Hell Fae Prince (Hell Fae #4)

14. Typhos

CHAPTER 14

TYPHOS

M y hair whipped around my face, my stomach churning as the distinct sensation of falling made me feel weightless and helpless at the same time.

It was not a sensation I was used to, but one that I remembered all too well.

My nightmares occasionally brought back the old memory now and then, reminding me of the day when everything had ended.

And my new life had begun.

Flames encased me, transforming me into a ball of fire as my Source reveled in my power. I had created it like this, once, long ago.

Now, it had somehow returned to its full glory, but it wasn’t pleased.

It was angry.

Camillia, I thought wistfully as I pieced together what she had actually done.

I hadn’t reclaimed my Source.

She’d returned it.

Little temptress, I was so wrong about you.

She hadn’t even realized how powerful her release had been when she’d dismantled the icy energy of her dress. It’d been cementing us together, forcing her to siphon my power into a void inside her soul.

I’d felt it happening, knew she wasn’t in control.

“Hold on,” I’d told her as I’d opened the pathway back home.

Then I’d tried to bring her with me.

But she’d severed that connection and thrown all of my power back at me, sending a blast radiating through my domain.

I had not been prepared to receive the return of my power, and as a result, it had ricocheted.

And now I’m falling all over again.

Bracing myself, I closed my eyes and accepted what would happen next.

After the fall would be the landing.

And it was going to hurt.

My ears popped as I broke into the barrier of the Hell Fae Realm, and the inferno of my Source roared to life.

The sound that echoed across my territory would be heard for thousands of miles—a roar of the Hell Fae King’s fall.

And then all I knew was pain.

Stone and rock burst around me as my body slammed against the unforgiving ground.

Or was it a building?

Oh, my palace, I realized, catching a glimpse of the skyline as the walls crumbled around me.

So, I’d be landing in the same place as my very first fall.

That was somehow fitting.

I smashed through walls and stone as my Source sought the familiar hollow. I’d constructed my palace here on purpose, the location serving as a memorial to remember how far I’d once fallen.

My capital was built on top of this sacred crater, all height and grandeur. But in reality, my original fall had carved out an entire cavern beneath the fiery ambience of the Hell Fae Kingdom.

Fortunately, I didn’t appear to be revisiting that secret cavern today, my fall impactful, but not that impactful.

Blood filled my mouth as every bone in my body shattered. I would heal in a matter of moments, but first my physical body would be destroyed by the collision.

I accepted it with ire.

To be made whole again, I first had to submit to the pain.

A hiss left my deflated lungs as the stone exploded around me into walls of Hellfire, then settled into dust that filtered through the air. My palace would only be partially decimated by my fall.

The Hellfire was from the power of my Source. It would remain eternal.

Just like me.

My bones reformed in seconds that felt like hours, working to pull all of my organs back into shape as my body knit itself together again.

How the fuck did this happen? I wondered as I stared up at a statue that was miraculously unharmed. The stone displayed my prone form on the ground, lifelike with gold threads through red marble. Its depiction was one of agony, of my fall and the horror I had endured.

The pain had not been purely physical, despite the evidence of bloody slashes down the statue’s back.

It had been an emotional wound, one that had never healed.

Now, I’d landed at the entrance to my personal wing, specifically where the impact of my original fall kept the stone warm.

The molten material had been the foundation of this entire realm. I’d built it up from dirt and dust, forging a new world where others rejected by those they trusted could seek refuge.

Molten hatred and resolve —that was what my realm had been based on.

No one will reject you here.

It was what the statue was made of. The ground underneath me went on for miles, and I’d built my palace around it. The broken balcony overlooked a city that I had grown from nothing but desperation and pain.

But now I felt like I was being reborn all over again. That day I had fallen, I had lost everything.

This time, I wasn’t the one who had made the sacrifice.

Camillia had.

Where is she? As I curled my fingers into the molten rock solidifying around my form, I crawled to my hands and knees.

Everywhere.

My nostrils flared as I drew in her scent of decadent roses, this time with a tinge of ambrosia and fire.

A mixture of Melek and me.

It was an intoxicating combination, one that settled a craving deep within my soul that felt strangely whole.

I hadn’t felt like this since… before.

Before Camillia De la Croix.

Because she gave it back.

All this time she had been stealing my Source, but now I was certain it hadn’t been on purpose.

Someone had been using her ability to siphon my power, but she’d figured it out the same moment I had.

And she had fought back.

Just like I would expect of a future queen.

The thought came to me like a reflex, taking me by surprise. She wasn’t meant to be mine. She belonged to Melek. To Ajax. To Az. Not me. I didn’t want her.

At least… I shouldn’t want her.

But her loyalty rang true, her honor a beacon my soul desired to repay.

She’d saved my Source. Forced it back inside me. Proved through her actions that she’d meant what she’d said about not wanting my power.

It could all still be a trick. A dangerous game to lure me into her inner circle. However, I’d seen her expression, her fear when she’d realized what was happening.

And even more than that, her anger .

She hadn’t wanted to be used in that manner, and she’d shoved back against the magic in response.

Since the moment we’d met, she’d vowed she was innocent. I’d just refused to see it because of her ability to reach right into my soul and take my power for herself.

Except, she had never used that power for her own gain, not really.

Camillia had only tried to survive.

She’d closed the portal that would have killed my people.

She’d never outright defied me, and instead she had followed my demands, if only to protect those she loved.

