Gardeness, Verena isn’t safe.” I could have sworn I saw something akin to genuine fear in her expression. “You need to be careful where you go sticking your nose. If Kali manages to do what no king or queen has done in centuries, demons will walk freely in all worlds. She will have the power to break the barrier between realms. That can’t happen.”
Leaning my head against the headboard, I tugged my knees up to my chest, my blood turning cold. “That we can agree on.” A moment of silence stretched between us before I asked, “What do you know of Ashor?” There was still so much I didn’t know about the man who was fated to be my heart, soul, and body. It scared me to think that I didn’t really know anything about someone I was tied to for eternity, but then again, I had an eternity to uncover everything about Ashor. What made him laugh. What made him tick. His favorite color. The last time he cried. Did demons cry? A bazillion unanswered questions.
She ran her thumb over her bottom lip, looking lost in memories that probably spanned centuries. “Your mate has made quite the reputation for himself in the underworld.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“The royal higher demons stick together, rarely mingle with the lower class, but that doesn’t mean we don’t hear things.” My mother was considered a lower demon. “Those with true power keep their thrones. Considering the permanent status of a challenge by higher or lower, their positions are rarely threatened, only by those with a true death wish. The Queen of Darkness is a forceful and cunning ruler; that has allowed her to preside over her court for centuries. No demon has dared take what she has claimed, although many thought her son would. And still do.”
“Which son? She has two sons,” I added to be clear.
“Two she calls sons, but only one is blood. The other is… made, I guess you could say, but not in the natural sense. It is unheard of for a demon queen to have a child of her own, rarer even than a female lower demon. I can only think of two queens in the last century who have been able to carry a child to term. Kali and Verena. When Ashor was born and his powers began to manifest, the underworld was buzzing about the prince. The whispers about him stretched from court to court.”
“What kind of whispers?” I couldn’t help but ask.
Her lips quirked. “That he would be the King of Darkness, that his powers rival his mother’s, that the queen keeps him close and under her control because she fears what he might be capable of, the unbridled darkness he can wield, control, and summon. For decades, the queen tried to conceive another child and failed, so she turned to other methods. Rumor is she captured a creature from another world and it was with that thing she bore Soren.”
A shudder tiptoed up my spine. “That explains a lot.”
Her brows lifted, a soft shadow of moonlight grazing the side of her face. “You’ve met the abomination, then?”
I nodded.
“Even in Hell, there are some things that shouldn’t exist. Many say the creature still lives in her dungeons.”
I gulped. It couldn’t be, could it? The Ngah? I didn’t want to think too long or hard on it, not when I had other pressing matters, but I would never forget the creature who had informed me of my bond with Ashor. Never in my life had I ever met anything like it. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to ever again. I had a hard enough time believing there were other worlds out there than just mine, Heaven, and Hell. “So the Prince of Darkness is like the hellish version of Chase. Wonderful.”
She let a throaty chuckle. “I would say that is a fair assessment. I can smell him on you—the darkness. It clings to your skin, to your very soul.”
My eyes lifted to hers. “The prince said something I never allowed myself to consider before. About my demon.”
“Oh, what would that be?” she inquired coyly. An act neither of us bought.
I pulled my knees in tighter, circling my arms around my legs. “That I am part succubus. That like you, sex is my power. Is that true?”
“Of course,” she said matter-of-factly with a partial grin.
Crap. I didn’t want to think too hard about what that meant. Not now. One problem at a time.
“Are you still willing