Under the miscellaneous section, she read:
The oldest living demon . . . proficient in all weapons, but has carried the same battle-ax for ten millennia . . . can fell an entire army on his own . . . newly crowned king of Pandemonia, A.K.A. hell.
That fabled realm had always intrigued Lila to a curious degree. "What do you expect from me?" She closed the file. "I've never shot a bow or wielded a sword." Though she didn't possess fighting skills, she had read widely on the subjects of battle, survival, and weapons.
She could do everything from orchestrating an ambush to constructing a trebuchet--in theory.
"You have three innate advantages that are even more valuable," Nix said. "You can read and write his language." Among many others. They came easily to her. "You developed mental blocks against mind reading when growing up." For protection at the insidious fey court. "And you are his mate."
Shock gut-punched Lila. Mate??? She reeled on her feet, latching onto the balcony railing. "No way. There's no way fate would connect me to one of those monsters." The thought arose: Maybe my fascination with Pandemonia isn't so curious. But she quashed it.
"You're the Devil's Own's own," Nix said, her eyes glimmering. "You'll go to hell and use that connection to garner information from him--plans for upcoming battles, details about his alliance, and so on. I'm especially keen to learn about Orion, the Morior's leader."
Go to hell? Reading about and visiting were in no way the same.
Saetth said, "As soon as you've uncovered weaknesses, we will extract you."
Lila's palm sweated through her opera glove as she gripped the dossier. "You want me to be a spy? This mortal realm is bad enough, but at least I'm not damned." And mated!
How could fate have screwed her over like this? Lila's tiara must be on too tight. She'd cut off circulation to her brain or something.
Saetth's lips thinned. "When I first heard Nix's plan, it sounded as if I'd be sending a lamb into the lion's den. But the demon will be compelled by his instinct to protect and care for you."
"And also to claim me." Nausea churned at the thought.
Nix said, "I've assured Saetth that the demon cannot and will not hurt you. Abyssian's tender feelings for you will make it easy to coax secrets from him." She tapped her chin with a pink claw. "Of course, you might have to encourage those feelings. . . ."
"Encourage? You want me to seduce a monster, one among a group of them that I've hated and feared my entire life? This just gets better and better!"
"You don't have to go all the way." Nix winked. "Just a great deal of the way."
Aghast, Lila asked Saetth, "You wouldn't mind another male's hands all over me? A Morior touching your future queen?"
He exhaled, as if he found her attitude tiresome. "Perhaps if I were a demon myself. But I'm better than that. I know this is the only logical course, and I'm not ruled by primitive instincts."
Nix collected more cotton candy for the bat. "Speaking of instincts, Abyssian might be turning a jot more demonic of late. But with the Accession coming around, who isn't--am I right? Just be sure to stay feisty with him. He'll like that."
Feisty? At times, Lila nearly choked on her rage toward the Morior.
Saetth said, "If there were any alternative, I would undertake it."
Nix's gaze flashed to him, and Lila could have sworn a spark of . . . animosity lit the Valkyrie's eyes.
It passed so quickly, Lila thought she'd imagined it. "I just wanted to come home," she said, though the opportunity to plot against the bogeymen did hold some appeal.
When she thought of the endless nightmares she'd had about them--waking to her own scream, still feeling the fey-slayer's arrow in her chest--fury surged.
And Saetth shared much of that blame. He'd sent her to the mortal realm with only a few belongings. No ID, no money, no way to contact him.
Early on, she'd rationalized his behavior: My parents did try to kill him.
But lately, she'd decided to call a dick a dick.
"Accomplish this mission," Saetth said, "and you will come home. As my queen."
Lila had three pie-in-the-sky dreams: to live safely in Sylvan, to be the queen, and to start a family that would also live in safety. A distant fourth was the hope that she'd fall in love one day.
Saetth could make three of her dreams come true. He was a means to an end.
All she had to do was give up any sappier hopes. As a calculating fey royal, I should have no problem doing that.
