Page 46 of V for Vilified (Hunter V #4)

The Truth About Hera

I squeezed my eyes shut when we passed through what had once been a solid wall.

It was a natural reflex. I wasn’t used to walking into random walls that were apparently not walls.

Grams’s training never covered imaginary architecture.

When I glanced back, everything had returned to its solid appearance.

Lights came to life all around the room. The ceiling was impenetrable darkness and the floor glittered like diamonds had been imbedded into the marble-like stone. In the middle of the room was a similar magical map like Serine had when I was kidnapped.

I blinked and stared at it. “Is that a map or something? Serine had one, too.”

His lips thinned as he cut a sharp look at me. “Serine? That bloody death hag and you crossed paths?”

“Crossed is the wrong word. More like she hunted me down and kidnapped me. It’s how I met Big,” I explained. His rage invaded my head along with a twinge of respect for Big, so I quickly added, “Cash killed her after following me to this realm.”

Aram’s eyes flashed. “You were in our realm? When?”

I thought back on how long it’d been. “I guess it’s been a couple of months, but not sure how that translates to how time moves here. I didn’t really stay long enough to figure all that out.”

His surprise and contemplation fed my own. I barely caught the thought before he was speaking it, “That explains my sudden agitation. I’d been on edge for weeks and couldn’t explain the growing irritation. I must’ve sensed our bond.”

Smirking, I couldn’t help but say, “Like, you sensed me in the Force or something? Guess you’re as powerful as a Master Jedi.”

“Yoda has nothing on me, little mate. And before you try to compare me to Darth Vader, I’ll remind you that I’d never turn on the woman I love. Never. No vengeance will ever be worth it,” he went on to my shock and befuddlement.

“I have so many questions,” I mumbled, and failed not to smile when he chuckled and gestured to the table.

“But to answer your original question, it is something of a map. It locates those I’ve come in contact with and can now identify by magical signature, save that blasted Dark King of yours.

I’ve been attempting to use it to track Hera, but unsurprisingly, she eludes a powerful map like this.

Instead, I’ve been tracking the movements of anyone who I think might’ve come in contact with her, Lyra as you might’ve guessed. ”

That explained how they found Lyra.

“This map doesn’t span just our realm. It includes all seven of the ones I’ve traveled to,” he added.

“Wait, seven?!”

“Yes, there may be more, but they are unknown to me. I can only track the ones I’ve personally gained access to. But most have led me to your realm where Hera’s concerned,” he went on, the map moving and changing shape. Suddenly, it was inside a building that still frequented my nightmares.

“That’s the lab!” I shouted, getting closer despite seeing everything clearly with my vampiric sight. It’d been fixed since I’d buried it in fire and destruction, but it was almost definitely the one Lux kept me in.

My stomach twisted at the thought of Nigel and the betrayal that put me in that hellhole.

Grief had my stomach in knots. I’d been so wrapped up in everything here, I’d nearly forgotten that it wasn’t very long ago that I lost Nigel.

It was a reminder I could’ve done without. It still hurt to think about him.

“You know this place? This was her last known location in your realm before I was…occupied with other things,” Aram murmured, his giant body behind mine as I peered into the magic-made replica of where I’d been held hostage.

I swallowed my grief and nodded. “Yeah, it’s one of the labs run by the Organization. Didn’t think they’d rebuild instead of relocate, but maybe they assumed we’d think they’d do the latter and stuck with the former. So, Hera’s working with them?”

That’d explain a lot. We’d already determined it had to be someone powerful they’d been aligned with, and the portal the boys used apparently owned by the recently deceased bastard, Lux, bypassed Lyra’s block. It’d make the most sense it was Hera’s doing.

Aram scoffed, his hair tickling my shoulder as he bent forward, peering closer at the magical hologram of the lab.

“No, little mate. Hera created the Organization. She was the one who sent Lyra and her kind to the humans in that realm for experimentation. At least, that is what my findings suggest. She wanted to build a weapon to defeat me and my brothers because she wasn’t strong enough after what my mothers did to her. ”

What his mothers did to her? But after his explanation, everything clicked into place.

