Page 4 of Kingdom of the Two Moons

The Scarlet Death—that’s what she is. That’s what some call her. One of the most feared witches in the whole fae world. And beyond, it seems.

So feared that even Fenrir, the wolf shifter who was banned from the fae lands because he couldn’t control his bloodlust, almost shit his pants.

This little piece of filth fled his execution, carving out a livingin the human realms like so many others of his kind. A wolf without a pack is either a dead wolf or a crazy one. Since there is no alpha around to control creatures like him, he’s turned out to be the latter.

Here, he’s just another unleashed carnivore who preys on young women with no one around to stop him. Shit, without the angels guarding the worlds, all kinds of monsters have started to roam all too freely, too unchecked, and the humans are utterly helpless.

Well, until now.She would end him and Lyrian and his shady trade along with it.

Oh, she’d gladly wipe them all from the face of the Earth.

Maybe it isn’t too bad to be a monster sometimes, as long as you are the biggest one in the aquarium.

“Where’s Lyrian?” she asks, not for the first time.

“I don’t know where he lives, witch.”

Blair licks her lips in annoyance. Lyrian, the underworld god of the fae in the human world. A necessity for those shunned ones to hide their fae features, but a perverse one.

“I know you’re one of his best deliverers,” Blair drawls, studying her nails and the dried blood under them. “I know that keeping your existence hidden in the human realm requires a bunch of dirty, shady work to trade for harvested magic. The kind Lyrian sells. So tell me where you delivered all those people to. Must have been a lot over the years. I’m sure you have a secret meeting spot. Not easy to get rid of so many and harvest them. Even harder without anyone noticing. Must be somewhere secluded. So where?”

Fenrir only whimpers again. Blair rolls her eyes before she punches him straight in the face. Bones crush, followed by a nasal sob.

But the heat is getting to her, making her impatient. Not that patience has ever been her strong point. But it takes a lot not to lash out and go for Fenrir’s throat straight away.

She needs to get to Lyrian—the elf she’s been hunting and searching for more than a year now. He’s barely more than a rumor. But all the scum she’s tracked down and tortured so far have led her to Fenrir, and Fenrir would finally lead her to Lyrian.She is so close. She can feel a tingling sensation in the tips of her fingers. The ache for bloodshed announcing itself… a prickling before she gets to the real deal.

Over the last year she’s gleaned so much information on Lyrian—the worst kind… what he did to the ones he hunted and how he did it and so on—that her whole essence burns to end his life.

It’s become personal for her.

After all, Lyrian is hunting her kind—all fae, witches included. Admittedly, the girl she is to retrieve for Perenilla—Melody—has become nothing but a side mission. But killing Lyrian... sometimes she dreams about that at night.

It hasn’t been easy to get on Fenrir’s tail. But once she found out where the wolf shifter’s hunting grounds were, all she had to do was dress up in that flimsy thing and look blurry-eyed and drunk.

She let him buy her another drink. Let him guide her to his car. He didn’t even look that bad. Nothing to suggest he was a creep who got off on raping girls before killing and eating them.

But even worse, he frequently wipes the memories of the police clean with more magic. He literally erases the girls from the memories of their families and friends, as if they never existed at all.

“Please,” Fenrir breathes again, the sound more like a pup whining. Blood clogs his nostrils, making his breathing hard.

Blair wriggles her long nails in front of his eyes, tracing one along his cheek, leaving a gaping cut in its wake. “Did they say the same to you when you raped them?” Blair’s voice is sweet and thick like honey, but she knows her eyes are not. Her eyes shine with unveiled hate and disgust. Utterly lethal.

Normally, she tortures her prisoners quickly to get the answers she needs about Lyrian and his whereabouts, but she’s been taking her sweet time with this one. Carving him up slowly, bit by bit. She’s let him hang here from these chains, head down so he has to swallow his blood while she works on him, over and over.

“Please, witch. Please, just kill me.”

He is no longer begging for freedom. Just for death. She must be doing something right after all.

“Do you think you deserve it? The sweet oblivion?” She shakes her head to answer her question, running her tongue over her silver teeth before she leans close to his ear. “You know, if I had more time on my hands, I’d take you to one of the oracles and throw you into the cracks of time and space, broken and wounded as you are, so that you would feel like this forever. Luckily for you, I don’t have the time, so I’ll just drain you. Give you a taste of your own medicine. After all, that’s what you do for Lyrian—trade live goods on the sly, right?”

When he looks at her, confused, she clarifies, “Collect fae so he can drain them.”

“I told you—I don’t know where Lyrian lives—” the shifter starts again, but she cuts him off with another punch to the face.

“Oh, drop it, fleabag, because it’s getting ridiculous. Iknowevery tiny dirty little bit you did, you piece of shit. And I know that youknowwhere I can find Lyrian. There’s nothing you can do to prevent me from getting my hands on him. Tell me and I promise that I will let you off the hook.”

It is indeed ridiculous, but she’s purposely let him draw this out. Partly because she delights in torturing him. But the real reason she’s left the bastard hanging there the whole day, left him rotting in the unbearable heat of this tiny wooden cabin in the middle of the desert, is that she went to find a crystal flacon to store his magical essence in.

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