"You know we will do well together," Saetth said. "With your ingenious mind and my ruthlessness, we will be unstoppable. Which means Sylvan will be unstoppable." Gazing down at her, he said, "We'll celebrate your success with a wedding. You've always wanted your own family. You could welcome our babe before the year is out. We'll get started on that upon your return."
"My return." Like a glass of cold water tossed in her face. "From seducing the oldest demon alive." Her groping sessions with furries notwithstanding, Lila wasn't exactly seductress material.
Nix pouted. "But you don't have to go all the way." Then the soothsayer grew abruptly serious, and a lightning bolt fractured the sky in a spectacular display. The crowds below gasped, thinking it was a part of the show. Thunder boomed with such force that the castle shuddered. "I've foreseen this future--if you journey to hell, you will save Sylvan from the Morior. Because of your sacrifice, your people will be protected. For an eternity of eternities."
Dramatic much?
"I've also foreseen that if you don't journey to hell, the Morior will declare war on Sylvan--imminently. Just as they leveled my home, they will destroy yours. Then the archer will use his new foothold in the fey realm to uncover more of the royal line."
Lila didn't care about any of her cousins; they ran the gamut from scummy to vile. She'd only ever cared about her own survival and maybe Saetth's. "If the demon knows I'm one of the archer's specific targets, he could turn me over to his ally despite his . . . matehood with me." A sentence she'd never thought she'd say. "I might not get a chance to encourage anything." Don't vomit.
Nix shook her head. "With your human accent and ballsy ways, he'll never suspect you're a princess of anything--just as long as you don't let on that you know you're his mate."
Sylvan's destruction versus a throne and a family.
As Lila had struggled to survive over these years, she'd at least had the hope of returning to her beloved kingdom. Would she allow its ruin because she wasn't ready to sacrifice for her people?
Isn't sacrifice what queens do? "How would I begin?"
Nix said, "Go about your regular daily life--it's an excellent cover. We'll arrange for the infiltration."
"How?"
The Valkyrie's gaze grew unfocused. Seeing the future? "I've informed the hell king that his mate is somewhere in the universe, ready for the taking, and provided a description of you. He's already put out a bounty. When the time comes, I'll make sure you're captured and safely delivered to him. Of course, you'll have no idea when, since the capture must look real."
This plot sounded more and more dangerous. "If I agreed to this, I'd have to wait until I'm fully immortal." The females in Lila's family usually transitioned around twenty-three, so she was long overdue. Until that happened, she was as vulnerable to harm as a mortal. Going toe-to-toe with immortals would be idiotic. "Maybe in a few weeks."
"Events are building with the Morior," Nix said. "I can't give you that much time."
Saetth told Lila, "You've been out of the Lore, so you don't know how bad it's gotten."
"I've read the Book of Lore, keeping up to date with the Morior's major battles." If those one-sided slaughters could be considered battles.
"What goes on behind the scenes is just as important." Brows drawn, he said, "The cowardly fey-slayer sprung a sneak attack on me recently. He destroyed the Ancestors' Sword."
"Are you shitting me?" Lila's gaze dropped to the scabbard on Saetth's hip. Looking more closely, she could see he wore
another sword--not the king's blade. This shocked her as much as everything else she'd learned tonight.
The sword that had beheaded her parents was no more.
The Morior had struck home yet again. Was Lila going to hide while they continued their assault on the kingdom?
Never.
She faced Nix. "When would the . . . capture happen?"
"Sooner rather than later."
Lila's ears twitched. She narrowed her eyes at the Valkyrie's blase expression. "I need to know the duration of my stay in hell and the details of my extraction."
"You'll stay until the demon tells you what I want him to, and we'll extract you as soon as you need us to."
Lila shook her head. "You have to give me more than that."
"No."
"No?"
"Yes." The soothsayer shrugged, flustering her bat. "Some details are above your feygrade."
"Feygrade? Did you really just say that?" Do not pop the Valkyrie in the mouth.
Saetth took Lila's hand, drawing her attention back to him. "You have to trust in Nix's plan. She knows what's best for Sylvan. Cousin, I wouldn't expect this of you if the alternative weren't so dire."
