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“I don’t. I’m guessing.” She started to leave but turned back to me, as if unsure about something.

“What if you are wrong?” I asked.

She took a deep breath before smiling at me in a way that shot warmth straight through my cold heart.

My gaze stayed on her face, and all I could think was that I did not want another man to get this smile from her.

This was all for me. I wanted to see this smile every day for the rest of my life.

This had to be destiny because I wanted to haul her over my shoulder and drag her to Hell with me, so I never had to say goodbye.

“I’m hoping I am.”

My chest squeezed at her confidence. Fuck, she was perfect. Gods, this day had quickly become the best in my existence. I stepped forward without thinking. I wanted—no, I needed to be closer to her.

“I’m hoping you are too. How will we know?”

“Fate will tell us.”

I glanced around and realized I was running out of time. I really should go talk to Avesh. My hands ran down my face as I stepped toward her again. I did not want to leave her.

“Give me your name.”

I lifted my hand, desperate to feel her smooth skin under my fingertips at least once. She didn’t move from me. But she hesitated before she spoke, like she might keep it from me.

“I will beg for it if I must,” I whispered.

“You would fall to your knees for me and beg for something as simple as my name? Why?”

“So that when I start praying to the stars and heavens, they will know which goddess I am begging for.”

I had never prayed a day in my life, and if you would have asked me about it twenty minutes ago, I would have laughed in your face.

But then again, perhaps I had never found anything I thought was worthy of a prayer.

If praying would help to make her mine, then I would pester the stars all day for her.

I would annoy them so much that they had no choice but to either let me keep her or hear me for the rest of their lives.

She raised an eyebrow at my comment and smiled again. “I am Ardella.”

The name alone sent a jolt of life coursing through me. My heart and soul buzzed like it had waited our entire existence to hear it. It rose to the surface, like something that had been buried deep within.

“Well, Ardella, maybe the fates will decide that we are supposed to be together.” But even as I said it, I knew the stars would never let me have her.

She was a heavenly god, and I was a God of Hell.

Her eyes stared at me, as if trying to read my thoughts.

I knew I couldn’t let her remember this day with me though.

At some point in the near future, I would be walking this realm with ill intent, scheming up a plan to break the stars and old gods, and I did not need her recognizing me.

But I hesitated because this meeting had been…

perfect. I didn’t want to become a nobody to her again.

Somehow that just seemed wrong. Ardella gave me a bright smile before she slowly reached out and pushed my hair from my forehead.

I inhaled sharply at the action, her touch sending a spark of electricity through me.

She acted as if this were a normal occurrence between us.

“You look like you’re about to bolt,” she said coyly.

“I am supposed to be somewhere, and I am very late.” I didn’t want to leave. She gave me a look like she knew what I was thinking.

“I’m confident that our paths will cross again, Haden, so don’t look so disappointed.”

“I look forward to it. Maybe by then, fate will catch up to us.”

“Let us pray to the heavens above and the hells below that we meet again,” she said, but something about the statement made me pause. She knew there were gods of Hell, and she was willing to pray to them for me. Didn’t that go against the stars?

“Until the next time, Ardella,” I whispered before frowning slightly as I jumped into her mind.

I closed my eyes and started scrubbing away our meeting. But at the last moment, I stopped and opened my eyes. Could I change fate so that she would be mine? The stars could not keep me from her if we were mates. They would have to let me out of Hell for more than a few hours.

Fuck.

I didn’t care if they only let me out for five minutes a day to be with her; I would take any scrap they sent my way when it came to her.

Without giving it much more thought, I scrubbed our conversation, but I left bits and pieces so that she would feel drawn to me if she saw me again. I leaned down and stared into her vacant eyes. Her mind was shut down because I was in it, manipulating her.

I closed my eyes and started thinking of us, projecting images of a fabricated future together.

Then I put them deep in her mind, hoping that if we ever crossed paths again, she would see these fake thoughts and feel like we were supposed to be together.

I opened my eyes and leaned forward, planting a kiss on her forehead.

“I do not care if fate says you belong to another; they are wrong. You belong to me, Della, and you’ll remember that when you see me again. No matter what, I will be who you choose.” I gave her a small memory of my face, burying it deeply in her mind.

