything unordinary.

Yet I felt… weakened.

Is it this room? This decaying territory?

“You have the audacity to ask why I’ve done this when you knew the Strigoi were starving?

” Nos bit out, recapturing my focus. “You did nothing to stem our hunger, my hunger. Nothing to cure our fields or tend to our weaknesses. Perhaps I took a page out of your book, hmm? Maybe I chose my needs over everyone else’s. ”

“I told Onyx to supply replacements for the damage any Corpse Fae might have caused to your fields,” I reminded him, recalling the conversation and solution clearly. “But I don’t think that’s the real problem here.”

Because something else was going on.

Something beyond Nos and his mishandling of his role as the Strigoi King.

Payan had said he was dying, I thought. Had made it sound like he had hours left.

Which had obviously been a lie.

But why?

Why coax me here? Because he knew this had gotten out of hand? Or had someone else put Payan up to this?

Regardless, this territory needed my help. Which was something I should have recognized well before it reached this point.

Fuck . Melek was right. I was stretching myself too thin, and my fae were suffering for it.

Nos steepled his fingers, causing his long fingernails to tap against one another. “Yes. That five-minute conversation with the Corpse Fae King was such a generous gift of your precious time.”

I narrowed my gaze again. “Are you trying to antagonize me, Nos?” I asked him. “Challenge me for some sort of power gain? Because I can assure you, that would be a very bad decision on your part.”

He smiled. “No, Your Majesty. I’m just doing my part and holding your attention.”

What? I glanced around as the hairs along the back of my neck stood on end.

Everything had felt wrong since the moment I’d arrived. Before that moment, actually.

And I’d thought… I’d thought it’d been related to Vita.

But that… that wasn’t the case at all.

It was related to whatever mirage Nos had developed here.

A mirage that was beginning to shift. “Who are you working with, Nos?” I asked warily.

However, I feared that I already knew.

A wounded king was just the sort of soul she would prey upon.

“With me,” a feminine voice murmured, one that reminded me of long nights twisted in the sheets.

A seductress.

A witch.

An evil fucking bitch.

And she now stood before me in the flesh.

Right behind Nos’s throne.

Oh, the Morpheus Kingdom was known for its dreams and its nightmares, but the devastating vision of Vivaxia herself was too real to be a dream, even for this place.

A curtain of dark hair framed her deceptively angelic face, one that hadn’t aged a day since the last time I’d seen her.

Broad wings spanned from her back, the golden-tipped feathers flickering between white and black.

One was real; one was a mirage. Her heart was as black as pitch, so I knew Vivaxia’s true colors, no matter how hard she tried to hide them.

What I didn’t know was how the fuck she’d managed to enter my realm.

“How the hell did you break through my gates?” I demanded as the stench of dead roses grew.

Vivaxia’s scent.

It was everywhere now, confirming this wasn’t her first visit.

No, she’d been here long before.

Playing her games. Twisting the minds of my fae. Manipulating my lieutenants.

“Oh, I didn’t need to break your gates, Typhos,” she purred as her gray eyes glittered with triumph. “I only needed a key .”