Page 1 of Hell Fae Warden

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PROLOGUE: TYPHOS

Pain etched across my back,shredding through my feathers as I fell.

She betrayed me,I thought, whirling through a cloud of fiery intensity.She used me. Vivaxia—

A blast ricocheted through my being, the source ripping apart in response to my agony. My anger. Myneedfor vengeance.

She’ll pay. They’ll all fucking pay.

I roared, my wings billowing in the fire, attempting to pull me to freedom, to face my aggressors, to slaughter them all.

But I was too weak. It didn’t matter that Azazel had warned me. There hadn’t been enough time, the plan too close to completion for me to properly prepare for this fight.

Oh, but Melek…I swallowed.My precious Melek.

Would it be enough?

Or would he perish with me in this fall? Tossed from the Virtuous planes.Down… down… down…

“Typhos,” Melek whispered into my ear. “I’m here.”

I glanced around the burning clouds, searching for my prince. My love. Myheart.Where?I wanted to ask, unable to see him.It’s too bright. Too hot. Too—

My eyes narrowed, a strand of gray light curling up into my vision with a tainted black edge.What is that?I wondered, suddenly distracted from the intense power eating away at my spirit.Is the source… dying?

No, that’s not right.I frowned.None of this is right.

Where am I?

“Typhos,” Melek repeated. “Look at me.”

I blinked, then searched for him to obey, his voice an anchor in my world that I would forever latch on to. But I couldn’t see him. Just more fire.And that strange strand again.

Something was… fracturing.The source,I recalled.Yes. The reason I’m falling.

Except… no. That wasn’t right. I’d fallen eons ago.

What is happening to me?

“Typhos.” Melek’s voice held a renewed urgency to it that pierced right through my heart. “Wake. Up.”

Wake up?I repeated, delirious all over again.I’m not…

My lips curled down, that tendril turning completely black in my peripheral vision and forming a jagged edge in the white flames.

“Typhos!” Melek shouted.

But I was too consumed by that strange fissure in the otherwise flawless surface. I reached out to touch it and hissed at the sharp edge.A fracture in the source,I realized.But that… that isn’t possible.

Nor was any of this around me.

This… this nightmare of my past melting into my present.

I’d fallen.

I’d created a new source.

And now, Iprotected.

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