by Bella Klaus
Her lips tightened. “Kora.”
“No.” My voice lashed out like a whip. “There’s nothing more to discuss. Even if you dropped a few obscure hints and took me to that seer, you still knew Persephone was alive. If you’d told me that, I wouldn’t have developed feelings for Hades.”
Her brows drew together. “I didn’t realize…”
“Maybe you should have, because I hear on good authority that he deceives and seduces women all the time.”
A group of enforcers stepped through the crowd, their gazes fixing on me and looking as though they had orders for my capture. I surrounded my hands with angry sparks. Good luck trying, when I was so overloaded with power.
Captain Caria offered me her hand. “Come with me, and we can explain it all.”
“No.” I turned around, finding Pirithous standing a foot behind me with his hands behind his back.
My eyes narrowed. What was he planning now?
He raised a gloved hand to his mouth and cleared his throat. “There is one more thing, Miss Kora.”
I clenched my teeth. “What?”
“Immediately after the trial at the Supernatural Headquarters, Mistress Ceres apprehended the Hellcat who enabled your escape.”
All the anger drained out of me in an instant, leaving me reeling forward, my mouth falling open with shock. Images flashed through my mind of Mother threatening Hades with a dagger, Mother enchanting a tree to swallow an owl she once thought had been spying on her, Mother stabbing a man through the chest for touching our gate.
Pirithous stared down at me, his features unreadable, his eyes shining like polished jet.
“What did she do to Dami?” I whispered.
“Damisa the Hellcat is alive, but your mother thought it wise to detain her to guarantee you would return home of your own volition.”
“This is a trap,” I growled.
He inclined his head. “I can assure you that it is, but if you don’t return with me this instant, your cat will lose all her lives.”
My nostrils flared, and the pulse between my ears pounded loud enough to drown out Captain Caria’s offers to help. With a blast of lightning, I made everyone stand back. Everyone except Pirithous, who continued staring down at me with his brows raised in expectation.
Tears stung the backs of my eyes, and I swallowed back a bellyful of bitterness.
There was no point in having freedom if it was at the expense of my best friend.
“Take me to Dami,” I said. “And if you’ve so much as pulled a whisker, I will reduce you, Mother, and the coven to char.”
Chapter Two
Pirithous remained silent the entire journey through London, claiming that Mother would kill him if he revealed any of her secrets. I sat in the front seat of the Bentley, glowering at the side of his face.
His hair still hadn’t recovered from my earlier attack, and the contours of his cheekbones appeared sharper, his eye sockets deeper as though he hadn’t eaten or slept since I’d been taken. Why was he so loyal to Mother?
I clenched my teeth, giving him my fiercest glower. “If this is a trick, I’ll electrocute your body and turn your bones to chalk.”
“I can assure you, Miss Kora, that we are keeping the Hellcat in the mansion,” he replied in a calm voice, accustomed to receiving death threats.
“Why did you take her?”
He turned to meet my eyes with an expression more solemn than I’d ever seen him make. “Mistress Ceres considered Damisa Toyger a damaging influence.”
My throat thickened, and I turned my attention to my surroundings. The Bentley raced through the middle of a three-lane highway that bordered a large area of parkland. Trucks and cars passed us on both sides, with black taxis and red double-decker busses taking up a red stretch of tarmac on the far left.
“Why would you think Dami is bad?” My voice was bitter. “Because she helped me? Because she was the only person in my life who didn’t feed me a diet of poisonous lies?”
He sniffed. “Everyone in the household only wanted to keep you safe and out of the clutches of those who would exploit your innocence… Like the Demon King.”
I swallowed hard. “Why didn’t Mother tell me about Persephone?”
“I’m not at liberty to divulge that information,” he said.
“But you know.”
He inclined his head, and kept his gaze on the road. “Betraying your mother is not worth my life.”
We continued the rest of the journey in silence, until the Bentley drove through our compound’s wrought iron gates and down the driveway, toward the mansion. It was a two-story limestone building with a grand portico in the front. A quartet of pillars held up the triangular structure, which led down to a marble stairway.
After spending so much time in Hades’ palace in Hell, the place looked tiny, even though it had been my home for the last twenty years of my life. I pressed the heel of my hand into my aching breastbone, remembering my trip to the seer’s cottage in Hell. If Madame Lorraine was to be believed, I had existed for two hundred years.
Pirithous parked at the bottom of the steps, shut off the engine and stared up at the black double doors. The man bit down on his bottom lip the way he did when trying to calculate.
I clenched my teeth, my insides thrumming with suspicion. “Are there any traps waiting for me inside?”
He hesitated. “I’m afraid Mistress Ceres would kill—”
“Fine.” I flung the door open and walked up the entrance steps to the front door, which had been left unlocked.
The white marble hallway stretched out to the stairs, looking the same as usual and without a hint of malevolent magic. My lips formed a tight line. What would I know about sensing magical traps, if I’d spent an entire lifetime with my power sealed?
Locking eyes with Hades had been electrifying, as had the first time we’d had sex, and the time I forced his ring off my finger. Hell, lightning had flashed across my arm and lingered there for an alarming amount of time.