“A weapon…” I breathed. “She created me...”

He brushed the hair from my neck and pressed a kiss on my shoulder. Heat exploded on contact. My body already craved his despite our recent tumble in the sheets.

“Yes, V. Hera is the reason you exist. I doubt she used her own blood. It’s likely Lyra’s or another Chaos Fae.

She’d want you powerful, but not as powerful as her.

” I could hear the smile on his lips. “A tragic miscalculation on her part because you most certainly are. Your time ability is coveted, as I’m sure you know.

It can’t be predetermined. It’s purely happenstance.

Even Hera couldn’t have anticipated a hybrid with it.

It’s only ever been seen in Chaos Fae…and Nether Fae. ”

I jerked my head his direction. “Nether Fae? Your people?”

“Why do you think she was so determined to exterminate us, little mate? What is it the humans say. Ah, yes. We are cut from the same cloth.” His jaw ticked.

“Hera is mad with power. She’s willing to do anything to rule across the realms without contest, and I imagine you’re how she intends to do it. ”

Hera created me to be her weapon, not just against the Nether Royals but everyone else? Fuck. That meant that the one who made Jo lose her mate was not the Nether Royals but her own fucking mother.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

This was going to destroy her.

“You’re upset,” Aram said softly, his body heat radiating behind me. “I was under the impression that you were aware you’d been made to be a weapon. This shouldn’t come as news to you.”

I laughed without humor. “Oh, I’m well aware, big guy. No. It’s not that part that’s upsetting me. It’s just that…Jo lost her mate because of what they did to her, and to know it was her own mother behind everything...well, I’m not looking forward to telling her.”

“Ah, yes. The Daughter of Shadows,” he murmured. “Her mate?”

I pivoted. “She and her mate fled this realm for mine to avoid capture after…well, what she said you and your brothers did.”

“What we did?” he asked in confusion. He really had no idea what I meant.

“I had no business with the Daughter of Shadows, though I’ll admit I was tempted.

In the end, she wasn’t one of the Chaos Fae who helped them destroy my clan that day, and unless she made herself a nuisance, I never intended to do anything to her.

Hera loved no one but herself, not even her own blood.

Chaos is all-consuming and leaves nothing but destruction in its wake.

It devours its host. The Daughter of Shadows—”

“Jo,” I corrected.

He sighed and trailed his knuckles down my naked arm. “Jo,” he amended. “From what I knew, it hadn’t consumed her. Now that you mention it, I suppose she was one of the lucky ones. I specifically remember whispers about several of Hera’s children dying shortly after that day.”

Jo had siblings and they died? What the actual fuck. I would’ve been skeptical if I didn’t see into his head and confirm he’d never really drawn much from what happened to them outside of perhaps his power worked too well.

Several faces flashed inside my head, a few that bore a resemblance to Jo. One specifically that was nearly a carbon copy of her the way her mother was.

Jo had lost so much. It explained why she was so afraid of getting attached. Why she was so quick to be distant. The fact that she’d been through everything she had and still chose to get close to me the way she had spoke volumes.

“If it wasn’t you who killed all the Royal Sirens, then who did?”

His expression darkened. “I thought that was obvious, little mate. It’s always been Hera.”

I mean, I connected the dots, but I wanted to hear him say it. He couldn’t tell lies, and our connection confirmed he was convinced of it.

At first Aram thought it was because his power had been too effective and considered it the price she paid for all she’d done.

But later he realized she’d used it as an excuse because Hera never did what he instructed.

She didn’t kill herself to bring it full circle. It meant the coercion never took root.

Still, I pried, “Because you coerced her?”

“My coercion failed, but I think you know that. It was that Dark King of yours who made me realize it could,” Aram leered down at me, his stance slightly guarded.

Talking about Cash bothered him. More so, being accused of things he didn’t do bothered him, especially by someone like me. It was why I pressed. Every bit of information I could ascertain as truth would be what I used to convince my group he wasn’t our enemy.

“If it didn’t work, then why?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I suppose she saw the others as a threat to her reign. If they knew what she did that day, they might’ve turned on her. I can’t pretend to understand that mad Fae’s mind.”

