by Bella Klaus
My head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
“What do you think Hades will do when he discovers we survived his heinous attack?”
I clutched at my stomach, which writhed with knots of dread. “He’ll come back.”
Mother pressed a handkerchief to her lips. “He’ll rape you and then me and whoever is in the house.”
“I fear that the villain will also plunder what’s left of my virtue,” Dr. Samael said with a grimace.
“Can’t we report him to the police?” I asked.
“Hades is above the law, I’m afraid.” The doctor walked across the room and helped Mother to her feet. “Come, My Lady, I must put you to bed.”
Mother cast me a stricken glance. “But Kora—”
“Young Kora has a brand-new body that will grow in strength. But I worry about your delicate condition.”
My gaze followed the pair out of the door, which closed with a click and a whirr. They had probably locked it in case Hades arrived with his henchmen. I blew out a shuddering breath and stared at the ceiling. This was all my fault.
“Why was I foolish enough to let a cat talk me into opening the door to a gang of men?” I moaned.
There was no answer.
I clenched my teeth. It didn’t matter what Mother or Dr. Samael said. If I ever met that cat again, I would wring its scrawny neck. Hell, if I ever saw Hades—
Lighting crackled from my fingertips, making me flinch. My eyes bulged, and my jaw dropped open.
Bloody Hell, I had powers.
I pushed myself up to sit, stretched out my palms and formed two balls of lighting that exploded into sparks. My breath quickened. Why hadn’t I used this power to fight back? Or did it belong to the new body Dr. Samael had acquired?
For the rest of the day, I practiced walking across the room, using the furniture as stabilizers. When I wasn’t exercising my motor skills, I experimented with my magic. I could fill the room with enough lightning to strike a man like Hades dead.
Hours later, the door clicked open, and Mother waddled inside, out of breath and holding a small tray containing a bowl of soup and two slices of bread.
“Mother.” I rushed to her side and took the tray from her hands.
She slumped against the wall. “Forgive me, Kora.”
“What for?” I shook my head. It was I who had wronged her.
“I should be taking care of you and providing nutritious meals, but in my weakened condition—”
“No.” I guided her to the chair. “It’s time I took care of you.”
Mother shook her head. “You’re my baby girl.”
“I’m a grown woman with powers.” Stretching out my arm, I produced a giant ball of lighting.
She clutched at her face. “Oh, my!”
I nodded. “If Hades comes here again, he’ll die.”
Mother’s shoulders sagged. “I wish it were that easy.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“As he defiled my body, I struck him with a curse.”
“Good,” I growled.
She dipped her head. “Not so good, I’m afraid. When he realizes that there’s no cure for it, he will track me down and demand that I restore him. He will even take the baby, and who knows what he will do to her.”
My gaze dropped down to Mother’s belly. “It’s a girl?”
Mother stared up at me, her blue eyes shimmering. “Just as pure and as innocent as you.”
I swallowed. “There has to be something I can do to protect you and my baby sister.”
“There is…”
“What?”
Mother reached into her pocket and extracted a hideous ring. It was gold with gemstones around its edges. At its front was a skull that contained eyes and teeth made of diamonds, and it wore an ornate crown of jets and diamonds.
I reared back. “What on earth is that?”
“The means to infiltrate his domain and strike him dead,” Mother said, her voice cold.
“Give it to me.”
She closed her hand around the object. “Don’t rush off unprepared. I need to train you on his strengths, his weaknesses, his domain.”
“All right.” My voice trembled. Not with apprehension, but with the desire to strike Hades down and save the family from further ruin.
I gazed from Mother’s tear-streaked face to the baby sister growing in her belly, determination thrumming through my veins. “I want to kill him now, but I’ll take the training. That way, I won’t fail.”
“Very well.” She handed me the ring.
I slipped it on my finger, wishing I could at least remember what Hades looked like. Was he seven feet tall and built like a wrestler, or was he a serial-killer type with a face like a weasel?
A memory dropped into my head of a handsome man wearing leather straps around his muscular chest and a leather skirt held together by a metallic belt buckle identical to the ring. His cloak was pure flame with a collar fashioned into the shape of a three-headed dog.
My breath hitched. That couldn’t be Hades.
The next memory was of him kissing a trail of fire from my breasts to my sex, making all kinds of filthy promises before pleasuring my clit with his tongue. After I had climaxed, he slid into me and took my virginity.
Mother tilted her head to the side and frowned. “Kora?”
I staggered to the edge of the bed and sat. “It’s the magic,” I murmured. “And all the strain of settling into this new body.”
She rose from her seat with a groan and waddled to my side. “Please don’t over-stress yourself. Eat your soup, relax, and gather your strength. We can go over what you need to do in the next few days.”
“Right.” I leaned forward and buried my head into my hands.
Images assaulted my mind. One of me sitting in the back of a car with a little girl, watching a man in red armor and black wings fighting a battle with Mother and a bunch of women. My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t see the man’s face, but it had to be Hades. Who else would bring a small army of demons to attack our family?
