Page 61 of The Crown of Nyx

The smirk returned as he shrugged. “My duty to the Queen of Nyx and the Goddess Herself is to uphold the balance of the worlds. That was the promise I made when I took the throne of Elysian.” Rhadamanthus looked away from me and towards the gaping opening to the cave-room we were in, but my heart raced. “Dante, son of Sir Otto and the late Queen Greer, no longer holds those same values. He is an enemy.”

“Then why not say anything at the club? Why go through all of that with the mages?” I growled. Frustration built within me, tightening my chest, burning its way up my throat as I scrubbed a hand over my face. “And where the hell are my mates?”

25

Rhadamanthus

Ishould have felt at least mildly guilty about her stress, but I could not bring myself to do so when I needed to understand.

I hadn’t lied when I said I needed to know the truth. Whispers of the new Queen had made their way to me. Onyx, an old head of the Elysian House, and mated to Queen Greer, had written to me about the young Daughter of Nyx. The struggles she would face, and the burden that would come with her taking the throne after Greer. And he’d admitted he wasn’t sure if she would be strong enough without the allegiance of my House.

Nyx was certainly testing me with this one. Never had I been tempted by one of her blessed Queens. They’d been allies, sometimes annoyances. I remembered when Pandora assumed the throne. Working with her hadbeen difficult enough. The five after her challenges of their own.

But this one…this one called to a part of me that had long been dormant. It had been a coincidence, her landing in the House of Lust. I’d only used Ravenna as a tool to get my hands on the new Queen, but I hadn’t expected to feel so…

Alive.

She was not weak, no matter how much she claimed to be. Unlike the male trying to steal her throne, she’d been receptive to suggestions. Some Queens had taken the crown of Nyx and tried to slash their way to the top. They hadn’t wanted to understand what the different creatures were like, how they lived. But this one listened. She’d taken the time to try and understand what the succubus’s game was—even if it had been futile.

I never would have made her go through it. It had been a long time since I’d had an adequate partner in one of the House games. I was thankful we hadn’t landed ourselves in House Wrath, though. Those demons with their taste for blood and pain were the last thing I wanted the sweet Queen to deal with.

She was an odd temptation. One I knew I should not have. My promise to Nyx had relinquished me of such needs.

And yet, I felt almost like I did before the Rift. That time when creatures rarely interacted, when Nyx walked the worlds she called her home. Before Pandora and the great shift in magic.

I shook my head, looking away from the window and the sprawling fields stretching out endlessly beyond my city. My Queen stood with her hands curled into fists, that fake crown still resting atop her dark hair. It took all my power not to lift the silly thing from her head.It was barely even a placeholder—almost mocking in its similarities to the one she should actually be wearing.

“Your mates are safe,” I finally replied.

Her nostrils flared in frustration, and I sensed another question about the six creatures I had locked away. “Before you ask, they were never going to be harmed. As soon as it came to my attention that they were with Ravenna, I had them ferried to me here. They were always safe. And your half-Fae mate saw to that.”

Confusion flickered across her features, softening them slightly as she glared at me. “Hawk?”

“Yes.” I placed my hands in my pockets, once again admiring the way my snake marked her skin. It fit almost too well on her forearm. The essence was too happy there. “Your half-Fae mate is also of demon descent. Had he not told you?”

She stiffened. “It never came up,” she muttered, eyeing me warily now. “What did he do?”

“Nothing you need to worry yourself with.” I wouldn’t necessarily hold him to his bargain, though I wasn’t entirely sure why. It wasn’t even necessarily a risky deal, and once Ravenna revealed the extent of it, she had passed it onto me.

“Rhadamanthus—”

“Damon,” I cut her off. “Rhadamanthus is too formal for this.”

At that, she bristled. “Thisshouldbe formal. We were sailing to meet with you about travelling to the Old World. We need someone to take us.”

I tensed at the mention of the world we’d once called home. Relegated now to theOld World, when once it had been Nyx’s Domain. The land she had built for her creatures—for all of us. There had been a time where we lived harmoniously within the laws and magic ofthe human world, when old Gods reigned, and mortals bowed to kings. But we were not the allies they wanted. We’d posed threats.

And so, Nyx had claimed us as her own.

There was history I did not know, some I refused to remember. But there were still things that I let take up space in my mind. Memories that kept me alive.

I cleared my throat, shoving my hands in my pockets again. “Would you prefer a meeting in the throne room, perhaps? Where you are placed on a stage before my court?”

Her eyes narrowed. As she flexed her hands, light—electric, purple sparks—danced at the tips of her fingers. “I want my mates. And I want to make some sort of deal with you that gets us to the Old World. You seem to think you’re on my side—on Nyx’s side. So, prove it. Help me and my mates travel there. Then leave the rest up to us.”

“How do you expect to navigate the Old World?” I asked, though I knew the answer:her magic. She didn’t appear to have realised it, though, as her eyes darkened. I couldn’t exactly tellwhyI was so determined to get under her skin. Any other Queen, and I wouldn’t have cared.

A smile formed across my lips. “I am perhaps the only living being left who has wandered those lands,” I murmured. “Who has seen what it is capable of now. Unless you have a necromancer in your midst, capable of conjuring a spirit to guide you.”

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