I had thought the ring had punished me for taking it off, but what if it had broken the seal on my lightning magic?
Pirithous appeared at my side. “Please step inside, Miss. You have nothing to fear.”
“You first.”
He inclined his head in a stiff nod. “As you wish.”
The butler strode through the hallway at his usual pace, pausing at the foot of the stairs to turn around and raise his brow. The subtle expression on his features seemed to imply that I was being overly paranoid.
A huff of annoyance escaped my nostrils. Mother and the coven had probably fixed the trap not to trigger on contact with anyone else but me.
“Why does she want to keep me in her prison?” I folded my arms across my chest.
He exhaled a long breath. “Mistress Ceres merely wishes to keep you safe. You are her only daughter—”
“What about Persephone?” I asked.
Pirithous’s shoulders sagged. “Miss Persephone is missing, presumed dead.”
“I bloody saw her earlier.”
He rushed toward me, his eyes wide, his mouth slack. “What did you say?”
I flinched. Part of me had believed everyone knew about Persephone except me. His reaction told me that Mother still believed Persephone had perished. Would they lose interest in me if they knew she was alive? I hoped so because it would mean a life of freedom. But could I condemn her by telling them she was safe?
“Miss Kora,” he said, his voice trembling. “If there’s a chance we can rescue Miss Persephone—”
“Where’s Damisa?” I said.
All this talk of rescuing Persephone made my head spin. Hades had kept her restrained—he had said she’d broken free from her shackles, or was it restraints? But why? Sure, she had a violent temper and used plants as weapons, but any married woman would react the same way to discovering her husband had tried to replace her with a much younger woman.
His brow furrowed, and he held out a gloved hand. “Mis
s Kora?”
The entrance hallway was definitely booby-trapped, and set to hold me in place for Mother. I stepped back from the door, hurried down the stairs, and jogged around the perimeter of the house.
Only the dimmest of lights illuminated my way, and the greenhouse on the mansion’s left was dark. I glanced into its glass walls, wondering if any of the plants had noticed I was gone. At the back of the house was another set of stone steps that opened up into a patio area. I ran around them and to the door that led to the kitchen.
Unlike the rest of the house, which consisted of pale marble, the kitchen was a darker space made up of oak cabinets, black-marble worktops, and slate floors. Soft lights glowed beneath the cupboards, providing a cozy atmosphere.
I stepped inside, missing the usual scents of brewed coffee or freshly baked bread. There probably wasn’t much need for cooking with Mother scheming to join forces with Samael.
As I passed the stove, a glowing pentacle appeared beneath my feet, locking me into place.
“Shit,” I hissed.
The butler’s footsteps echoed toward me from the hallway. He poked his head through the kitchen door, his gaze dropping to the floor. A pair of concentric circles now surrounded the pentacle, with tiny sigils forming their edges.
“What the hell is this?” I glared into Pirithous’s smirking face.
He slunk inside, looking infinitely more relaxed than he had appeared on the car journey. “Mistress Ceres thought you would select an alternative method of entry, so she enchanted containment traps across the mansion. Now you will remain in the mansion until she returns.”
“Really?” I said through clenched teeth. “And what did she order you to do next?”
He reached into his pocket and extracted a glowing rope. “This leash will tether your magic to me, and I will take you to your room without the fear of magical attacks.”
My gaze darted around the room, looking for signs of the coven, but we were alone. Either Mother had brainwashed Pirithous, or she had employed a butler who didn’t give a damn about restraining people against their will.
It was time to change tactics. Pirithous had always been nicest when I was sad. If I was going to free Dami, it was going to be through cunning and not brute strength.
“Why don’t you take me to my friend?” I said, making myself sound whiny. “That way, when Mother returns from Hell, or wherever she’s gone, she can punish us both together.”
He paused, staring down at me for several heartbeats.
I held my breath, waiting for him to reply. Breaking out of this enchantment wouldn’t be difficult, considering I had twenty-one centuries’ worth of Persephone’s power, but I didn’t want to reduce the mansion to rubble if Dami was here as Mother’s prisoner.
Also, I had no idea where in the three stories they were keeping her.
Blinking slowly, I gave him my sad puppy eyes, the same pleading expression I used whenever Mother sent me upstairs without supper or banned me from Netflix.
The butler inclined his head. “Very well, but there will be no colluding.”
“I just want to make sure she’s alive,” I murmured.
Pirithous wrapped the rope around my wrist. It sprang to life and slithered around my arm like a snake and looped itself around my neck. I clenched my teeth, enduring the bondage. As soon as I found my best friend, it would be him writhing beneath this rope.
“Alright?” I said with a forced smile.
“Very good, Miss. I will take you to the Hellcat.” He held on to the end of the rope and pulled, breaking me from the confines of the pentagram.
I pulled back my shoulders, readying myself for the upcoming rescue. Instead of leading me through the door and out toward the stairs, he took me across the kitchen, to the pantry where we kept preserves.
It was as large as the kitchen, with floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves covering the walls and a huge table in the middle. Each shelf was crammed with food from the greenhouse we had canned or dried or preserved over the years. My gaze wandered to the lower cabinets, wondering where on earth they would have put a cat.