Anxiety grabbed me by the throat. If that was Hades, then who had been the man in my bed?
Memory after memory filtered through my consciousness like puzzle pieces thrown in the air. I was either terrified or aroused in half of the scenes.
One thing became clear. I had been to Hell, and Hades had used some form of trickery to get me there. But in each recollection including Mother, she had been a spiteful bitch.
I tightened my hands around the ring, rocking back and forth with a moan as another memory resurfaced. This one was of the same beautiful man, but his skin was tinged with green. By now, I knew Hades was my husband, and a man who loved me desperately.
Mother had possessed the body I was wearing and cursed him with a parasitic plant. After she had sprayed pollen all over his already weakened body, I had decided to come here for Persephone’s body.
I rose off the bed, my insides swirling with disgust. How dare she try to brainwash me into killing my own husband.
My hands curled into fists. I sent a silent word of thanks to Istabelle Bonham-Sackville for saving me from murdering an innocent man.
Mother would pay for her treachery.
Her, and Samael.
Chapter Five
I stormed to the door and pulled the handle, only to find that it was locked. How typical.
My gaze dropped down to the Hell ring that contained not only my memories of everything that had happened since the night of the ball but whatever I had been thinking about at the time. There was enough information in my head to piece together that my entire life had been a filthy lie.
But I still wasn’t completely sure why. Everything that had happened to me since I poured my memory into a ring was blank. I know that I had intended to replace my body with that of Persphone’s, but I had no idea how it had happened.
I glanced down at my body, noting the curtain of red hair flowing across my shoulders, the larger breas
ts, and the wider hips. My throat stiffened, and I swallowed over and over. I was no longer Kora.
“Forget about this,” I muttered. “Hades is out there suffering, and he needs me.”
A pit of fury formed in my stomach, bubbling, bristling, boiling at the implication that Hades had committed such atrocities. And that bloody Samael had a nerve to suggest a man like Hades would violate him!
I raced to the window, checked the sashes, the handles, anything that might give me a chance to escape. It was sealed shut.
Next, I closed my eyes and pushed my magic into the palace in Hell. Either they’d blocked the room, or my new body couldn’t teleport across realms. I tried teleporting into Hades’ St. James’s Park office, but that also didn’t work.
“Time to use brute force,” I muttered.
The door handle was one of those metallic objects that you pulled down that also had an attached lock. Melting it might be too time consuming, but the door itself was wooden and looked easy enough to destroy.
I placed my hands to the top and bottom of the handle and pushed my power into my palms. The wood burned beneath my fingertips, filling my nostrils with the heat and scent of smoke. Clenching my teeth, I turned my head and forced my breaths to become shallow. There was no point busting through this prison and then collapsing from inhaling toxic fumes.
Minutes later, I burned a hole around the handle, completely bypassing the locking mechanism. I eased my fingers into the charred wood, pulled the door open, and stepped out into the hallway of a derelict mansion.
The moment the thick air reached my nostrils, I gagged. Dust and mold and mildew combined with a hint of brimstone that made my stomach churn. I clapped a hand over my nose and mouth, trying not to gape at my surroundings.
How on earth had Mother navigated this hallway in her condition? Soot covered the crumbling plaster walls, and daylight streamed through a floor consisting of half-eaten planks.
“Bloody hell,” I muttered into my mouth, making sure to take tentative steps. “This place looks ready to fall apart.”
As I continued through the hallway, the wooden boards yielded underfoot with a mix of damp and woodworm. I splayed out my hands for balance in case the floor collapsed under my weight.
Why on earth had they put me in a place like this?
At the center of the corridor, the walls opened up to a grand hallway that would have once housed a crystal chandelier large enough to serve an entire street. Beyond the mezzanine, a trio of windows stood twenty feet tall, flooding the space with daylight.
This would have once been a grand house, where its owners could have held the type of fancy balls on period dramas. I tried not to think about how it had fallen to such ruin and hurried onward.
At the end of the hall was a set of stairs that looked as though they’d suffered at least two dozen fires and would crumble to ash the moment I tried to descend. I closed my eyes, pictured Namara’s office, and sent my magic out to St. James’s Park. When I opened them, I was still at the top of the burned-out stairwell.
“Shit,” I muttered under my breath.
A cool breeze meandered in through a broken window of blackened glass that offered glimpses of an overgrown garden. I focused my magic on the mansion’s exterior, and in the blink of an eye, I stood outside.
My lungs filled with the scent of grass, wet earth, and pollen. An insect buzzed too close to my ear, making me flinch.
Opening my eyes, I found myself in the middle of what I could only describe as a jungle of six-foot-tall brambles covered in white flowers. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to avoid the thorns. The mansion stood fifty feet away, a three-story Georgian building that had once been white but had now fallen to rot and ruin.
“Couldn’t I have at least teleported to the doorstep?” I muttered. “Or onto the main road?”
I glanced from side to side, trying to work out if I was in another country, another realm, or some form of Hell. Judging by the amount of ivy growing around everything, it looked like I was still in England, and from the distant sound of traffic, there was a road nearby.
