Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 165618 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 828(@200wpm)___ 662(@250wpm)___ 552(@300wpm)
I blinked.
“At my command, it will descend,” he finished.
“I’m sorry?” I couldn’t wrap my head around this. “Are you saying you’ve been to the hells?”
“I haven’t had a reason to. Yet. Though, after Arnaud and Tatra are tried, they’ll be going there, and I’ll deliver them directly.”
“You can reach the hells.” My voice was flat with shock on this statement.
“Yes.”
“You have direct access to the hells.” Yes. More flat in my tone.
“Yes. Me, and only me. Though, now I have my suspicions you can too.”
“Oh my gods,” I breathed.
“Baby.”
“That’s crazy!” I exclaimed.
“Where do you think the demons came from?” he asked, watching me closely.
“I know where the…” Oh shit. “…lore says we come from.”
Again with the lore not being lore but being real.
This needed to be considered.
Just not right then.
“I’m a direct descendent of the first demon the gods set on the earth,” he told me. “Only one of my blood can truly wear the crown. And I’m sensing only my fated mate can access the blaze of hellfire.”
This was a lot to digest.
Too much.
It took a really long time even to begin digesting it.
Questions surfaced through this haze. “Arnaud tried to get in.”
“He did.”
“Does that mean he’s not of your father’s blood?” I asked. “Because obviously, with all the scorch marks where the arch was, he tried.”
“Sadly, he is my half-brother. What he’s not is the rightful king.”
Well, that was true.
“Do demons have fated mates?” I asked.
“No. But the demon king or queen does.”
Oh no.
No.
My words were careful when I said, “Your mother was your father’s fated mate.”
Melancholy stole through his bright blue gaze. “I didn’t know it before. But I did know it when I became king. The first thing I did was go to the gateway as Mom told me to do. When I got to The Pit, the fires of hell confirmed what I was feeling when I met you. That my fated mate was you.”
“And this was why I was drawn to you,” I mumbled as it all became clear.
He slid my hair off my neck and curled his fingers warm around the skin there. “It’s also one of the reasons I didn’t tell you about us. I wanted you to—”
“Fall in love with you for only you,” I finished for him.
He nodded. “So, knowing all of that, are you angry?”
I rested my hand on the base of his throat. “Honey, I fell in love with you for”—I pressed in at his throat—“you. So no. I’m not angry even a little bit.”
His eyes darkened, his face warmed and his mouth said, “I think we have time for a quickie.”
I smiled.
My fated mate kissed me.
Hurley vamoosed.
We christened the deep burgundy velvet of the new comfy couch in the lounge, finishing in just enough time to clean up, pull our clothes back on and head down to the landing bay to greet our friends.
And thus begin to batten down to face whatever came next.
Epilogue
JOLIE & FLYNN
Tatra
Tatra stood in the room with the three beings—one, the male, lying on his back having had his body stretched to the point all his joints had been dislocated and many of his tendons and muscles had snapped—the other, a female, hanging from the ceiling by her wrists, the tips of her toes dangling two feet above the floor.
The last was a male Tatra had found who should probably be occupying a prison somewhere due to his proclivities.
But she found those useful, as she had with many others along the way, and she’d put them to work.
That said, she was tiring of this.
It had become boring.
“End them,” she said.
The expression on the male’s face was disappointed.
The expression on the faces of the other two were relieved.
The male on his back even started weeping.
She left the room, climbed the stairs, walked down the hall and entered another room where her son was lounging, splayed on a couch with his feet thrown over the back, gnawing some chocolate-almond bunches.
At the sight of him, Tatra drew in a steady breath through her nose, seeking patience (because, really, why must she do all the work?), before she sat primly in an armchair across from him.
“We need a new witch,” she declared.
Arnaud lazily lifted his brows.
“And apothecary,” she added.
Arnaud seemed to be considering something.
With practice, since she’d learned long ago it took some time for her son to form an even mildly intelligent thought, she waited for him to achieve that mammoth task.
He then shifted to sitting on the sofa, set aside his bunches and said carefully, “Mother, these beings you send out, they keep failing.”
“It is of no consequence.”
Arnaud’s expression openly showed his surprise, and she had to draw in another steadying breath, because if she’d told him once, she’d told him a thousand times, he should hide his reactions.
Yes.
Even from his mother.
Especially from his mother, for he knew better than anyone she was someone from whom you should always keep your innermost thoughts.