Page 31

“You have one mate not bonded to you, and another weak connection,” he said finally, the amusement completely slipping from his face.

My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach.

Before I could utter a response, his arm curled around my waist, the other under my ass, and he rose with me clutched to his chest.

“What are you?—”

“Close your eyes, my Queen. You won’t want to see this,” he growled.

For some reason, I obeyed, and my eyes closed as a weightlessness filled me. I sucked in a sharp breath and buried my face in Damon’s shoulder. The feeling disappeared just as fast as it came, and when the demon’s arms loosened around me, I lifted my face from his warm skin.

“Put me down.”

Damon smirked. “You can admit you enjoyed it. Even if only a little bit.” He winked, but he didn’t fight me as I shoved out of his arms. Obviously, I didn’t account for the fact that he was over seven feet tall, and the drop would have me falling on my ass if it weren’t for him.

I glared up into his red eyes, but the bastard only smiled. “You truly are an interesting one, aren’t you?”

My eyes narrowed as I pushed out of his grasp. He’d moved us with shadows, I assumed, because we were in an entirely different room now.

Everything was black stone, from the floor to the walls, to even the high ceiling.

A couple of chandeliers dangled above us, giving off a muted, yellow light.

The walls were rough, while the floor was smooth, so it looked like we were in a cave rather than a room.

Ahead of me, a giant opening that could have been a window, but really looked like the mouth of a cave.

My geographical skills were murky at best, and although I had spent more than enough time staring at the maps of the Underworld in my Communications Between Worlds class, I only had a vague idea of where Damon might have brought me.

My heart raced as I moved to the large, open window that overlooked the demon city below.

And the endless fields beyond.

I stopped, breath catching in my throat.

The demon city perched by the mountainous Elysian Palace looked like it had come straight out of an entirely different world.

It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

If I’d thought Avalon had an old-Europe feel to it, then the Elysian Palace was the total opposite.

The city spanned out in a circle around the mountain the palace sat within.

I’d seen a few images of the mountain in textbooks at the academy, but we’d only briefly touched on it during lessons regarding the demon realm.

And yet part of me—the part tied to my magic—recognised the place.

Recognised the landscape, knew how it had changed and what hadn’t.

My magic looked out over the fields of death and remembered what it was like to walk the edges centuries ago.

I pulled in a deep breath, releasing it slowly as I turned back to Damon. The male, in my move to look out the window, had changed.

Horns curled from his temples, cutting through his onyx hair.

They looked like a ram’s horns; unlike other demons, his ended in gold-tipped spikes atop his head, maybe seven inches high.

Sitting against his forehead was the teardrop of a diadem.

The metal was black, the crystal red, like the colour of his eyes.

He wore a shirt now, though instead of dressing like he’d come out of a fantasy movie, he wore a full suit—minus the jacket.

The white dress shirt had a black vest over the top and a red tie tucked into it.

He smirked, eyes on me, as he rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, revealing the swirling dark ink lining his forearms. The black slacks he’d worn earlier were still in place.

Something about the sight of him made my heart beat harder. Had my magic burning brighter in my veins.

“Who are you really?” I asked, hands forming fists at my side. “And why did you bring me here?”

The words of the mage came rushing back. Dante’s meeting with the Elysian King. The promise of something great if the mysterious king joined Dante’s side. Had I fallen right into another of Dante’s traps? Was this male here to hand me over, even though the mages had assumed Dante was gone?

Even as the thoughts and questions struck me, I couldn’t quite make myself believe them. Not with the heat in his red eyes. Not with the way he regarded me carefully. If he’d wanted to hand me over to Dante, then the traitorous prince would be here.

I stared at the crown—simple as it was—atop his head again. “Are you the Elysian King?” I whispered.

The male smiled—not smirked, but rather an actual, genuine smile. His arms dropped to his side. “And if I were?”

Hesitantly, I took a step back. “Why?” I asked. “Why lie? Why bother? Especially when I know you were supposed to be meeting with Dante about becoming his ally?”

Damon—no, Rhadamanthus , King of the Elysian Fields—sighed. “Because I wanted to know the truth.”

I frowned as he shoved his hands in his pockets, like we weren’t discussing his potential betrayal and siding with my enemy— Nyx’s enemy. Like this wasn’t a life-or-death situation , end of the world, everyone will die kind of thing .

My blood boiled at his arrogance. At the way he could stand there with ease. Like we weren’t in an all-out war.

I tried to push down the rising, angry magic that wanted to come out and play. Although it recognised the male across from us as a once loyal ally, not even Nyx’s power could tell if we needed to take him out or not. Because if we lost him, then we lost most of the demons to Dante.

“What truth did you want to know, Rhadamanthus?” I asked, lifting my chin.

My shoulders threatened to drop in defeat, but I wouldn’t buckle—not in front of him.

“ Did you want to know if I was as weak as Dante claimed? Well, here I am. I somehow let my mates get taken from me—again. I’ve also been kidnapped twice now? Yeah, I’m a real pillar of strength.”

The demon king shook his head, though he didn’t move from his position across the room. “I would not discount you yet, my Queen. You are stronger than he thinks.”

I raised a brow and snorted. “Sure. Is that why you’re meeting with him?”

“Oh, that …” Rhadamanthus stalked in my direction, his strides long and fast. It took him only a moment to reach me—I didn’t get a chance to move out of his way before he was basically on me.

One of his large hands landed on my waist, and the other went around the back of my neck.

I froze under the weight of his stare, of the heat his body emitted as he stood over me.

“I never intended on meeting with the pretender, my Queen.”

His face inched closer to mine. “Then what?—”

“I had planned on executing him myself,” he murmured. “But that bastard somehow found someone within my realm to corrupt and, as you already know, he learned of my plans before I could get my hands on him.”

I blinked rapidly and shoved out of his arms. “You what?”

The smirk returned as he shrugged. “My duty to the Queen of Nyx and the Goddess Herself is to uphold the balance of the worlds. That was the promise I made when I took the throne of Elysian.” Rhadamanthus looked away from me and towards the gaping opening to the cave-room we were in, but my heart raced.

“Dante, son of Sir Otto and the late Queen Greer, no longer holds those same values. He is an enemy. ”

“Then why not say anything at the club? Why go through all of that with the mages?” I growled. Frustration built within me, tightening my chest, burning its way up my throat as I scrubbed a hand over my face. “And where the hell are my mates?”