Ajax and Azazel were part of my inner circle. Seducing them hadn’t been a tactic to control me; it’d been a natural course of action for the female my own prince had chosen as his eternal mate. The very fact that she hadn’t fully mated him yet, that she even seemed reluctant to do so, proved that she had no desire to steal from me.

Because if she genuinely wanted to hurt me, Melek was how she would do it. She would have eagerly taken him up on his offer and claimed him long ago, then destroyed me from the inside.

Her very hesitation proved she wished to take her decisions seriously. She didn’t see what Melek was offering her, not yet.

The irony of it all was that she didn’t see her own value, or who she really was.

A future Hell Fae Queen, if Melek had his way.

And she fought like one.

Camillia De la Croix had dismantled that damnable dress— absorbed it—and found a way to return the power of my Source to me. Then she’d literally imploded in a grand display of power.

Melek had chosen his mate well, and now I finally understood everything he’d been trying to make me understand.

Camillia wasn’t my enemy.

She was the most powerful ally I could possibly ever have.

So, where is the little temptress now?

When I searched my palace for any sign of her, I only spotted my personal guard. My Hellhounds waited like nightmares on the edges of the foggy destruction, their gazes more curious than concerned.

They didn’t approach me but waited for my command, their pointed ears angled in my direction. Those fiery tips were the only parts of them that moved while they watched me expectantly with their glowing red eyes.

Everything felt strangely quiet after the impact of my second fall.

The rest of my realm would be listening for my order, for my instructions, and for my reassurance.

They would want to know what had just happened.

Melek appeared in a golden glittering flurry of feathers, right on cue. “Typhos,” he breathed. “Take my hand.”

He held out his palm without hesitation as he stepped over the cooling rock.

I stared at his fingers, unable to shake that this was exactly how it had happened the first time.

Except now, I knew that Melek had not betrayed me. When he had offered me his hand so long ago, I had pushed it away.

This time, I took it.

My prince gave me a smile that broke my heart, because this little reenactment healed something inside of him. We rarely spoke about the tricks he had played back then. Those tricks had saved my life, but they had still hurt.

His perceived betrayal had broken me.

However, my rejection had broken him, too.

That deep scar was something I had never been able to fully heal, and yet, here we were, mending it.

Thanks to Camillia De la Croix.

Melek and I held hands long after I had managed to stand. My suit had burned off my body, but I wasn’t broken any longer. I wasn’t suffering the loss of my wings like my first fall. Instead, a rush of fire echoed in their place like a haunting memory.

My Source blazed across my skin, healing me with fiery waves that I could see reflected in the golden threads of energy pumping through my veins.

Just like the statue , I marveled.

As though to finish my return to power, heat blazed at my back and my inferno-like appendages stretched to their full grace.

I sighed, renewed. Replete. Fulfilled.

And my Source finally began to calm, its core throbbing like a gentle heartbeat, pleased with its restored balance.

“Where’s Camillia?” I asked, because even though her essence was everywhere, she was clearly not physically here.

And I had questions—as well as concerns. She had expelled an incredible amount of energy all at once.

Melek had come alone, which only made that concern grow.

What if…

Shadows twirled in the air as Ajax appeared, followed by the fiery ash of my Commander on his heels.

They both stared at me for a moment, and I realized this was the first time either of them had ever seen me like this.

Reborn.

New.

In my raw form as the Hell Fae King.

My hair waved around my face from an invisible wind as power crackled through my veins. Melek released my hand and reached for me, paying the snapping energy no mind as he took a lock of my hair between his fingers.

My hair was dark, but the piece he held now was white.

Is that from whatever Camillia had done to me?

Not when she’d returned the Source, but before. When she had been taking instead.

And now that all of my inner circle was here, it was apparent that Camillia was… not.

All of my men seemed to come to that realization at the same time. Ajax’s eyes widened, and Azazel’s head tilted to the side as his irises took on a deep shade of black.

Melek’s jaw clenched before he spoke. “She’s not with you?”

“She’s in the Barren Lands,” Ajax announced, surprising me with that vague declaration before disappearing in another flurry of shadows.

My Commander’s brow furrowed. “He’s wrong. She’s still in the Midnight Fae Realm,” he muttered before puffing into a pile of ash, no doubt heading back to the realm we had just been in before.

Melek’s chin dipped as his attention swept away from my palace. “I sense her somewhere else, too. I feel her…” He frowned before he glanced up at me. “Why would she be on the Hell Fae Bride campus? That’s where I sense her, but I still can’t reach her with my mind. I can only feel her.”

Something was wrong—because I felt Camillia, too.

Except, it was here.

Everywhere.

“Go,” I told him, because if my men were drawn to those locations, perhaps there was an answer to the riddle they posed. “And tell me what you find, my prince.” I gripped his nape and pressed my forehead to his. “But please, beloved, be careful.”

I didn’t have to say it aloud. He knew.

He had already known, likely long before I had.

We have an unseen enemy who has been pulling the strings all along.

And it terrified me how close they had come to winning.

He smirked. “When have you ever known me to get into trouble, my king?”

With that playful retort, he vanished.

And a sinking feeling of dread settled into my soul.

For the first time since I’d met Camillia De la Croix, I wished that I could feel those delicate little fingers tugging at my energy again, because at least it would tell me that she was still here.

That she was alive.

That she was safe .

But that last part wasn’t true. I felt it deep within my soul—Camillia De la Croix was in trouble.

And it was my job to find her.

Wherever you are, little temptress, you won’t be lost for long. I vow it.