He stood in front of me, leaning against the map and still obnoxiously tall.

We’d satisfied the Season’s urges, but still, I couldn’t help but find the giant Fae alluring with all the light beaming down on him at every angle, giving his hair an ethereal glow.

He peered around the room, his red eyes glinting like a pool of blood catching the sun’s rays before they settled on me again.

“Before the attack, Chaos and Nether stayed out of each other’s way.

It wasn’t as if we were enemies, not really.

We didn’t much care for them, and no doubt they felt the same, but that was the extent of it.

We were never at war. I’d even venture as far as to say that if they discovered Hera’s treachery, they would’ve offered her life in exchange for mercy.

It was never my intention to wipe them out.

It’s as you human’s like to say, ‘An eye for an eye.’ So, it wasn’t me or my brothers who sought out and killed their kind.

Unless they attacked us first, we kept our distance. ”

“Cash said you guys went after anyone who could pose a threat,” I argued, glaring up at him.

He didn’t speak at first, head tilting. “We did.”

“So—”

“Those remaining Chaos Fae were not a threat to me on the run,” he cut in. “I suppose I let the rumors of our ruthlessness linger so they never were.”

Go figure. Rumors did all the work for them.

I scowled at him and crossed my arms. “Oh? But others were?”

He mimicked my posture, crossing his arms, and his lips kicked up in challenge.

“Yes, because power has a way of corrupting the soul. I’m sure you, better than anyone, know how tempting it can be.

And believe it or not, I never wanted to see anyone else lose the ones they cared about over something as meaningless as a power grab.

My brothers and I had the means to make it so.

Unlike Hands of Death, Chaos Fae, et cetera, we have a strong invulnerability to power corruption.

The realm might’ve forgotten over the millennia, but our kind was always known to be protectors. ”

I would’ve argued, but I saw how much he believed in the things he said. Everything he did was to protect others from going through what they had.

As the Nether Royals, they had the power to keep others in their place, and they assumed that role in full after everything happened to their clan. I might not agree with some of their methods, but I couldn’t argue that his intentions didn’t come from a place of malice.

Some might argue that what I did was misguided, so I didn’t have much of a leg to stand on.

I’d done some pretty horrible things in the name of vengeance, and I’d aligned myself with people who’d done horrible things in their past. Who was I to judge?

I’d wanted to burn down the Organization after finding out they’d killed my parents and made me their monstrous weapon.

Still, Aram and his brothers enslaved humans.

They’d given an entire realm the impression they would kill whoever posed an issue.

They weren’t leading; they were dominating.

I couldn’t pretend to understand the complicated nature of leading an entire realm, but even I knew it wasn’t working.

No one person should ever have that much power.

“That’s no way to lead,” I heard myself say before I could think better of it.

But I was more surprised by his response.

“A few weeks ago, I would’ve argued with you.

But now I find myself wondering if I’d been arrogant to think that what we did was any better than what Hera and the Originals did if my own mate sees me as an enemy—if I must fear what those who wish to be rid of us might do to you. ”

The candid response silenced me for several seconds. We stared at each other in the quiet that dragged on like it’d never end.

So, I cleared my throat and broke eye contact. “Glad to hear it,” I said and internally berated myself.

His laughter echoed off the walls. “I quite like that shocked expression of yours. It’s impossibly adorable.”

“Ugh.” I covered my face in shame. I still hadn’t gotten a handle over my expressions. Some Hunter I’d turned out to be. “I was just expecting a fight. I’m not used to people agreeing with me.”

“Well, that’s a shame. I quite enjoy agreeing with you. It’s rather refreshing to be challenged in ways I can’t rebuke.” He pulled my hand from my face. “You blush so beautifully.”

Goddamn charmers everywhere I went!

“I did have a question.” His eyebrow rose, so I went on. “Why did you attack Cash that one time? Was he a threat because he was the Dark King?”

“Not the way you’re imagining,” Aram mused. “Not at first, anyway. And he wasn’t called the Dark King back then. He was only just getting his foothold in the realm. No doubt he failed to mention that at one time he was part of our court.”

Wait, what?! Cash had been in their court?