by J. L. Weil
And I loved my brother. I wanted him to be happy, and his demon-hunting girlfriend did just that.
“I’ll talk to him,” I announced, grabbing an eggroll and a packet of sweet and sour sauce.
Dad glanced at me and blinked, an expression of surprise on his features. “I think that would be good.”
A pang hit me in the chest; remorse, regret, take your pick. My emotions were a revolving door, but I saw the hope in his eyes. He wanted his daughter back, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him she was gone. I tore open the package of sauce, averting my eyes to my plate. There was only a small portion of food on it, just enough to make it look like I was eating.
“How about you? Are you ready to get back to school?” Chloe asked, spinning a bundle of lo mein noodles around her fork.
It was reasonable for them to expect I’d pick my life back up where I had left it before being abducted by the Wild Hunt. That I would go back to college, get my degree, get a job—all those human responsibilities. That was the normal avenue into adulthood, but nothing about me was normal. And I was coming to realize that I didn’t want to live a normal life. I’d never really had one, so why start?
I shoved a small pile of rice around on my plate, trying to figure out how to tell them what was on my mind. “I’m not going back to school,” I announced. Winter break was almost over, and everyone assumed I’d be returning to college.
Nope.
Chloe’s mouth dropped open.
And Dad frowned, staring at me like he was trying to figure out if he’d heard me right. “You only have one year left.”
Due to my absence in the middle of a semester, I had to repeat those classes, but after my stint in the Court of Darkness, I had no desire to return to school. Like, ever. I had more important things on my agenda, which were best kept to myself… for now. The last thing I wanted was to give my dad more gray hair. The man looked as if he’d aged ten years, but who could blame him. He had lost his only daughter for months.
“I know. I’m just not ready to go back,” I admitted, my shoulders slumping.
“Maybe it's best she takes the year off, Devin.” Chloe stepped in, being the supporting stepmom she always was. She patted Dad’s hand, offering him an encouraging smile. “She’s been through a traumatic ordeal. A few more months at home would do her good. Do us all good.” She turned that smile on me. “We love having you at home.”
“You are always welcome here, Lexi, but it might be healthy to get back into a routine.” Dad voiced his thoughts. “However, if you think you need more time, I support your decision.”
“Thanks, Dad.” I let them both think that there was hope I’d eventually go back. There wasn’t. I had no intention of ever returning to college. I’d make it up to him somehow.
That was the end of the discussion about school, and the conversation moved to lighter topics, like work, the impending snowy weather, and what was on TV. I did my best to listen and nod when appropriate, but it was too easy for my mind to wander. My eyes shifted to my glass of water. The clear liquid inside rippled like someone had bumped the table. I stared at the ripples, watching them settle, but within the water, I saw a sparkle, a single star twinkling. That silver light brightened, and behind the glowing star was a face.
My breath caught.
I’d recognize those features anywhere, even distorted by water. Ashor, my heart sobbed. His violet eyes pierced into my soul, and my fork slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the table.
I jolted at the sound and blinked.
That was all it took; one split second and he was gone.
I ran my fingers over the glass, drops of condensation gathering on my skin. Had I really seen his face? Or was my mind conjuring images of him?
“Lexi?” Chloe’s soft voice pierced through the haze of my bewilderment. Her gentle hand touched my cold and clammy one, giving it a squeeze. “Are you okay, honey? You look a little pale.”
My eyes shifted away from the glass, and it took a few seconds to focus on Chloe’s pretty, motherly face. Concern and something else shone in her green eyes. Fear? Not of me, but for me?
“Perhaps you should go lie down,” she suggested. “I can bring you up a cup of hot tea in a little bit. Your skin is so cold.”
I nodded, scooting the chair away from the table and standing up. My head spun. I was grateful for the excuse. I needed to be alone, to understand what just happened. If it had been real or if I was hallucinating now. “Thanks for dinner,” I said, carrying my plate to the sink before I headed back up to my room. Another dinner ruined by my dejected mood.
