Page 25 of Hades

“Keep walking, sweetheart,” I mumble to her, even though I know she can’t hear me.

I mentally note to talk with Ash about his overly flirtatious doorman. Aradia laughs at something he says and tosses a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Ohh, fuck no,” I growl.

Taking a step forward, I’m about to cross the street when he bends down to scratch behind Argos’ ears. The traitorous mutt leans into it. Aradia continues to talk and laugh with the behemoth, and from where I’m standing, it looks as if she’s flirting with the big oaf. She probably wouldn’t be so friendly if she realized what she was talking to.

Standing my ground, I look down at my watch. She’s been talking with him for almost twenty minutes. “Dude, don’t you have a job to do?” Another passerby gives me a concerned look, so I give him the single-finger salute.

By the time she moves off, I’m so agitated I’m ready to rip the guy’s head off and send him back to whatever hole in Hell he crawled out of. I give her a few minutes before heading to talk with him.

“I’m only going to talk to him,”I say to myself as I cross the street and head to the entrance of The Black Door Club.

The moment he sees me heading in his direction, he stands a bit taller. Is he trying to intimidate me? I let out a silent laugh at the thought.

“Sir,” he growls out and gives me a slight bow of his head. Most people would think that the get-up he has on is an attempt to look the part of a demon. I happen to know thisishow he looks. A demon could only walk virtually undetected in Vegas because he supposedly plays a demon.

“You were talking to a woman a few minutes ago?” I ask, not giving him any reason not to answer.

He gives me a pointed-toothed grin, and I want to punch it off his face. “Aradia, sir.” He doesn’t elaborate any more than just her name, but he doesn’t have to. I can smell the pheromones wafting off him. He’s clearly attracted to her, though I can’t say as I can blame him.

I let out a low growl and he immediately takes a step back. I may have been in hiding for the better part of the last century, but every demon knows who I am.

“What did she say?” I demand. “Exactly,” I add while looking at him dead in his eyes.

He lowers his head a bit more so that his gaze no longer meets mine. “I just wished her safe travels on her journey, sir.”

“That was a long conversation for you just to bid her safe travels. What else?” It’s easy to see that my questioning him makes the demon a tad uncomfortable. Good.

“We only spoke about her traveling, sir, nothing else. She may have also asked if I live here.”

My fists clench at Aradia asking this creature if he lives here. Why would she care? Did she have hope of coming back to visit him? I can feel the muscles in my face start to twitch at the thought.

“Do you have any idea who she is?” My voice is barely audible through my gritted teeth, and the question is out of my mouth before I can think better of asking it.

“Other than her name, no, sir.”

“She is mine!” My voice is so thunderous that the ground shakes. I can hear the tourists behind me yell and scream at the tremor. It’s nothing compared to what I could do. “You would be wise to forget you ever met her,” I warn before flashing out of this existence and back to my own. Fuck their gates. I don’t need them.

The blazing sign of The Inferno lets me know I’m home. I knew I shouldn’t have gone back. I should have just let her go, for once.

“Fuck!” I yell as I shove through the doors. If they weren’t made to be manhandled, they would have splintered into a hundred pieces at the force I used to shove through them. Every head in the place turns toward me. “Fuck off!” I yell as I push through the crowd, one destination in mind.

My office is dark and thankfully empty. I’ve no idea where Reaver has gone. He’ll either run to Kennedy or disappear. Truthfully, at this point, I don’t care as long as he does something. The stone tablet that covered the seeing basin for the better part of a century is cracked in half, lying at the basin’s base. Part of me hoped Reaver would have covered it back up, but no such luck.

“Shit,” I mutter as I peer over the edge and gaze into the black, inky liquid. It takes less than a breath for the water to churn and illuminate. I’m transfixed, as I always am, unable to pull away as I wait for it to reveal Aradia to me.

The image begins to take shape, and for the first time in an eternity, it doesn’t show me my beloved. It takes me a few moments to comprehend what I’m seeing. I didn’t lie to Reaver. The basin will show many images, and the time isn’t always relevant. And I have seen the bringer of my demise more than once.

But this is something… unexpected.

I recognize the wolf-shifter, I’ve seen him in my travels. He’s the Timber Cove Pack’s Alpha, Acheron. The more I look at the wolf, something seems off, especially when I hear a scream, one that I would recognize anywhere, anytime. It’s Aradia’s scream. Though the situation doesn’t make sense, my blood begins to boil at the thought that she could be hurt.

How could Aradia be on this side? Who could have brought her over?

My mind immediately goes to the demon manning the door at Asher’s club—the one with more than a passing interest in what’s mine. My fingers grip the side of the marble dais and dig in. I can feel the stone begin to grumble between my fingers.

The inky water churns again, showing me a familiar scene. It’s the one that will lead to my death. A horde of demons that have traveled up from the bowels of Hell descend on me as Aradia is forced to watch. I’ve lived with this knowledge for longer than I can remember, as it was the first vision the basin showed me. I just didn’t realize the time was drawing so near.

“Show me Aradia,” I demand, and for once the water listens.

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