"You expect me to go into a Morior stronghold."
"All will be well," he said. "Remember, a demon cannot hurt his mate."
THREE
Graven Castle
The dimension of Pandemonia
I plan to torture her till she begs for mercy," Sian said as he twirled his great battle-ax. "Make her pay for all her treachery in her past life."
He and Uthyr, his dragon ally, stood on a terrace high in Sian's castle. A league below them, demon legions clamored for war.
Sian was feeling just as bloodthirsty. "If Princess Kari's even been reincarnated." Merely thinking about the perfidious bitch made his muscles tense. "I have only the word of a soothsayer."
But he'd always believed. . . .
Uthyr rested on his hind legs and wrapped his spiked tail around his gigantic body. Like all Morior, he could communicate telepathically: --Your female probably doesn't even know she's a reincarnate, could go her whole life without remembering a previous existence. She might have no memory of a betrayal. What then?--
Sian hoped she did remember. If not . . . "I have more than enough memory for both of us."
Uthyr gave a dragonic sigh, a lazy stream of flame tumbling from his lips. --Will you not tell me your mate's crimes?--
Even after so long, Sian couldn't speak about her actions without going into a rage. When he gripped the handle of his ax, he could feel Uthyr studying him.
The dragon shifter had decided to take a sabbatical in Pandemonia, saying he planned to "work on his chess game and visit with the local dragon population." Most likely he was here to monitor Sian's declining self-control and increasing aggression.
Sian didn't care what the shifter did, as long as he didn't get in the way. "All you need to know is that she betrayed me and every demon of this realm." Because of her, Sian had been left maimed for ten millennia. Inwardly, he'd been scarred much, much worse.
For eons, he had awaited his revenge, not only on his mate, but on her entire hated species.
Uthyr scratched his neck with the claws of a back paw, shedding a metallic blue-gold scale. --You've never doubted she would be reborn. What made you so certain?--
Because he'd had no choice. "When I learned of her death, I vowed to live long enough to see her return." How else could he have gone on?
He would never forget falling to his knees beside the river of fire, roaring and clawing at his chest, grief and hatred blistering him inside.
--No word on your bounty?--
"Immortals are scouring the universe for her. If she retains her species and her unique appearance"--a fey with one amber eye and one violet--"she will be found." If not, he would take over the hunt between his next two wars.
In the first campaign, he would fight off an invasion of trespassers. In the second, he would launch his own invasion.
Nothing pleased Sian so well as a good, meaty war, and he was grateful to have conflicts to distract him. Otherwise he would've gone mad since learning of his mate's possible reincarnation.
And since he'd been struck by the hell-change curse.
Upon his brother's recent death, Sian had reluctantly returned to Pandemonia to assume the crown--and all its disadvantages. He'd started to transform from a male of striking good looks into his most monstrous self.
Whoever ruled hell slowly became hell. The last time Sian looked at his reflection--months ago--a hideous stranger had stared back at him.
His formerly smooth, tanned skin was dark red with glowing glyphs over his chest. His chiseled features had become blunter, more brutal. Mystical hell metal pierced his skin--bars at the bridge of his nose and through his nipples, not to mention other parts of his body.
He'd grown a pair of massive wings that resembled a bat's. Long black claws tipped his fingers and the toes of his beastlike feet.
For ten millennia, he'd gone without horns--thanks to Kari--but now a new, larger pair had emerged, more menacing even than before. A wide swath of skin surrounding his eyes was darkened like a demonic mask. Only the color of his green irises remained the same--unless they went black when he was in the grip of rage.
The hell-change heightened his aggression until he could barely think at times, his most primal demon instincts at the fore. Like him, hell was in turmoil. Ever since Sian had learned his mate might be alive, the realm had been plagued with firestorms and lava floods. Ash choked the air. The skies churned.
He rubbed his hand over his still-unfamiliar face. Even if she retained memories of her previous life--unlikely--she wouldn't recognize him.
All those years ago, he'd believed his mate had felt some measure of attraction to him. Now she would be repelled.
