Page 6 of Queen of the Wicked (Afterlife #1)

Alessia

A lessia didn’t have time to wash the blood off her.

Not when her mom, a seraph’s body, lay dead downstairs.

She returned to Erebos in jeans, a sweater, and a worn-down pair of boots.

He impatiently leaned against the frame of the doorway, tapping his boot aggressively against the beaten hardwood floors.

She didn’t think he was the kind of guy who waited around for others if he was truly the Lord of Hell, but he was powerless now, so she wasn’t concerned about making him wait.

“We have to bury her,” she whispered on a shaky exhale. “I can’t just leave her here.”

“You think we have time for that?” He arched a thick brow in her direction. “Bastian could send his forces here at any second, and we’ll be sitting ducks. Time isn’t something we can afford right now.”

Alessia stepped closer to him, holding her ground. “This is my mom, Erebos. We need to bury her. I refuse to leave without giving her a proper resting place. ”

His onyx eyes seemed puzzled as he scanned her face, searching for something she wasn’t certain of. Eventually, he dipped his chin, surprisingly quick to agree to her extension of time. “Fine. Where would you like to bury her?”

She answered without hesitation. “Out by the willow tree.”

After an hour of digging with shovels from the shed, they finally laid Alessia’s mom to rest.

Her heart was torn knowing she couldn’t stay for a proper goodbye. She couldn’t even grieve correctly with the Lord of Hell watching her every move. He stared at her like a foreign specimen, and in a way, she was.

But she was thankful the insufferable man withheld any of his clever retorts while they dug and flung dirt over their shoulders. Perhaps he understood what it was like to grieve someone close. It was the only explanation she could provide for why he remained so silent during the burial.

There was no casket, no flowers, no speeches. Everything her mom was—her kindness that exuded from every inch of her being—was just…gone. Instantly. Alessia didn’t have time to reflect on her death when the promise of more was sure to arrive soon.

Keep moving forward, no matter the sacrifice.

Don’t look back.

Her parents' advice played on a loop with every step she took away from the gravesite, avoiding thinking of her mom entirely if only to make it through the next few hours.

Once they stopped for the night, she could cry and let it all out.

Until then, she had to do whatever was possible to send Erebos on his way.

There was part of her that felt completely idiotic for suggesting the blood pact in the first place as they headed through the meadow. She didn’t know why she said it. It was a spur-of-the-moment thought, like forgetting an essential fact to a story, only to have it come to you again days later.

She’d never participated in a blood pact before, but despite bulldozing into foreign territory, she couldn’t find it within herself to regret her decision.

Alessia’s mom was murdered, and her mother was nowhere to be found.

If Erebos had any insight and could teach her how to wield her powers correctly, she would risk putting herself in danger.

She still wasn’t scared of him, no matter how much he warned her she should be.

“Why are we heading towards the woods?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at the road.

Her family lived in the middle of the country, surrounded by fields of corn, but a town was just a couple of miles away.

While there certainly weren’t any taxis in the tiny village of Brunwick, they could probably hitchhike and get away a lot faster.

His jaw ticked, clearly reluctant to speak to her.

“Whoever raised you and taught you the history of magic didn’t do it well.

We can’t risk being seen by humans while you’re in this…

state. If anyone discovered you had po wers, it would be the falling of both realms. Especially if you currently possess mine. ”

Guess the nice guy who allowed her to grieve in silence was long gone.

Alessia gripped the backpack straps on her shoulders and crunched her boots loudly on top of the leaves, making Erebos more upset. Good. She'd annoy him with more questions if he wanted to throw a pity party for himself.

“So, Hell is a place? Like, with fire and everything?”

He huffed. “I’m going to continue calling you Little Mortal because you act like one. Yes , Hell is indeed real.”

“So, that makes you a sadist? You enjoy torturing people?”

He looked over his shoulder and narrowed his eyes, his words cutting her like a knife.

“The people who arrive in Hell are far from innocent, but if torturing them makes me a sadist in your eyes, then sure. I’m a sadist. They deserve every ounce of pain inflicted upon them, and I enjoy every second of it. ”

She gulped.

Loudly.

Maybe the Lord of Hell was more intimidating than she thought.

Erebos, where are you?

Alessia’s body stilled in the middle of the field, earning an irritated groan from Erebos as he turned to face her with nothing but impatience on his face. “ What?”

She shook her head to try to clear the deep voice that entered, but it happened again. It’s Eryx. Please respond before we send a search party to you, as per your request, if a situation like this were to occur.

What the hell? She was communicating with someone in her head , a man who worked for Erebos. She tried not to let it show on her face that someone was currently speaking to him telepathically through her, but Erebos wasn’t an idiot. He seemed to sense her uneasiness immediately.

