Page 71

Rhadamanthus

H er pain tasted bitter. I’d liked her pleasure so much more.

And my shadows, they did not like hearing her cry. They wanted to soothe her, to remove her from the world that brought her so much pain.

Instead, I willed them to follow her magic onto the next place.

The shifter had died so quickly, I never even noticed death inching towards him. I might not have been the king of death—that throne was for another, hidden in the fields I ruled over—but I knew it when I sensed it.

That bastard of a false king came in so quickly, I never registered his presence.

I kept an eye on the Luna Fae who now appeared to be marked by the possibility of a swift, painful death. If I could stop it, I would.

For her.

I did not want to feel her pain again. I did not want to hear her broken sobs, watch as she crumbled, as I could do nothing to help her.

It was a horrible feeling. And the loneliness only made it worse.

At least, that was what I wanted to blame it on.

And not the young female who made me feel again.

The shadows swept us into a new part of the world, taking us away from the rainy, hidden oasis and the body of the now-dead shifter. There was nothing left for us there. And despite seeing Asael again, nothing could have prepared any of us for his revelation.

It was a secret none had bothered to share with me. Skulls that held the power of the Gods.

I knew the mates of my wife were questioning whether I knew anything about it. But much to their dismay, I was just as much in the dark as they were.

If Asael were here, I would have liked to question him further about keeping such a large secret—a dangerous, world altering thing—from me.

But he was dead, and now, unreachable. Just like the Queen’s mates should be.

The shadows separated, receding as we appeared in a dense forest. The limbs and trunks of the trees were twisted and gnarled, roots rising from the earth like the hands of the dead.

The canopy of leaves was so thick, I couldn’t make out the placement of the stars to tell us which part of the Old World we’d landed in.

But there were small pockets of light throughout the forest, little bubbles of it that could have been witch light, but didn’t appear to reflect the light of the sun.

Were we in the witch lands, ripe with the old magic of the women who once protected the realm from all else?

Had we moved to a different part of the shifter lands, once ruled by the dragons?

Or were we back in the vampire lands, where the blood lords once reigned freely?

A chill ran down my spine. The small lights were blue, almost bioluminescent.They did not twinkle or disappear, steady in their glow.

“Am I the only one thinking this is weird?” the divination mage muttered. He had witch lights in his hands, though he didn’t activate them.

We formed a tighter circle around the shifter holding our Queen.

She was unconscious now, and it was likely for the best. Her panic had overtaken her, and although I would never be able to relate to what she was feeling, I still felt the remnants of her emotions.

They burrowed into my chest, into the cavity where my heart resided, coiling around the organ tightly.

I searched the canopy of leaves again, seeking at least a glimpse of the moon. We were still hours away from sunrise, if I had to guess, though with the way time seemed to slow in this world, I could not be sure.

“If I am right, then we are entirely alone out here,” the vampire said, her voice soft. “But I still feel as though we are being watched.”

I hadn’t noticed the feeling before, but the chill came again, and this time, I turned away from the group.

We were on a long stretch of road—or, it would have been, long ago.

There were cart tracks indented in the hardened earth beneath our feet.

We were surrounded by the gnarled, twisted trees on two sides, and either end of the road twisted out of sight, curving around the trees into absolute darkness.

It felt…familiar, though not in the sense that I had been here before. I knew I hadn’t; spending time in this world had been the last thing on my agenda, and my rule had to take place in the Underworld.

But something about this was…

“Is this what Ivy saw? In her dreams?” the half-demon male spoke up suddenly, his brows furrowed.

Ah, that was why I’d thought it familiar. She had described the road, but not the little lights.

“I’m not sure,” the charm mage murmured. He softly touched the top of her head, though she did not stir. “This is what she described, but…”

“But it is different,” I finished. The lights were odd. They cast no real light, more of a glow than anything else. It was only my enhanced eyesight that allowed me to see the rest of the forest for what it was.

And it was deep. Unending. Darker than I could put into words.

“We need to move,” the Fae male said. “We can’t just stand here and wait for him to find us.”

The male had a point, but which way to go? One could lead us to the cottage Ivy described from her dream. The other could take us out of the forest, but further away from our goal.

I scrubbed a hand over my face as I turned back to the group. “We’ve no direction.”

“I don’t want to wake her up,” the shifter growled. “We can figure it out on our own.”

Pressing my lips together, I glanced down at her now sleeping form. Her face scrunched like she was in the midst of a nightmare, lashes fluttering. A soft sound came from her lips, part whine, part gasp, and it had everyone tensing like they expected her to wake at any moment.

But she didn’t. The tension in her face softened, and when she buried her face in the shifter’s shoulder, everyone sighed.

“We might be able to figure something out,” the divination mage said, “but we could also be wrong.”

“My fear exactly.” I barely glanced at him.

Doing so dredged up memories of him with her .

I had not lied to my wife about not caring much about sex.

Whether it was performed around me, outside of my presence, or whatever.

I hadn’t cared when it was offered to me by the false bastard king, the company meaning nothing to me.

And yet, I could not understand the burning jealousy that had rushed through me when I’d glanced over my shoulder to find him fucking her against that rock. The way my heart had clenched seeing her kissing him, her body pressed against his. Hearing her moans when she came.

She was the deadliest creature in all the lands, stunning and soft despite that.

And for the first time in over three thousand years, I had wished it were me. Not him. Me .

I wanted to be the one basking in her attention, enjoying her touch, making her mine .

It was such a foreign feeling that I had to bury it. Lock it away and throw away the key. Do anything but address what it meant.