Only one thing could return him to his previous form. But to even contemplate it could bring on madness. . . .
The dragon's watchful gaze was upon him. --If you can learn to manage these rages, what will looks matter? We Morior have a mission, demon. We live lives of service.--
"Is that the point of our unending existences?" Sian's life seemed to be one long wait, measured by an hourglass that gave up a grain of sand every few centuries. "Is service what makes you rise in the mornings?"
--That and television.--
Sian lifted a brow. "Alas, those two enticements have little effect on me."
--Then what does affect you?--
"A challenge. I can't remember the last time an enemy landed a blow against any of us." The Morior--not even at full strength--continued to rout any opposition with ease. "Our power is vast, but life is long without challenge. I would give my ax to find a worthy opponent."
Would he ever know a hard-won victory again?
Uthyr shrugged his large wings. --Your thoughts have been grim ever since you learned of your mate's possible return.--
"I've felt this way for some time, but the idea of her resurrection has brought much into glaring relief."
He'd waited ten thousand two hundred and thirty-four years, three months, and seventeen days for his female to return to him.
What if she truly had? What would happen to him after his vengeance was done?
What would happen to her?
As if it were yesterday, Sian recalled the day he'd met Princess Karinna of Sylvan. He'd been outside the newfound Pando-Sylvan portal when he'd caught her maddening scent from the other side. He'd hurried through the rift to track the thread to its source, suspecting he would find his mate.
The unfiltered sun had stung his eyes, temporarily blinding him. His first sight of heaven had been her face, the first sound her voice. She'd been twenty-four, a practiced flirt, and entrancingly lovely.
He'd been a pup of sixteen. I never stood a chance against her.
He'd trusted in a manipulative, traitorous female and nearly felled a kingdom--
A wave of deja vu hit him, so
strong his body reeled. He could almost scent Kari, as if he were back in Sylvan on that first day so long ago.
How could it be? Did he dream?
His muscles tightened as they did before battle. This was no dream. "By all the dark gods . . ."
Uthyr lifted his snout. --What is it?--
Sian's lips drew back from his fangs. "The bitch's scent."
FOUR
The Happiest Place on Earth
Hey, somebody want to let me in?" Lila called outside the concealed employee door.
All she wanted was to get back to her apartment and process everything Saetth and Nix had told her tonight. Yet some chucklehead had locked Lila out.
Yanking off her tiara, she waved at the camera above the door. "Yoo-hoo." This costume dress weighed more than a dozen pounds; she itched to peel it from her tired body. "Hellooo! Fuckers!"
She gazed around. Probably wouldn't be good if some visitor videoed Cinderella cussing like a sailor. Grumbling, "Still, fuckers," she started toward another entrance. She was hungry and exhausted, but still keyed up from that meeting.
Carried away in the moment and high on the promise of striking back, she'd told Saetth, "I won't rest until I discover a way to hurt Abyssian Infernas." In other words, keep that extraction team at the ready. "I'll figure out what his weaknesses are and how to exploit them. I'll do anything I can to destroy him."
Now doubts about this plan crept in. Too many questions and variables remained. Note to self: be in charge of future political plots or be excluded from them.
Hindsight. Twenty. Whatever.
She peeled off her opera gloves, stuffing them into her secret pocket, then pulled out her hidden phone to order takeout. Her fake "real life" would continue, and she planned to speed-read a new series of how-to books.
Her ears twitched and her fingers paused on the dial screen when a grating screech sounded, like metal on metal. The nearby frog song and insect chatter went silent.
The screech came again. "Is somebody there?" she called, though she knew anyone who'd ever asked that question was already in deep shit.
Quiet answered her. No, no, just my imagination. Still, she pocketed the phone and hastened down the pathway.
Of course she was jumpy. She'd lived in a hypervigilant state for so long, and now she had a capture to anticipate.
Sooner rather than later.
Apparently, she would do anything to get back to Sylvan--even act as a bounty hunter's quarry in order to infiltrate a primordial demon's home in hell.