to help me?” A part of me urged me to run, to get back on the next flight to Spring Valley and forget I ever met Ashor. If I did this, teamed up with my mother, I would be inserting myself into the middle of what could possibly be a demon war. My family would be in danger. But the truth was, we were already a part of this whether we wanted to be or not. Angel was a target and always would be for as long as she lived. Our demon blood allowed us to live longer, but Angel was a demon queen. She would live for as long as the crown sparkled on her head. Figuratively. Angel didn’t actually own a crown. Yet.
Funny. I wasn’t demon royalty, but somehow I ended up with a Hellish crown on my head. Demanding Ashor take this thing off me would be the first thing I did upon seeing the prince.
A tad of surprise entered her features. “You still want to make that bargain?”
8
Six months ago, I’d been killing demons like it was a nighttime gig. Except the pay sucked. Okay, it didn’t pay at all, but that was never a factor for me. I hunted because I had to. Because it was the only thing keeping me sane. I didn’t know what that said about me and my stability.
Now, I was sitting in the dark with my demon mother as she carved a blood oath onto my forearm. I already bore her demon mark on my wrist. Ashor’s mark was stamped onto the base of my neck. At this rate, I would be covered in tattoos from Hell.
FML.
This wasn’t how I dreamed my life would turn out at the age of twenty-three, but we don’t always get to choose the direction our life takes.
I winced as Kira sliced her nail along my skin, dragging it in a pattern of lines and curves of a demonic symbol. With her glowing eyes on mine, she opened up her arm with one clean cut, pressing it to my forearm to intermix our blood. Her lips murmured an ancient incantation, and with the words, the newly carved mark burned, searing itself into my flesh, before cooling into a mark that intertwined with the one I’d had since birth.
The deal was done.
She’d agreed to help me in exchange for a favor, one she could call upon at any time for any deed. It was stupid to agree to such an open-ended oath. I already knew it was one I would someday regret, but it was in the future. I’d deal with my mother and her request then. For now, I had bigger problems.
“Will you get me into the underworld?” I asked, pulling my gaze from the new mark. It still stung.
Rinsing the blood off her nail in the sink, she glanced over her shoulder at me. “Mortals don’t return from the underworld. You’ve already defeated the odds once. Are you sure you want to press your luck? If I arrange for you to get to Hell’s Gate, there is a good chance you won’t cheat those odds a second time. Is he worth your life?”
“I’m done living my life constantly looking over my shoulder. I have to find a way to stop him, to stop the queen. I don’t have a choice. We both know what will happen if the queen succeeds in starting this war.”
She turned off the tap and dried her hands on a towel. “That we agree on, but sneaking into Hell undetected and breaking the prince out is a certain death sentence, especially on your own.”
She had a point. I was embarking on a suicide mission. “Then what do you suggest?”
“I have a friend.”
“Of course you do.” I barely trusted my own mother, and she wanted to bring another person into the fold? The idea didn’t thrill me, yet it was the only feasible option. I needed a way in. “What is this friend going to be able to do?”
“We need information, and since I’m still banished from the underworld, I can’t exactly go strolling through Hell’s Gate, but if you are certain this is what you want, he can help you once you’re inside the gate, keep you undetected until you find the prince. If the prince is in fact in Gardeness, my friend won’t be able to step foot inside the Court of Envy, not without a personal invitation from Verena.” Kira had been banished from her court after giving