2
“Ashor?” I called out in my mind.
I didn’t expect him to respond, seeing as he hadn’t the million other times I tried. I had given up trying to summon him in my head, but after seeing his face, I didn’t want to believe it was a coincidence. It just couldn’t be. I didn’t put stock into happenstance, not anymore. Fate had paired me with this demon, had intersected our paths; I had to believe fate would also bring us back together.
Somehow.
Perhaps all of that hopeless romantic stuff wasn’t completely gone from my heart. It only took a droplet of water to nourish a seed.
“Ashor.” I tried again, sending my call to that link within me, the one that connected my soul to his. I had no real reason to believe that he would be able to hear me, just a hunch. Angel and Chase didn’t possess telepathy, but on some level, they each still always knew when the other was in trouble.
Shouldn’t it be the same for us?
Chase and Angel were the only couple I knew who’d completed the Triplici—a bond of heart, soul, and body. Angel being my best friend, I was privy to inside information, sometimes too much. She was married to my cousin, after all, who was more like a brother to me. Some things I just didn’t want to know. But however intense their bond was, it could also be scary. They felt each other’s pain. If one got hurt, the other felt it. Their emotions were linked up. Chase always knew when Angel was sad or pissed off at him. It was a two-way street. Their hearts beat as one, in perfect unison. One couldn’t live without the other.
“Answer me, you prick!”
Silence. Never-ending silence.
It reminded me of the endless darkness of Brimstone, the sector of Hell in which Ashor primarily lived when his queen bitch of a mother didn’t summon him to her fortress.
With a heavy sigh, I slipped my feet into a pair of fuzzy slippers, grabbed my heated blanket, and climbed out the window. Some people might be leery of hanging out on the roof or frightened of heights. I was neither. It helped that I wasn’t as fragile as most humans and our roof wasn’t pitched to a point, but flat over certain levels before inclining downward. It was on one of the flat surfaces close to the window that I sat down, wrapping the blanket around my shoulders like a fluffy heated cocoon.
Cool, brisk wind kissed my cheeks, settling the turmoil within my stomach. The night was a perfect rendition of the Court of Darkness: black skies, the moon shielded behind a cluster of thick, dark clouds, and just a sprinkle of stars. If I concentrated hard enough, I was transported back there, to my room in the princeling’s home, gazing up through the glass ceiling above the bed.
It was ironic. I spent the entire three months I’d been in the underworld plotting my escape, and now that I was home, I thought of nothing else but the demon who had stolen me from my home.
I told myself over and over again that I didn’t care for the demon, but it was all lies. I might not know the depths of my feelings, but I also never got the chance to find out if I could fall in love with him.
He had been ripped away from me.
Mate or not, I wanted to know—needed to know. The not knowing was driving me insane, making me irrational and miserable. I wasn’t myself.
The longer we were separated, the less I felt like me. I was losing pieces of my humanity, of what made me, me.
I stayed up on the roof, bathed under the night sky, until I drif
ted off into sleep, thoughts of the violet-eyed demon on my mind.
It wasn’t the first night that I dreamed of Ashor, but it was the first time the dream blurred the lines of reality. If you could call what happened dreaming, because it felt like so much more.
My head hung forward, dark strands of hair curtaining my face. Both my wrists were shackled to the wall, keeping me upright. I was shirtless, and my eyes grazed over the ripple of abs on my lower abdomen, where a V of dark hair disappeared.
I blinked, a groan of pain escaping dry lips.
Not my lips. Not my chest, not with the black ink tattooed into my skin that appeared to swirl and dance like living art.
Ashor’s.
This was like no dream I’d ever had before. I was seeing everything through his eyes instead of gazing down at him like a movie. The aches and pains were real too. My wrists stung from the twisting and rubbing against metal that burned. Not my wrists. Ashor’s. It was hard to differentiate between him and me.
“Look who is finally awake.”
