Page 69 of Crowned A Traitor
“I’m not here to kill you. I’m here to put a stop to the carnage.”
Abadan’s son. The truth of whom he was had been etched into her bones as she stared at her childhood friend.
“I wasn’t the one who started the fires,” Klara argued, and Frendall clenched his fists at his side.
“No, but you set this in motion. You forgot how to play the game, and now the Lycaons and many other Creatures are suffering.”
She wasn’t going to be tricked. He was trying to play on her compassion.
“We can return together and negotiate,” Frendall said, and she shook her head.
“They want you to rule with Mila, but I doubt that will happen. Once Abadan has my head, Eve’s daughter is the only one in Abadan’s way. Abadan won’t be satisfied until she rules Hell and Malum.”
Klara circled him.
“And we both know when she is done with them, she will go against the Fae Queen,” Frendall finished her rant.
“Hand me over now, and she might just give you Malum or go against her and take Hell. Give Malum to another Commander and leave me in peace to kill Abadan,” Klara said.
“I know my place, and it’s not on any throne. What my mother does in her time is not my concern,” Frendall barked at her, and she closed her eyes, willing him to disappear.
“You are the King’s Commander, the Demons respect you, obey you. The Hounds submit to you. The Demons don’t know me. I haven’t fought beside them, haven’t earned their trust. The Hounds remember my kindness, but they need a leader.”
“I don’t want it, you are the Heir to Malum, to Hell. Klara, the whole damn Forest exists for you.”
Klara turned her back on his naivety.Exists for me,she thought.
The Forest of Malum has survived for thousands of years before her and would endure long after her. He wasn’t making sense, “I just want to be left in peace. As you said, I don’t know how to play the game and I sure as Hell don’t want to.”
“Well, you don’t get peace,” his hands landed on her waist, and she flipped him onto the ground, not that it would hurt him. She crouched down beside him as he stared up at her.
“Don’t trust Abadan or any of them. They will stab you in the back.”
“The throne is vacant,” Frendall said, rolling to his side.
“Why is the throne vacant?”
She frowned thinking of the last time she saw her Father. They might have had him surrounded but he would have been able to portal to anywhere with a click of his fingers.
“Lucifer is gone, they went to confront him about your disappearance. Force his hand to choose a successor, and he vanished. Abadan found him but...”
“They went to cage him,” Klara corrected, wondering how he could believe the lies Abadan had spun.
“Where were you?” she asked, knowing he hadn’t been at her Father’s side when he forced her soul to Hell.
“I was with the Queen,” Frendall’s veins bulged in his neck as he tried to force out the words. A spell was preventing him from talking.Abadan must have cursed him,so he wouldn’t be able to reveal her plans.
Before she could ask, Klara heard the screeching shouts of the Demon scouts approaching. She went to run, but Frendall took her arm and spun her to face him, and she didn’t pull away.
“Going after them will be suicide. They have scouts, Hounds, Higher Demons, you can’t take them all alone,” Frendall said, moving closer.
“Fight with me, leave Hell and Malum to be run by the real evil,” Klara said, and he shook his head. “We didn’t choose this life, so I’m choosing a new one myself,” she argued, waiting for him to join her.
“There needs to be a balance. If Abadan claims the throne as the High Queen of Malum and Hell, she will allow the Demons to roam the planes, and her greed will consume everyone. Evil or not, the Demons need you as their Leader they are bound to yours and your Father’s blood, in service for their sins. If there is no one to serve there will be anarchy,” he said, and she hated that she had made the same argument to her Father.Where the Hell are you dad?
“All I want is Abadan’s head, and anyone who serves her will die by her side,” Klara barked, and the owls that rested in the branches leapt from the trees.
“Killing her is damn near impossible, and those Demons are following orders because there is no one on Hell’s throne. You don’t know because you haven’t…” Frendall stopped mid-sentence, and she felt like she had been slapped.