Closing my eyes once more, I tried teleporting to Namara’s office, but I remained in place. My heart skipped. If I could leave this garden and step out of the wards, I could try again.
Lowering my head, I jogged back toward the derelict, where the ground was paved and there was no chance of thorns slashing at my face. Brambles and foliage caught in my longer hair, making me have to yank myself free.
“What is it with this body?” I growled. “It’s a magnet for vegetation.”
By the time I reached the paved area, I was covered in flowers, stalks, stickyweed, and vines. I jogged around the garden and along the side of the derelict to where I hoped would be a driveway or at least an exit.
“Who goes there?” said a deep voice.
A palpitation of shock had me whirling around to meet the amber eyes of a seven-foot-tall man with oversized teeth. He wore the black uniform of a security guard and was either a demon wearing a poor glamor or a hybrid.
“Who are you?” I asked in my haughtiest voice.
His thick brows rose to his cap. “I’m the one asking the questions, and you’re trespassing.”
“Well, sorry about that,” I said, trying not to sound sarcastic. “If you could point me in the direction to the nearest road, I’ll be on my way—”
“No.” He pulled out a gun. “I’ve got to clear this with the boss.”
Dread plummeted into my stomach, and I reeled forward. I forced my features into a neutral expression. Hopefully, this guard wasn’t too bright, and I could talk my way out of being captured.
“What are you talking about?” I furrowed my brow, trying to look confused. “Someone told me this was the Museum of Natural Plants. Let me go, and I won’t bother you again.”
He grinned, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement. “Nope, that’s not how security works, young lady.”
I clenched my teeth. Was he about to mansplain being a mindless henchman? Something moved behind me. I turned around to find a quartet of similar-looking guards standing at my back, each staring down at me through unusually colored eyes. The one on the right hadn’t even made an effort with his disguise and sneered at me through slitted red pupils.
“What’s going on?” I glanced from the overgrown garden to the derelict’s exterior, looking for a means of escape.
“You triggered the alarms, Miss,” said the first guard from behind. “We’re obliged to investigate all disturbances.”
Sparks flew from my hands. It looked like I would have to fight my way out. “Let me go,” I snapped. “Or I’ll reduce you all to char.”
“There’s no need for violence,” rasped a voice from behind the wall of security guards.
They parted to reveal Samael, who still wore his three-piece suit doctor costume, complete with the less alarming face. My stomach lurched. Now that I knew what to look for, his face appeared too smooth to be real. Either he’d had extensive cosmetic surgery, or his ugliness was too severe to hide behind a glamor.
Samael smiled at me, revealing a mouthful of serrated teeth. In this new body, I towered over him by four inches, even while wearing slippers.
“Kora.” He elongated the syllables. “I see that your memories have returned.”
Every ounce of blood drained from my face to power my clattering heart, but I smoothed my features into a mask of mild bemusement.
“Dr. Samael, what are you talking about?” I tilted my head to the side.
“There’s no need to pretend with me.” He mirrored my expression, letting the light of the sun bounce off his slicked-down hair. “You’re trying to reach Hades.”
I made sure to curl my fists. “Of course I am. Hades needs killing for what he did to Mother and me. Violations like that can’t be forgiven.”
Samael chuckled with a dry coughing sound that held no mirth. “You cannot fool me, child.”
A cool wind rustled t
hrough the garden, making my skin tighten into goosebumps. I swallowed hard, my gaze darting from side to side. Teleporting wasn’t an option. I had tried within the brambles. If I used my lightning to fight the demons, some of it might hit Samael, and I would incite the wrath of Heaven for attacking a fellow monarch.
A shudder ran down my spine at the memory of Varaha, the boar demon who had turned to salt after biting an extra mouthful of food without permission. I couldn’t let the same happen to me.
“Kora.” He reached for me with a gloved hand.
I snatched my arm out of reach and stepped back, bumping into the first demon guard. “Don’t touch me.”
Samael raised his palms. “We started off on the wrong foot.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“I no longer have any animosity toward Hades.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
He placed his hands on his hips. “Now that I have a working penis, his jibes no longer sting.”
My gaze wandered down the pinstriped suit that covered his thin frame and to his slim-fitting pants, where an unruly bulge snaked down his right leg. It was larger than any I’d seen, with a bulbous tip that twitched under my gaze.
Trying not to gag, I glanced at the demons surrounding Samael, wondering how they would react to his admission. They all stiffened and held their faces in expressionless masks. Something in their postures told me that they knew not to snicker at his castration.
Turning my gaze back to Samael, I asked, “What are you talking about?”
“Your pretense at ignorance is becoming tiresome,” he snapped.
My nostrils flared. I had no idea how he knew I was back to being myself, but my insides tightened with readiness for a fight. “What do you want from me?”
“A truce.” He folded his arms across his thin chest.
“Go on.” I raised my brows.
“Like I said, I know you’ve regained your memory, and you have no intention of assassinating your beloved husband.”
I clenched my teeth, waiting for him to get to some kind of point.