From the moment we met, I knew I shouldn’t trust him. My hunter instincts had thrummed with warning at every word, every touch. Kaden was the darkness I’d been bred to hunt and exterminate with cold, hard steel.
And yet, I’d grown to love the demon prince.
I’d entrusted Kaden with more than my life. I trusted him with my heart.
Slowly, I turned to face Semphrys, holding his sinister gaze as I opened my palm.
Time seemed to slow as my blade slid from my grip and clattered to the floor, and Kaden let out a strangled “No!”
His terror was a living thing as it surged down the bond, but I didn’t meet his gaze. I knew what he was thinking.
Kaden had bound me in a fae bargain — made me swear that I would find a way to end Semphrys, no matter what the cost.
He’d known the cost would be him.
Kaden had been prepared to die to end his father. It had never occurred to him that he might lose me instead.
At that moment, Silas’s warning came floating back to me from what felt like a lifetime ago.
Mark my words, Lyra. That pitiful mortal heart of yours is gonna get you killed.
And for the first time, I smiled at the memory of my old master.
Perhaps it was foolish to love a fae, even a half-blooded one. But Kaden had been equally foolish to place his trust in me, because I didn’t have a mortal heart.
I had the heart of a huntress.
A cruel sneer twisted the demon king’s features, and for a moment, I let him revel in it — the perverse satisfaction he felt at turning our love into a weakness.
“I don’t need a blade,” I said, still smiling at the memory of the last male who’d underestimated me. “I’ve already killed you.”
Semphrys’s sneer faltered, and my gaze went to his temples, where tiny beads of sweat had appeared. His already pale skin looked ashen, and he was trembling.
His black eyes shot to the twin crystal chalices, widening as the realization hit him.
“The wine you drank was laced with vikkarni venom,” I said, finally glancing at Kaden. “He told me it was poisonous to his kind, though I didn’t know at the time whether the venom was lethal to demons or the fae.”
Semphrys’s face went slack with shock.
“It was only recently that I discovered the truth. The princess was bitten in the in-between. It made her ill, but she didn’t die.” I flashed the demon king another saccharine smile. “Did you know there is a wonderful library beneath the fortress at Cragsmuir? It was there I learned that vikkarni venom is particularly catastrophic when ingested. Oh, and there is no cure. At least not in the Otherworld. There is a variety of blue yarrow that grows in the in-between that could save you, but it’s only effective as an antidote when used as a tincture, which would take several weeks to prepare.”
For the first time, Semphrys looked stunned. And sweaty. His pale, bald head glistened in the flickering glow cast by the hellfire, and his hands were shaking.
Those shimmering black eyes flashed with the promise of pain, and a tremendous quake shook the chamber.
The firelight guttered as the whole palace quivered, and spiderweb cracks snaked up the wall as the floor groaned and split. A deep crevice opened in the middle of the chamber, the tower groaning from the impact.
There was a shriek and a crash from somewhere behind me, and the demon king’s shadows lashed out.
Another wave of magic made the palace shudder, and when the shadows finally abated, I saw the source of the mayhem standing in the doorway to the chamber.
Adriel.
With his wings splayed, the royal guard looked like an avenging angel and radiated the power of a god. Semphrys and his demons looked momentarily stunned, and I took advantage of the distraction — pushing myself upright.
I whirled on the demons surrounding my friends as Kaden broke free from his captors’ hold. Blood sprayed as he pulled a rowan spike from his wing and thrust it into the chest of one of his father’s soldiers.
The demon shrieked, and I lunged forward, obliterating the monster in a cloud of black mist. Great wisps of it unfurled around us as I slashed and stabbed.
