Prologue
I thought I had known pain before, felt the sting of loss, but nothing compared to being separated from Ashor—my mate. It was a constant ache that ate away deep within me like a nasty parasite resistant to any cure. A disease I had to learn to live with or the darkness of his loss would consume me.
Perhaps I had always been broken, always had a slice of darkness. Perhaps that was why Ashor was my match in every way possible. I might never get the chance to know.
Blood blanketed my fingers, dribbling thick and warm down my arms. White-hot pain lanced at my back, and I felt the skin break, mangled and oozing. The sharp metallic taste assaulted my nostrils and coated the back of my throat. I nearly gagged on it.
“Again,” a silky voice ordered.
I cringed at the sound of Kali’s voice—the Queen of Darkness. It made me want to behead her, and not a clean cut either. I wanted the bitch to feel every inch I sawed off her head, slowly and painfully, horns and all.
It was a night I could never forget. I was back in the Hall of Darkness, but it was me who was flogged by darkness, slashed over and over again—not Ashor.
Coward. Weak. Liar. Coward. Weak. Liar.
The demons within the court chanted. They moved in, their shouting growing louder as they closed in around me. They pinched my skin. Nibbled on my flesh. Pulled at my hair. Sliced at my body with their razor-tipped nails. Tore at my clothes, leaving me exposed and defenseless. The torture was endless, morphing from one torment to the next, each as horrible as the last.
It was not until I woke in the dead of the night, drenched in sweat and trembling, that the misery subsided. Well, not really. It was always there. Memories were not easy to forget, especially traumatic ones. But it was during those early mornings when the moon passed the torch to day that I realized these nightmares weren’t mine.
They were Ashor’s.
And that was so much worse, knowing that my nightmares were his reality.
It had to end.
I had to stop it.
There was no other choice. He might be a demon prince, and my feelings about him were confusing and neurotic, but he had saved me.
He was mine.
If only I had an idea of the challenges I would face, or the impact my bond to the Prince of Darkness would have on the future of worlds, not just mine or his, but those beyond both the mortal and the underworld.
Releasing Ashor from the clutches of Hell might come at a high price, one I was not sure either of us could live with. But could we live without each other?
1
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I glanced down, seeing blood dripping onto my vanity, shattered glass scattered over the tabletop and my lap. The constant sound of my blood splattering filled the emptiness of my room. It paralleled the emptiness inside me.
The glass bottle had shattered under my fingers, and I should have had some sort of reaction, felt something other than the dull throbbing at the back of my skull. At the very least, I should have been rushing to the bathroom for a cloth, soap, and water to clean up the mess.
But I didn’t move.
Instead, I lifted my eyes and stared at the pale-faced girl in the mirror. Her eyes were rimmed with gold that melded into the vibrant shade of aqua, cheeks were flushed, and lips poised into a tight line. There was a hardness about her, an edge, as if any second she might jump over the cliff and plunge into the dark depths below.
Over the last few weeks, I had rolled through the stages of grief, moving from shock to denial, then to pain and guilt, which brought me to rage. This stage seemed to hit me the hardest. I could not seem to move on to the next phase. I was just so fucking angry all the time.
But it was the Crown of Darkness glittering like the ocean at night that changed me wholly. The crown was made with dark magic and here in the mortal realm was not a tangible object. My fingers could pass through the peaks, and no one else could see it—no one else except for Angel.
Exhaling, I pulled my gaze away from the mirror and glanced back down at my hand. The bleeding had already stopped, leaving me with just the silence. And the pulsing in my head. I wasn’t concerned about the cut on my hand. It would heal soon enough and had already started to stitch itself back together. Demon blood was handy in instances like this.
What I was concerned about was the storm brewing inside me. Something would have to give.
Shoving out of the chair, I flung open my bedroom window and stuck my head outside. The biting air of winter nipped at my cheeks, but I welcomed the cold, even if it was a painful reminder of him.
I didn’t want to think his name. Thinking about the demon who was my mate only fueled the anger I so desperately wanted to rid myself of. It was all-consuming, much like my desire for revenge on the demons who’d destroyed my ability to love.
Opening my mouth, I screamed into the howling winds, releasing the fury building inside me. When I was done, I listened with my demon hearing as the icy air whisked away the echo of my pain.
For a few more moments, I gazed out over the snow-dusted fields across the street from my home. Each flutter of snow that had fallen over the last month was like reopening a fresh wound, leaving me raw and exposed to the world.
But nothing was worse than the night—the twinkling of stars.
It would be easy to say that my life went back to normal. Well, as normal as life could be for me. I’d never had a mundane or dull existence. When you were half demon, those average days weren’t in the cards for someone like me—a Divisa.
There was no going back after what I’d experienced. There was only existing.
Every day was a struggle.
I liked to torture myself and sneak up on the roof to just lie there. It was the only time I actually got a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. My demon blood kept me from freezing to death; that and the heated blanket I wrapped around myself.
Travis caught me out here shortly after I’d returned from my stint in the underworld. The disapproval had been written all over his face. “Are you kidding me, Lex?” he had scolded, and then promptly climbed through the window to join me. “Do you know how dangerous it is out here? The roof is blanketed in ice and snow.” He had a valid point, but the spot I’d chosen to sit was covered by a little gable that shielded the shingles underneath it. I had also cushioned the roof with a thick blanket. “Not to mention, it’s cold as balls out here.” He proceeded to shiver, running his hands up and down his arms as his breath clouded in front of his face.
My brother and I shared many similarities, mostly in looks. His sandy-blond hair was disheveled like he’d spent the past hour raking his hands through it. Our personalities were night and day though. He never took anything seriously and always looked like he was part of some joke none of us were in on, but I could always count on him. So I had just tugged my legs up to my chest and rested my chin on the top of my kneecaps. “It’s the only place I can sleep,” I told him.
He draped an arm around my shoulders and scooted closer to me. “After witnessing that place firsthand, I can understand that.”
No one liked to talk about the Court of Darkness. Not because they didn’t want to or weren’t curious, but because they were afraid I would fall apart. Again. It was a legitimate fear. I rested my head on his shoulder. “Thanks, Travis.”
That had been the last time he expressed his worry about me going out on the icy roof. If he happened to pass my bedroom in the middle of the night, or if he saw me from the driveway after coming home from Emma’s house, he would come to sit with me and not say a thing. It was exactly what I needed, just to know he was there.