My steps faltered. “Is Dami still alive?”
“Of course,” he replied. “We still haven’t completed our interrogation.”
I gulped. “What did you do to her?”
“Nothing untoward,” he said.
“That isn’t remotely reassuring,” I muttered.
Pirithous stopped at the end of the shelves, removed a small sack of acorn floor to reveal a brass handle.
I placed a hand over my mouth. “Has that always been there?”
“It’s enchanted to be invisible unless your mother or I activate it.”
“What other secret doors are there in the house?” I asked.
“Apparently, there’s one in the fig tree,” he said, his voice heavy with disapproval. “We understand that was how you enabled your escape.”
“You tortured Dami for information,” I said through clenched teeth.
“No more than was necessary.” Pirithous pulled down on the handle, which turned the shelf into a door that swung into a dark space that smelled of stagnant air.
I followed after him, the electricity on my skin jumping, crackling, sparking for vengeance. How dare these people detain and torture an innocent cat for trying to be my friend?
My blood heated. My breath came in rapid pants. When I broke Dami free, I would make sure Mother and Pirithous and the rest of her lying coven paid for their crimes. For now, I clamped my lips together and forced a sense of self-control.
A door stood at the bottom of the stairs. Pirithous opened it and stepped into a humid room lined with foil insulation that housed tables of plant trays filled with soil. Two-leafed shoots had already sprouted, growing toward low-hanging lights.
I inhaled the mingled scents of vegetation and damp earth. “What is this?”
“The room in which the mistress performs her botanical experiments,” Pirithous replied.
“Why doesn’t she just use the greenhouse?” I followed the butler through the small space, my nerve endings twitching.
“She believes that to be your domain.”
Goosebumps tightened across my skin, and my throat dried. If this was a trick—
I shook off that thought. I was the Queen of the Fifth Faction of Hell. If this was a trap, I could blast a hole through it, level the house, teleport into the garden. There was no need for trepidation.
My heart sank. I wasn’t any queen. If there was any justice in the world, the real queen would be kicking her bigamist husband’s ass. I only had her power.
Lights flared across the ceiling, illuminating a space half the size of the kitchen with walls that appeared to be made of leather. BDSM devices hung every few feet, including whips and floggers and paddles and canes.
My mouth dropped open. “Why does Mother have a basement dungeon?”
Bristling, he pursed his lips. “This is a ritual room.”
“Excuse me for not knowing the difference,” I said. “Is Dami really here, or is this another trap?”
“Wait here, Miss.” He stopped by a six-and-a-half-foot-tall statue of a man with an erection the size of my forearm.
Everything about it was lifelike, from the thick veins roping around his shaft to the bead of stony precum balancing his slit. I snatched my gaze away from the penis, and locked gazes with a face forever frozen with anguish.
My heart sank. It reminded me of Hades’ palace in Hell. I ran a hand through my hair, exhaled a long breath, and looked for signs of Dami.
The equipment in the dungeon was like nothing I had seen on my saucy TV shows. A giant circle took up half the wall, with straps embedded on it to secure the arms and legs and neck of a large person.
Anger flushed through my veins. “Did you use any of this on Dami?”
Shaking his head, Pirithous walked to the corner of the room. “Your friend was very adept at shifting body parts.”
“But you tried,” I sa
id from between clenched teeth.
He gestured at a high wooden bench with a red leather cushion that looked like it was where the victim rested their torso while getting a spanking. “Please, take a seat. You and your friend may wait here in silence until the Mistress’s return.”
“I’ll stand, thanks,” I muttered. “What have you done with her?”
Pirithous tilted his head up and reached up, where a rope hung from the ceiling, attached to a set of pulleys that lowered a leather case the size and shape of a birdcage.
A sob caught in my throat. “You put her in that thing?”
“To encourage her to shift back and answer questions,” he said. “She became uncooperative after the first day.”
“Probably because you tortured her,” I snapped. “Let me see my friend.”
Pirithous unclipped the leather enclosure from the metal ring at the bottom of the rope, and carried the case to a Y-shaped massage table with shackles to hold down a person’s ankles.
I grimaced. “This is where Mother tortures people.”
“Tortures men, Miss,” he replied in a gentle voice. “The coven has the utmost respect for women.”
“Yet they put Dami in a box.”
Ignoring me, he unzipped the leather case, letting its sections fall open like the petals of a lotus flower. Inside, curled into a tight ball, was Dami. She had tucked her head beneath her front arm, hiding most of her face. If it wasn’t for her unique pattern of tiger-skin fur, I would have thought she was another cat.
Her furry little chest rose and fell with even breaths, looking like she was fast asleep.
“Can I hold her?” I rasped.
“Of course.” He slid his hands beneath Dami and cradled her to his chest.
As he strode across the dungeon toward me, I flared out my power, turning the rope around my neck and arms to ash.
Pirithous’s steps faltered. “Miss Kora, how did you break free?”
“I could get out of those restraints at any time, but I needed you to give me back my friend.” I stretched out my arms. “Hand her over.”
The butler’s gaze darted to the side, and he licked his lips, looking like he was activating some kind of plan B.
