Chapter 18
I’d made sure to drape my body in the crimson of my king’s smoke, so he’d know that he owned me. But I’d left most of my skin and scales uncovered, of course. To remind my king that I owned him too, while my mate was on Earth, and I would ensure no one in our realm forgot the fullness of his power.
A few deaths would suffice.
A crimson walked toward me, and I took in her power level and the confidence of her walk before noticing that the demon was my king’s mother.
I didn’t like her. My mate valued her, and she stole some of his focus from me.
“What?” I snapped.
His mother arched a brow. “Where is my son? I have important news for him.”
“He has gone to Earth. You may tell me anything in his stead.”
“I’ll wait for him. This is too important.”
Fury rose in my chest when she dared to walk away. “Walk away from me and risk your life, mother of my mate. I will take your head the same as any demon who disrespects me, and I’ll enjoy the act too.”
She had the good sense to stop.
“Report,” I ordered.
Athira turned back. “My son would not like me telling you this.”
“Your son is not here. This is the last chance I will give you to speak your findings fully.”
She hesitated, then said, “I have found signs of a powerful relative deep in the desert.”
“Of mine?” I asked, frowning.
“Of… my son’s.”
Her tone was off. She was hiding something. “What relative?”
Athira swallowed. “A child. The scent is of our line. The king has fathered a son.”
White blanketed my vision, and my teeth bared. Jealousy locked my throat tight as the intent to murder and destroy overcame me. With hands clawed, I forced out, “Impossible. I have not carried a child, and there is no one else for my mate.”
“Not now,” Athira said. “The scent of the child places him on the edge of coming into his power.”
I snarled, “Darthy.”
That was who had warmed Carmine’s bed before me.
This child was hers. And near coming into his power.
Darthy was a crimson, and Carmine’s line was powerful.
This boy was a threat to the throne. I had to kill him, and Carmine could return to his realm to find the matter already resolved.
“Take me to him now. I will fix this. You can return to take Darthy to the dungeons and have her… questioned.”
Athira nodded. “Will you question her yourself?”
I shook my head without really knowing why. The idea of visiting the dungeons was… off-putting. “You may handle that. The interrogation should end with her death.”
“Of course,” murmured the king’s mother. “I’ll take you to the boy now.”
“How strong is he?”
“Powerful. Nothing on yours.”
At least she could admit I was powerful.
Athira opened a portal, and I stepped through into a shack.
I covered my nose and mouth. “What is this hovel?”
“He will be close by,” she said.
I inhaled and blinked at the scents. My knees shook, and I wavered on the spot. “I smell—”
I smelled me. I scented a child that was… mine.
A scream ripped from my throat as a sharp point was driven into my back.
“That felt good,” Carmine’s mother said.
Her words were snatched away as the floor of the shack erupted and a giant white serpent appeared.
My knees gave way against the wound to my left lung through the injury on my back. No doubt from Athira’s fucking dagger.
I screamed again as a second dagger was plunged into my back.
White blinded me, and a roar boomed from my lips. My black smoke drove me back to my feet, but when I blinked my vision clear, it was to find myself nose to nose with a nismus.
I stared at the creature, and an unfathomable anger vibrated deep in me. Like an earthquake, the waves of it clashed and rocked within me. The anger didn’t belong to me, but the anger would control me.
Enemy.
More nismus lingered behind her. The white serpent circled behind me, blocking any escape.
Athira’s laughter rang in my ears, and a flash of yellow against the white caught my focus. Another demon was here.
I drew my power to my fingertips, and only then noticed the blue gems in my hands. What? I held the blue gems high and gazed into their depths. What were they?
The nismus stepped forward and touched her nose to one.
My head was thrown back by an invisible force. Shrieks echoed from me as the feeling of wires being drawn through my body arose from nowhere. I hit the ground, my body bouncing on the floorboards.
I was sliced.
And once sliced, the parts of me were pulverized.
Softened for cooking. I thumped and rolled like a doll as a power unlike anything I’d known began to draw hardened masses from my tenderized body parts.
I couldn’t identify what they were. I couldn’t identify anything through the mind-shattering pain.
The crystals and masses were pulled from each body piece. My mind was gone. My voice, I couldn’t recall the sound of. Silence filled my ears, and an eagerness for death filled my heart.
Too much to bear.
“She’s fading,” a man spoke. “How much longer will this take?”
I wanted to kiss him for asking the question, but my despair returned full force when no one answered.
A female blurted, “We need to leave. My son has returned.”
The man swore.
Then there was no more from them.
But there was more pain. Endless.
I was battered and tossed over the ground, and my thoughts and sense of being were pinpricks and nothing more, and how I wished that those pinpricks would extinguish so I might be gone.
A furious bellow filled that tiny awareness, and I was thankful for the interruption. The pain receded, and darkness crept in to drag me down into nothing. My body was still rolling though.
Or swaying?
“Wake,” a chilled voice commanded.
Wake? How?
I cracked open my eyes, and that effort felt colossal. My mate.
My mate stared down at me, and his grip on my chin was brutal. More importantly, the ice in his gaze was not him.
This was my mate, but it was not my mate.
There was something there to remember and know. Something that I had known very well before…
Before…
I could not recall that either. Such exhaustion and the deepest soul weariness I had known. Surely impossible to survive.
So tired.
No will.
I closed my eyes to the shouts of the person pretending to be my mate and was relieved to let death drag me to oblivion.