Page 11 of Hell Fae Commander
With a growl, I formed a portal back to the Marsh Lands and slipped through it.
I stepped through the wall of liquid fire and sank into the soft, damp soil of a world rocked by a portal I’d been unable to close.
No. The Hell Fae Halfling had done it for me.
Fucking Camillia.Her presence haunted my every step, causing my teeth to grind together in frustration.How did she know what would close the portal?She’d hit it with heat rather than water, which was counterintuitive to putting out a fire.
Yet she’d done it with ease and without hesitation.
Does she know who created it?I wondered as I moved across the murky earth.Didshecreate it?
A flurry of colorful wings had me glancing left as a group of Unseelie took off in a scatter, likely trying to avoid my presence.
Wise.
Destruction spanned out everywhere I looked. I’d shadowed to the other side of the Unseelie castle in response to Viper’s summons.
The lieutenant—whom the Nagas referred to as their king—appeared at the gate. As a Naga, and a Nightmare Fae, he could take either a human form or his monster one.
He’d chosen his human one to speak to me in, even though his long tail would be better suited to work through the marsh. But it was a measure of respect to come to me in a suit, which was what he wore now. Although, he wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath the unbuttoned vest.
He wasn’t wearing shoes, either.
He looked more like a warrior with his bare feet sunk into the muck and the lower half of his silky pants damp from walking through his territory. He didn’t seem bothered by it. His pants hung low, revealing muscles that betrayed his strength.
As a Naga, he likely spent most days scaling the kingdom’s rocky cliffs and slithering through the marshy terrain while hunting invading creatures. That took skill, athleticism, and a specialized talent for seeking out prey.
The Unseelie and the Nagas had a few natural enemies in the Marsh Lands that kept them busy. Given the Nagas’ declining population, the alliance between the two Nightmare Fae species had served them well.
But clearly, Viper played his part. He rippled with well-used muscles that put some of my spoiled Hellhounds to shame.
I’d once considered Viper for the post of Warden. He’d been the perfect candidate, given he could track any creature and tame any beast with his hypnotism ability.
But he excelled as King of the Nagas and would not have accepted the coveted station, nor would I have expected him to hole up in the dungeons in the palace’s dry underground.
“Thirty-five Unseelie deaths,” he informed me quietly, as was his style.
Now I understood why he’d called me. Most of my lieutenants—who were all considered kings among their faedoms—normally waited for me to contact them.
However, the incidents of late were unprecedented.
And Viper was well within his rights to page me after today’s destruction in his kingdom.
I should never have left after the portal was closed,I realized.But I’d been too caught up in Camillia’s show of power to think it through.
That was what Melek had been trying to tell me—that I had other priorities to consider right now.
Priorities like Viper.
“And Naga?” I asked him, already fearing what he would say. There had been a reason he’d started with the Unseelie death count rather than that of his own people. It must be a high number; otherwise, he would have led with that first.
His jaw ticked before he answered. “Almost a hundred. Ninety-eight, to be precise. The portal opened near a Naga cavern.”
I bowed my head, my eyes falling closed as I whispered an ancient prayer of condolences to him in the Naga tongue.
He answered in kind, then silence fell between us.
I waited several beats, aware of the quiet rituals his species favored.
