Chapter 3 Maeve
Maeve
Ifelt nothing other than numbness and pain.
My blood burned with her absence, the hunger unbearable with her gone.
The blood of Hyperion Black smelled rotten, laced with something dark and tainted. There were rumours that when one harmed their fated mate, it altered something inside them. Changed their magic, their hearts. Marked them as unworthy, as dangerous creatures to be around.
How long until our scents changed? Until our blood darkened into sludge, marking us as failures to our mate?
I gritted my teeth as I circled the unconscious body of the Fae male.
His head hung to one side, eyes too swollen to close entirely.
The blood vessels in his eyes had burst long ago.
The chains tying him to the chair slowed his healing down to a human’s.
I’d sliced his silver hair off days ago, but matted strands of it still hung in his face, almost black from the amount of dried blood covering him.
My fingers flexed, aching from the most recent beating. I tried to keep my mind focused on the present, but my thoughts drifted in two different directions: Ivy, what she might be going through at the hands of Dante.
And my past, which I’d worked so hard to bury, to hide. The darkness was my own burden to bear; a burden I’d let go of when mating Ivy.
But now, staring at Hyperion Black, it came rushing back.
My Sire, Henrik, with his unsettling blue eyes.
Sharp like ice, glacier blue. The strangest eyes that always garnered a compliment whenever he went out in public.
But they hadn’t hid the darkness festering within him.
Corrupted by bloodlust, he’d only had one goal: build his own coven from the ground up with those dedicated only to him, born only of his power.
He should have prepared me for Dante; now, I saw how similar they were. Two males lost to the addiction of power, neither strong enough to hold it, but arrogant enough to think they could have it all.
Hyperion was no different to my father; he’d sold his son for power, for wealth and gain. Beaten him, and in the end, killed him. Or that was what he thought.
Orion’s sleep-stasis was something we didn’t know how to navigate. It pained me, knowing wherever Ivy was, she thought him dead.
We needed Hyperion to think his son was gone. That he had succeeded in his revenge. For now, at least.
Hyperion was a means to an end.
I sliced through his chest with my claws and watched the blood spill from five clean cuts.
The male barely jerked, his head lolling to the side.
Unseeing eyes flickered to mine before moving to the darkness in the corner of the room.
If he thought he might use the shadows, he was sorely mistaken.
Each shadow in this room belonged to a demon, a demon completely devoted to their Queen.
The claws retracted, leaving my fingers wet with his blood. “It’s only a matter of time before you give me what I need,” I said, moving to stand behind him. The male stiffened, heart pounding. “Nothing stays hidden for long, Hyperion. You should know that better than anyone.”
The rot of his blood filled my lungs as I breathed him in.
This time, though, when I broke skin, he did not flinch.
Perhaps, he was finally numb to the torture.
Blind to the pain. But if he thought it wouldn’t get worse for him during his silence, then he was mistaken.
I’d turn the numbness to fire, the burn something he could never escape.
“It will only get worse for you,” I murmured, resting my other hand on his shoulder.
This time, I kept the claws contained but still dug my nails into his shoulder.
“I know you have something hidden in your memories. Only a matter of time before I search them. You could make it easy on yourself, Hyperion.”
The male made a choked sound. “You can’t read my memories,” he spat, breath rattling in his lungs. “He made sure—”
“He made sure to put something in your blood to harm me,” I finished, smiling. “I know that, you fool. Why do you think I’ve had you bleeding since you arrived?”
I rounded the chair, ripping my claws free. If there was any colour in his face—aside from the terrible bruising, of course—I would imagine it to have drained.
“Such a simple solution,” I continued, claws popping free on both hands now.
I shoved them into his thighs, feeling nothing as he cried out.
“Like humans, you regenerate blood. Poisons can be bled out, so can toxins. But even if that doesn’t work, it’s still fun watching you bleed.
Hearing you whimper like a wounded animal, knowing a greater predator will have your beating heart soon enough. ”
Hyperion coughed, more blood spilling from his lips. “If you think he won’t come for me—”
“He hasn’t,” I deadpanned, smile slipping from my lips. “Not a single attempt. And he hasn’t even tried detonating that little bomb in your brain. Either you really are useless and expendable to him, or he just doesn’t care.”
There was nothing in his dark eyes as they found mine. “I will still be High King of the Fae. That is my destiny. To see the High Court restored. To see Faery brought back to glory—”
“Glory does not come from Kings,” I spat.
“You will restore nothing. You are a cause of darkness, of evil. Your arrogance led you to doing the unspeakable: betraying your bonded mates and killing your own son. You think you will bring Faery back to greatness? You are only leading it to ruin. You will destroy everything because of your loyalty to a madman. There will be no Faery when he is done.”