“What’s happened?” he asked firmly. “Tell me.”

She was hesitant to tell him anything. Although they made the blood pact and he couldn’t torture her, she didn’t want to go anywhere near the pits of Hell.

There was a reason she didn’t learn the history of it, and adding his staff to this seemed like a terrible idea.

This confirmed that she’d taken Erebos’s powers, which terrified her more than she wanted to admit.

They could send out a search party if they must, but she wasn’t responding to whoever Eryx was. She couldn’t even if she wanted to, anyway. She didn’t know how.

“I’m not going to ask again.” Erebos crossed his arms over his broad chest to make himself taller, but she didn’t shy away from him.

“Or you’ll what, torture me? Because, per the blood pact, you can’t. Nothing has happened. This backpack is heavy, and it’s hurting my back. That’s all. Now, can we go?”

If she hadn’t been so emotionally drained and broken from today's events, she might have laughed at Erebos stalking away from her. The Lord of Hell wasn’t used to not having powers, and his little temper tantrum was ridiculous when he didn't get his way.

After jogging for a few seconds, she caught up to him, already out of breath from the stupid backpack.

“If only I had my powers to let me know if you’re lying or not,” he said with a shake of his head. “So unbelievably frustrating.”

“Why? Because your ego is taking a hit for once?”

“ No,” he snapped. “Because if I don’t have my powers, we are defenseless in the middle of the woods. You have no clue what to do with all of my power inside of you. We have no food, no place to sleep, and if the king sends more seraphims to find us, we’re dead .”

Well, when he put it that way…

“I have a tent attached to my backpack, and there’s enough food to last us a few days. It’s not much, but it’s something.”

“And if you didn’t kill the seraph, why did you have an escape bag packed in the first place, Little Mortal?” When she didn't reply right away, he arched a brow. “What? You’re allowed to annoy me with questions, but I can’t ask you any? That seems unfair.”

“I explained it to you already. My parents told me that my powers would come to fruition on my twenty-sixth birthday, but I was also informed that I would be valuable when they did. Because of that, people might attempt to use me. It happened sooner than we thought, but we had a plan long before tonight. I already knew where to run.”

An expression of confusion passed over him. “They told you to run to the clearing in the forest? ”

She nodded.

“Interesting,” he murmured. “So very interesting. What were your parents’ names?”

“I’m not telling you that.” He had no right to ask about them. She still didn’t know if he was a threat, and until she knew for certain, their names would be sacred to her. Only when he proved he could be trusted to uphold his end of the blood pact would she divulge pertinent information.

He stormed ahead of her in another tantrum, but this time, she let him.

He walked at a measurable distance for the next hour or two, leading her blindly through the woods.

She had no idea how he knew where he was going, but she didn’t bother to ask.

Her limbs were shaking and wobbly from the backpack she carried, but, of course, Erebos didn't offer to help.

She assumed he had never lifted a finger a day in his life.

An hour later, when they reached another clearing, she was forced to set up the tent because Erebos didn't know how to do it. He made that clear when she started to unravel the pack, and he tried to analyze it like a bomb about to explode.

He ate a granola bar while she did all the work, utterly exhausted once she was finished. She was so exhausted that she no longer felt like eating.

The sun hadn’t risen yet, but she needed sleep, and so did he. Well, did he? Did demons sleep? Is that what he was? A demon?

He shoved a granola bar in her face. “Eat,” he instructed. “You’re hungry, and I can’t risk you dying before I have my answers figured out.”

Her hand clamped over her stomach in embarrassment. She didn’t think it was rumbling that loud as she pitched the tent.

Rather than pick a fight as usual, she didn’t have the energy, so she ate the bar in silence and took a swig of water from her canteen. “Here.” She extended the water to him.

Alessia didn’t want to offer him anything, but she couldn’t let him go without water for the same reason. He couldn’t die without her figuring out how to get his damn powers out of her body.

His lip curled up in disgust. “How do I know you haven’t poisoned it?”

“Seriously? For being a lord, you’re not that bright.

I just drank out of it. You saw me. Now here.

” She shoved it into his hands without waiting for an answer and crawled into the tent without another word.

It was a tiny enclosed space with little room, so she squeezed as close to the tent wall as possible.

She was pleased to hear the canteen open once more, and after it closed again, he strode over to zip up the tent, leaving her alone inside.

The way he moved was so graceful—like he’d been practicing it for years—and it wasn’t until then she realized she didn’t even know how old he was. She assumed aging was similar to Heaven. Archangels, kings, lords, and seraphims could live for centuries. They were immortal unless killed.

“I’m going to keep watch,” he said, pulling her from her thoughts. “We’ll switch in two hours.”