Because it could mean nothing. Not now, not ever.

And for the next five hundred years, after securing her rule and putting her back on the throne, I would have to see her only during our deal.

I would have to watch her have a family with these mates, and I would never be able to be a part of that.

And then I would have to watch her die, and never join her there, either .

I’d never had a fear of death before. I was king of the Elysian Fields, and yet, I feared her death most of all.

There was a quiet discussion happening around me, one I was not part of. My eyes were glued on the sleeping Queen, on each rise and fall of her chest as she was swept from nightmare to dream.

They chose a path, and I followed without protest.

There were no complaints that I could make that they would listen to, anyway.

I did, however, keep my eyes on the glowing lights in the forest. There was something about them that made my skin prickle. There was little that unsettled me about any of the worlds, and yet, I kept turning back to the lights.

What were they?

I didn’t ask that question aloud. No one else seemed to care much about them, using their soft glow to light our way out of the forest. We hadn’t found anything on the road to indicate that it had been used recently, or that it could possibly be leading us to danger.

The false bastard king could use whatever spells he wanted to hide his scent, and the scents of his army, but there was no true way to hide magical signatures. And there were no remnants here.

Silence was becoming a familiar presence within our group, especially when there was no Ivy to bring us together. As we walked, she slept, and no one was tempted to wake her.

Though I remained at the back of the group, her charm mage mate walked beside me.

His magic leaked from him dangerously, pouring from his well in waves.

I could tell why, though. Every so often, he reached for a pouch in his belt.

Within was a charm he was building, one that I could tell cost him a lot of power.

It was dangerous, pouring all of his magic into it. But I understood why.

The charm mage glanced up at me with tired, dull green eyes and sighed. “Something you want to say?”

It was interesting how none of them referred to me as anything other than the demon king. I doubted they knew I had picked up on it. Not even the name Rhadamanthus passed their lips. Only Ivy called me by the name Damon, and when she did, she did it so easily.

I wondered if she had ever noticed that, though I doubted she did.

A smile tugged at my lips as I looked away from the mage. “No,” I replied quietly, “though out of respect for her , I do worry about how much power you are expelling at this time.”

The mage released a breath. “That’s not something you need to worry about.”

“Correct.” My eyes strayed to the sleeping woman who consumed all of my thoughts. “But I cannot help but worry about her .”

I knew he tensed, that his thoughts strayed to my potential death for even thinking about his mate that way. I did not blame him.

“I cannot explain to you what I currently feel towards her. Admiration, protective. Those should mean something to you.” I glanced down at him, only to see his eyes had strayed to her sleeping form, too.

“And though I do not have a bond with her, I do have our deal markings. And I can tell she worries about you. But it is more than that. You are dangerously low with your magic. Whatever it is you are building, you need to slow down. ”

The charm mage shook his head. “We don’t have the time for me to slow down.”

“What are you creating, then?” I asked, raising a brow. “Surely, it is not so important that it puts all of us at risk.”

He winced, shoulders slumping. “I am trying to create a charm that mimics the runes he might use on her,” he murmured, motioning to Ivy. “A way to strip magic. Only, the one I create will be permanent.”

“You do know those are not created for a reason?” I could not fault him for wanting a permanent solution to stop his brother, though. “You could simply kill him and let his soul rot in the darkest parts of hell.”

The mage shook his head. “That wouldn’t be enough for what he’s done.

He murdered her mother. She had to lie there, in a coma, for days because a Fae poison was slowly killing her.

Ivy has three little sisters, and they had to watch that.

” His eyes strayed to mine, and my heart clenched at the revelation.

It was more than what she’d revealed to me during the fight, somehow more devastating.

“I want him alive. And I want him as powerless as a human for where he is going.”

“Ah.” A cruel smile twisted my lips. The Underworld was a grand place for many reasons, but one of the best things we kept secret was our prison. There were three primary facilities for holding criminals, as well as smaller hubs used by the Phoenix Compound around the mortal world.

The worst of the prisons was run by House Wrath, deep in the treacherous oceans in the Phantom Isle. Those who went in, never came out.

It was torture, and there were currently only one hundred souls residing within its fortified walls.

Most crimes never went beyond needing to be taken to the hidden prison in the Aither Court in Faery.

The sky prison, run by the winged Fae the half-demon preferred calling his home, was fair in their treatment of those in their captivity.

It was for those who committed terrible acts that could one day be reformed.

Then there was the reform academy, usually for younger creatures, and that was run by House Pride. Strict, direct, and usually for those who were hiding from something, or needing a helping hand the other academies couldn’t offer.

But just the mere thought of sending that arrogant male to the most despicable prison in my realm made my smile widen.

“I want him as human as possible when we send him there. I want him to feel everything . And I want there to be no chance of him ever getting his powers back.” The charm mage ran a hand through his mussed, blond hair with another sigh.

“I also want to do it for any of his primary supporters. The ones who have been at his side since the beginning.”

My gaze strayed to the Luna Fae male who walked ahead of everyone. The boy marked by death. His father had been working with the false bastard king this entire time.

How many other high-ranking officials had been? I hoped none of the Houses of Sin betrayed our Queen, otherwise, they would answer to me.

But I’d left only my most trusted in charge of ensuring none caused dissent. There were perks of having House Wrath as good friends.

“They will all pay,” I replied, the promise becoming a deal as one of my own tattoos slithered down my hand. The scorpion came to rest on the top of my hand before burning into place. “Either with their magic, or their lives.”