Even if I must break the threads of fate, I would do it.

She was not going to belong to anyone but me.

Maybe this was why I belonged in Hell, because I was a selfish man.

But the stars should have never let her cross paths with me.

I always get what I want, and the only thing I wanted was this flirty goddess in front of me. I hesitated before leaving.

She wouldn’t remember me until we saw one another again, but I wondered how long that would be. Hopefully not too long. I traced over her face with my gaze, memorizing it in my mind. Then I pulled my magic from her mind and disappeared.

?★★★?★★★?

When I left Ardella, I immediately went to the home of Avesh, the God of Knowledge.

The building was too white for my liking, blending in with the cloud that it sat on hovering over Elloryon.

I needed to hide that I was a God of Hell, so I glamoured my face to look more like a regular fae.

If anyone had answers about getting my siblings and I out of Hell, it was him.

He was surprised to see me when he opened the door. Avesh was shorter than me by a least a foot.

“Can I help you?” His voice was timid.

“I was sent here to look into curses for a king and wondered if you had time to help me?”

His dark eyes traced over me, slowly, and I worried that he could see through my glamour. To him, I should appear as a servant with poor clothing and long hair.

“I will never turn down someone wanting to learn.” He opened his door, and I walked in. The space was vast, but Avesh quickly walked past me, and I hurried to catch up. We walked up the left side of a split staircase. My gaze swept across the ungodly amount of space in the foyer.

Avesh led me down a hallway that seemed to go on forever. My fucking gods, how long would we be walking for?

“It’s quite the work out.” Avesh looked at me over his shoulder and smiled.

After a few more minutes we came into a vast room that must have had a million books in it. Books flew past our heads, maps floated around the space, and globes spun around.

“Damn.” I sighed as I took in the overwhelming space filled with mahogany shelving and ladders.

“It is incredible,” Avesh said, like this was his first time seeing it too. “What kinds of curses did your king wish to learn about?”

I hesitated for a moment unsure of how to get him to bring up my parents' curse.

“He said he wanted to learn about the oldest curses to exist.” I shrugged.

Avesh nodded. “Then we should discuss Malamay and Diath.”

Thank fucking gods, that was simpler than I thought. I nodded, nonchalantly, like I wasn’t dying of excitement inside.

Avesh held his hand out and muttered something I could not hear before a loud whooshing noise started in one of the lower levels of the library. It only took a few moments before the book landed in his hand. He led me to a cozy sitting area, and I took the chair opposite of him.

He flipped open the book and I stared at the picture of my parents. Disgust filled me about what the heavens and their gods made my father do.

“This curse is the longest-lasting curse in history,” he stated.

I sat forward. It was about damn time. I wanted to ask him where he got this book, but I couldn’t ask too many questions without being suspicious.

“I heard about this, but I thought it was a rumor,” I lied. “Didn’t they have a bunch of children that were sent to Hell?”

Avesh smiled like he did every time I asked a question.

He was too fucking eager to talk about this, so I knew he would spill something about the curse with hardly any input from me.

I wasn’t sure how much he was allowed to share about it, but if he knew the answer for how it could be broken, then I would get it.

He had to know something, otherwise I was fucked.

“Seven. The seven cardinal sins, which are now the Gods of Hell.”

“So, they are real.”

“Of course.” He nodded as he looked at the picture of my parents. “Most stories are rooted in truth.”

“Why don’t they just leave Hell?” Playing dumb was the best way to get him to overshare.

“They can’t,” he sighed. “When the old gods sent them there, they made sure their souls were tied to it, so they cannot leave for long periods of time or sometimes at all. The old gods worried that they would cause havoc after what their mother did—they felt that they couldn’t be trusted.

But sometimes, I wonder why they are not trying to break their curse. ”

Praise this little naive heavenly god in front of me.

“Break the curse?” I watched Avesh closely as I asked him about it.

He nodded with a dramatic sigh. “Every curse has a key—a way to break it. Curses are not permanent, and there must always be a solution to end them. Even if the stars, heavens, or gods are the ones to cast it.”