Page 7 of Queen of the Wicked
“What the hell?” He took a step back and glanced behind him. It wasn’t until then that they both realized the wings she felt earlier had vanished. “What did youdo?Whoareyou?”
Oh, he was angry.
Veryangry.
If she had to guess, he was powerless now, and she was taking the fucking chance while she had it to bolt. It was a shot in the dark, but she lurched away from him to sprint towards the house. She was faster than she’d ever been, practically gliding on the grass. Erebos was taller, though, so he was quick on her heels, cursing himself every step of the way.
Alessia made it back to the familiar porch in record time, but when she threw open the front door to find her parents and scream for help, a sickness washed over her as soon as she saw what lay before her.
Her mom, Haleth, was on the ground, with blood-stained angel wings sprawled behind her and a lifeless gaze that had Alessia’s world falling apart at the seams.
Haleth was a seraph.
And she was dead.
Chapter 3
Erebos
The girl stared at the seraph like she didn’t just kill her. Like she didn’t murder not only one seraph buttwo.He was still reeling at the thought.
An important soul, indeed.
“What?” Erebos mused. “Finally feeling the regret of what you’ve done?”
She whirled to face him, her emerald eyes with red-ringed irises blazing. They looked like his own, minus the green, when he was past the point of reasoning—hispower, which was now gonethanks to her.
Did she take it from him?
Erebos clenched his hands into fists, creating crescents on his palms. He knew what those red rings meant. Anger. And since he no longer had any power, he was unfortunately at her mercy.
At amortal’smercy.
Fucking hell.
“I didn’t killher. That’s my…” She shook her head, unable to look at the dead body. “That’s my mom.”
He barked out a laugh. “Try again. No way would someone possessing dark magichave a seraph for a mother.”
The girl lifted her satin nightgown a bit, and he sucked in a breath at her now exposed, thick thigh when she glanced at her knee. Nothing was there. Not a mark to be found.
“It was there,”she insisted. “I scraped my knee on the roof as I tried to find my way to the ground, and that’s where the blood came from. I didn’t kill her. I don’t even know how touse my powers. I knownothing.” Then, as if she had this great epiphany, she whirled around to look at the rest of the house. “Where is my mother? Did she…did she escape?”
Erebos leaned against the rickety door. “You have two mothers?”
She nodded and bit her wobbling bottom lip.
Sointriguing.Why was he called upon to bring her back to Hell? The girl didn’t look like she had an evil bone in her body. Well, until she made a seraph bleed out from his eyes a few minutes ago.
An intricate braid of black hair hung over her shoulder, reaching her breasts. He tried to ignore her pebbled nipples beneath the nightgown, but he found himself drawn to them, unable to look away. It made the bile rise in his throat at the thought of lusting after a mortal. He hadn’t fucked in a while, so he drew it up to that.Accepting the truth would be too difficult to handle at the moment.
If there was anything he hated more than emotions, it was crying. He was the Lord of Hell. Tears weren’t his thing. But the girl currently sobbing beside her mom’s body was a ticking time bomb, and with her potentially carrying all of his powers, he had to act like he gave a damn. She couldn’t escape him until he figured out how to regain his powers.
“Okay, so let me humor you and say I believe you didn’t kill the seraph. Why was Godric after you? Or do you truly not have a clue?”
She was crying so hard she could hardly catch her breath, shaking her head in disbelief. “I-I don’t know.Growing up, I was taught about magic and the history of Heaven. I was told I was important and would have answers on the day of my twenty-sixth birthday, which is today. I was supposed to learn about who I was tonight at midnight. You know, about my powers and what that meant untilyoushowed up and—” Her eyes blazed red. Not black, butred. Pure red. The color of crimson blood. “Youkilled her, didn’t you?”
Fuck.