At the sound of the queen’s voice, Ashor lifted his head in a slow, unhurried movement.
Kali stood at the opening of the iron-barred door, long ebony hair twisted in a series of braids. She rapped her pointed nails against the bars, night and wrath coiling around her. With dangerously elegant features and a supple body, she was the epitome of a dark queen. I hated every fiber of her being.
“I didn’t have much of a choice,” Ashor replied flatly.
“Hmm. True,” the queen mused. “But really, you have only yourself to blame. You twisted my arm.”
“I could say the same,” he rasped.
“You think she is protected? You think I can’t get to her?” A dark chuckle left her crimson lips. “All you accomplished was to delay the inevitable. I will reign over the underworld. And you will never see your mate again.”
His gaze sliced through the darkened cell. “You can’t keep me here forever.”
“I can until the next Hunt,” she reprimanded with a cluck of her tongue, opening the cell and strolling inside. “It’s all you’re good for these nights. So get comfortable, my son; you won’t leave this cell until I say so.”
Coldness trickled into his veins, and I felt his shadowy power rise up in his blood. I thought he would rip the chains off the wall and blast his mother across the room, but the power singing inside him went no further.
His eyes flickered to his wrists. It was the shackles that restricted his powers, preventing him from being able to shift or unleash the darkness circulating within him. That was why he wasn’t fighting back.
“Ashor,” I whispered.
His body stiffened, eyes widening.
They scanned the shadows beyond the queen, searching.
Had he heard me? If so, could the queen?
As if we had the same thought at the same time, his gaze swung to his mother. “Did you just wake me up to talk me to death or is there a reason for this little visit of yours, Mother?”
She shook her head. “How did you become such a disappointment? All because of a girl? You don’t need a Kynt. Renounce your claim to her soul.”
Panic raked its nails over my heart.
“I can’t do that.”
“I could help you…?” The queen dangled the offer, taking a step inside the cell, closer to Ashor.
The chains binding him clanged as he surged forward, only to be jerked to halt. His violet eyes were like chips of ice as they reflected in the queen’s own dark gaze. “If you touch her…” Such raw violence oozed from his low warning that I shuddered.
“You’ll what? Destroy me?” The queen smiled, so sure of herself. “I’d like to see you try. You’re not much of a prince without your crown.”
“I don’t need a diadem to know who I am.”
She grabbed his chin, forcing him to look at her. “And do you know who you are? From where I stand, you’ve forgotten everything I taught you.” Like a viper, she struck out, her nail slicing down his cheek.
Ashor didn’t so much as flinch. He was accustomed to pain, to the brutality he was subjected to night after night by his own mother. “On the contrary, I am very much your son. In fact, I have a proposition for you.”
What was he up to? I didn’t like this. Ashor bargaining with his mother. It couldn’t be good. Never strike a deal with the devil, and Kali was damn near the female version of Lucifer himself.
Intrigue shimmered in her obsidian eyes as she raised her slim brows. “I’m listening…”
“If you are so adamant about starting a war, let me help. I can take the Queen of Envy, take Verena’s crown. If I do this, will you let the mortal queen be?” A quiet, dangerous question.
Besides beautiful, Kali was ambitious, clever, and bold. She mulled over Ashor’s offer, pacing from one side of the cell to the next, her heels clapping throughout the dungeon. The prison went quiet when she turned to face him. “I’m assuming you have a plan to achieve the Crown of Envy.”
“I do.”
Liar. He was playing another deadly game, another sacrifice to keep me safe.
“Don’t do this,” I pleaded, knowing the queen would never give up. I had escaped, Angel had slipped through her fingertips, but the Queen of Darkness was likely never to forget or forgive Ashor’s betrayal. “You can’t do this.”
“There are whisperings of Verena’s weakening. Her court would be the first to crumble in a war.” He continued to plead his case.
