He held her gaze for a moment too long, jaw clenched. Then he swore under his breath and rose to his feet. With a grunt, he drove his boot into the man’s side, relishing the pained hiss that followed.
‘It seems it’s your lucky day,’ Kai muttered, before swiftly delivering another kick, this one to the face. The drakonian slumped into unconsciousness. ‘You should’ve let me kill them,’ he growled, summoning his shadow horse with a low whistle. ‘They’ll likely follow.’
‘No,’ Dawn said firmly, narrowing her eyes. ‘I don’t want more blood on my hands.’
Kai let out a low chuckle, bitter and amused in equal measure. ‘Since when did the witch grow a conscience?’
She kicked him hard in the back of the leg.
‘How did they even manage to drag you so far?’ he asked, half-laughing.
‘I was sleeping!’ she snapped. ‘They took me by surprise.’
Kai swung himself onto the shadow horse with practiced ease, then reached down and extended a hand toher. With a single pull, he lifted her up in front of him, his arms instinctively locking around her waist, firm and protective.
‘Careful now, commander,’ she said, that ever-dangerous smile playing on her lips. ‘For a moment there, you almost sounded concerned for my safety.’
‘Don’t start confusing things,’ he muttered, guiding the horse away from the unconscious drakonians and into the shadow-stained trees. ‘I’m just using you.’
She gave a low, delighted snort. ‘Is that what we’re calling it now?’ Her grin widened, all teeth and mischief. ‘Very well, commander. Use me all you like.’
Kai turned his face away, eyes fixed on the path ahead, on the darkness beyond the trees. Anything to avoid those purple eyes that held far too many truths he wasn’t ready to face.
It is said that when Hades first shaped the Underworld, there was no Hell. But the god who created Elysium wished to punish some of his messengers. These beings, not quite gods but something other, what some have come to call angels, had no place to be cast. No prison suited to hold them. So Hades, in a gesture both grim and generous, forged Hell as a gift for that god, a place to banish the angels who had turned against him.
It is said there were seven of them, these wayward angels, and each was cast into Hell as retribution for their betrayal. For each one, Hades created a ring, a realm uniquely crafted to contain them, from which they could never escape. And in time, these fallen messengers became the kings of Hell. But here lies the curious thing: there are nine rings in total.
Two remain without kings.
Some whisper, in the hushed corners of the Underworld, that Hades forged those two extra rings in anticipation—that perhaps more angels might fall and require a prison of their own. But others believe the truth is far more deliberate. That those two rings were not made for just anyone. They were made for someone.
Someone Hades intends to entrap there.
Tabitha Wysteria
Mal glanced up at the towering gates that marked the very edge of the village. They loomed high above, wrought from what appeared to be bone, bleached spines entwined with skullswhose hollow sockets stared down at them, grim sentinels frozen in warning. From beyond, the faint wails of the damned curled through the air like smoke. She heard the screams, but chose not to ask.
‘Are you certain you wish to go on?’ Thanatos asked, his voice unusually soft.
Mal lifted a shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. ‘I don’t have a choice.’
‘We could seek out another witch. One here, perhaps, in the village.’
She shook her head. ‘No. I’m bound to Allegra. She killed my wyvern. That’s a blood debt, and she knows it. No other witch would help me. Butshewill.’ She glanced up at him, steady and sure. ‘There’s a reason Ash put me on this path.’
‘Is there?’ His tone was light, teasing, laced with something she didn’t care to name.
Mal didn’t like the way it unsettled her.
She turned away, eyes fixed once more on the great gates, waiting for them to creak open. But then something stirred behind her, a prickle at the back of her neck, as if the wind itself had teeth. She turned slowly. And there, at the far end of the road, sat the white wolf, watching them.
Silent. Still.
Its eyes gleamed with something ancient, something knowing.
Mal’s heart stuttered in her chest.
It had followed them.