“Those are words of desperation,” he wheezed. I shook my head, tearing my claws from his thighs. He barely winced as more blood spilled from his legs. “You repeat these dooming words over and over again with no proof.”
“Your last High Queen gave her magic to the first Queen of Nyx,” I replied.
“Do you not remember that? And even she had a weak usurper. A male who thought himself powerful enough to rule. But do you really want to know what happened to him?” I cocked my head, but his eyes flickered away.
“He went mad. From that skull. It killed him in the end. Slain by his nephew because the power consumed him. And he never had the chance to steal Pandora’s power. ”
“Lies.”
Shaking my head, I sighed. “Believe it or not, I do not care, Hyperion. Soon enough, your blood will be cleansed. And once I am done sifting through your memories, I will leave you to rot down here alone, until Nyx comes to claim your soul.”
I made my way into the war room, where the rest of my bond mates sat around a long table. Spread out across one end was a map of the Luna Court, an illusion built by a nearby witch. And surrounding the map were not just the team, but generals of Wrath.
Perhaps before all of this, I would have shown my respect for the legendary leaders.
For four hundred years, the three brothers had ruled House Wrath with clear precision and without contention.
No other Wrath demon dared try for their throne.
Their age made them deadly, but also a liability.
Demons aged much slower than creatures of Nyx.
Could live hundreds of years longer than even vampires.
But I walked past them towards Elias at the end of the table. Dark circles bruised his now dull green eyes. Yet despite that, he wore his gear, clean and repaired. The only thing he hadn’t done in days was shave.
Sitting across from one another was Adrian and Rowan. The former looked like hell, smelling of honey wine and despair. The latter was eerily quiet, dressed in his gear, which smelled of washing detergent.
They were too clean. Too pressed.
I still had blood on my hands from Hyperion. My nails were caked in it. I hadn’t stepped foot in a shower in days, using simple spells to clean myself when needed.
No one looked disgusted as I joined them, taking a seat.
My eyes flickered down to the map of Luna.
The Courts of Faery were normally hidden; you were granted access by the courts, or you weren’t.
There were maps of the lands, but even those were questionable at best. The Queens who came before Ivy had tried to pave paths of peace, of easy communication and movement between all the realms. But none had succeeded, and here we were.
The courts betraying Nyx and their Queen for a bastard with an ego.
Aligning themselves with someone who killed their own mates for power.
“Do we have any idea if this map is correct?” I asked, crossing my arms.
Adrian barely looked up from the mountains that made up Luna.
Elias rested his hands on the edge of the table, leaning into the wooden surface.
Rowan sat back, arms also crossed, face unusually blank.
Rhadamanthus stared out the window overlooking Elysian, his back to us.
And the three demon generals said nothing.
Finally, after a shake of his head, Elias sighed. “We can’t be sure. Rhadamanthus’s informant is going to be documenting what he can when he arrives.”
I glanced sharply at the king. “You’re sending someone in?”
“He owes a great debt,” one of the generals replied. This one had snow-white hair and ice blue eyes, a scar running through his left eye down to the corner of his lip, which pulled in a smirk. “And he’s loyal. He won’t want to find out what happens to disloyal demons.”
I made a sound in the back of my throat. They had plenty of disloyal demons; just like there were too many disloyal vampires and mages and Fae. I had to wonder, if with the right motivation, their demon informant wouldn’t betray them for our enemy.
Perhaps I was cynical after dealing with Hyperion for so long, for having to hear his motivations, his reasons for seeking power. Or maybe it was hearing the way my mate completely shattered at the perceived death of her first love that made me doubt the general’s words.
“I suppose we will see,” I muttered in response, unable to summon anything better.
I felt the wary, perhaps even concerned, stares of my bond mates on me.
There was more conversation about their spy going into the Luna Court, the primary location he was meant to search being the Titania Mountains.
It was our only lead; the one slip up Dante made when going on this power-hungry spiel in front of Ivy, Adrian, and Rhadamanthus.
Something about an old temple where he found a letter addressed to the first usurper.
There was more, but I drowned it out, their voices nothing to the echo of Ivy’s scream in my head. I barely even noticed when the generals left, leaving me with the demon king and what remained of Ivy’s mate circle.
It started with the four of us.
Four brought together by the tricky hands of a Seer pulling too many strings.
Four sent to find our future Queen and protect her from those hunting her.
Four who failed in their basic mission. Who did not deserve the woman they’d lost.
Because of us, the realms were doomed.