Silence hung between them. “I will let the mortal queen be, for now, all safe and snug in her beloved human world,” Kali conceded. “But this ploy… it won’t save your mate”—she rolled over the word with such disdain, her lips puckered—“or you. If you fail, the consequences will be dire, for both of you.”
“I won’t,” he vowed, his voice so steady with conviction that even I believed him.
The queen’s lips curled in wicked delight. “Bring me her crown, and I will let your mate live, but I make no promises regarding the mortal queen.” She held out a hand with a ring twinkling on each finger. “Shall we?” Not waiting for Ashor to respond, the queen took hold of his arm and flipped it over. Using one of her sharpened nails, she carved a mark into Ashor’s forearm and it burned like holy hell. Shadows seemed to cling to the rune-like symbol. When she was done, the queen waved her hand over the mark and muttered in an ancient tongue, words I couldn’t begin to understand, but Ashor could.
It was a binding spell, holding him accountable for his vow to his queen. “Say the words,” she demanded.
“I will deliver the Queen of Envy to you.”
The mark flared an unholy red before cooling to an inky black, where it would remain until Ashor completed his task.
“Now release me,” Ashor demanded, staring at his mother, unwavering scorn rippling inside him.
“You didn’t think I would let you go unpunished? Cute.” She patted his cheek like a doting mother when she was anything but. “What you did was unforgivable. The greatest betrayal. We don’t have many rules in the underworld, but when you chose the half-breed over your queen, when you disobeyed me and your court, you broke our one sacred vow.”
His chin jerked. “I know what I did.”
“Well, let’s hope you show more skill and cunning with Verena than you’ve used tonight. Next time you strike a bargain with a queen, ensure your safety as well.”
Ashor said nothing, but I felt the surge of violence rise up within him.
“Your mind is poisoned by her. Perhaps Cayden can remind you where your loyalties lie,” Kali mused.
“Sounds delightful” was the prince’s only response.
I missed his arrogance.
“Cayden.” The queen summoned him from the shadows. She didn’t stick around to watch, which surprised me.
The prince’s friend stepped into the cell, a wicked-looking falchion sword in his hand. The blade was thinner at the hilt, growing wider along the length. Fear entered my soul, whereas Ashor felt no
thing.
At the first lash of the blade across the prince’s bare chest, I was sucked from his head, slamming back into my own body.
I woke up with a gasp that formed Ashor’s name. Icy air coated my lungs, but it wasn’t enough to freeze the terror or queasiness that came next. Forcing a steady breath, I sat up, a shiver snaking through my body.
It didn’t help. The repulsion continued to roll in my stomach. A clock chimed from downstairs as I raced through the open window into my bedroom, making a beeline straight for the bathroom.
I dropped to my knees, hung my head over the toilet, and vomited.
3
Chinese food wasn’t as great coming back up. After I purged my stomach, I curled into the empty bathtub and my cheek pressed against the cool porcelain as my eyes fluttered. Time went by as I drifted back off to sleep, but it wasn’t for long.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Knuckles rapped on my bedroom door, but the sound was like nails scratching against glass in my head. I winced and mumbled something inaudible.
“Lexi,” a quiet voice called. Footsteps sank into the plush carpet of my bedroom. Whoever had invaded my room was making their way toward the bathroom. “Lexi,” they summoned again, but this time I recognized the voice.
“Angel,” I mumbled in a dry and raspy voice.
The bathroom door pushed open slowly, and a dark head poked in. The violet eyes of my best friend found mine. They were different from Ashor’s, rimmed in crimson instead of starlight. “Are you sleeping in the bathtub?” she asked, her freckle-dusted nose scrunched up.
I peeled my heavy eyes further open, forcing myself fully awake. “Maybe?”
She sauntered in, dropped the toilet cover down, and sat. “Why?”
I rubbed my eyes. “Do you want the short version or the long, detailed version?”
She chewed on her lower lip. “Depends. How detailed are we talking?”
I picked a loose thread on the blanket I’d dragged with me into the bathroom. “Like the texture and taste of regurgitated Chinese food.”
