Page 5 of Queen of the Wicked
“I know you made a pact with the Dark Goddess to save her life, only to kill her with your own hands.”
“I was trying to save her!”
“And you failed. You failed, Kaius. You saved her from one grave only to put her in another of your own making. Now she’s back, sin creeping up the veins in her fingertips, clawing at her ribcage—and you’re what? Trying to protect her? Waiting for that bonfire in her heart to burn out so you can pretend you didn’t drag her to Hell with you? Did she choose that fate or did you force it on her the way you forced it on me?”
“Enough!” Adelasia shouts from her place behind me. Rowan and I turn to face her, her eyes sharp like shattered glass, her voice like a dagger down our spines. “You two speak in riddles and I am not a battlefield to be conquered with the vile you spew at each other! I want answers. Kaius, who is he?”
Rowan tilts his head and snickers. “Fiery.”
Adelasia is flushed. Not just from anger, but from the lingering spell of his touch. Her lips are slightly parted, her scent laced with wariness and the faintest spark of arousal. I cannot blame her for it, but it still enrages me.
“He’s no one,” I tell her. “No one I wish to know, and no one you should care about.”
She scoffs, and Rowan takes a step toward her, sighing as if I’ve disappointed him. “He’s so flattering, isn’t he? I happen to be his older, wiser, and generally better-looking best friend.”
“Friend,” I scoff out and curl my lip in disgust. “Is that what we were when you left me in the ash for a set of wings?” His smile slips. “You’re no more a friend to me than the sun. Stay away from us. From her.”
His smile slips. Just a little bit. “Oh Kaius,” he says with a honeyed voice, so potent it’s even affecting my own senses now.“You can’t ask the moon to hide from the stars. You forget what I am and how…persuasive I can be.”
“I haven’t forgotten a thing.”
He smiles again. This time, less coy, more dangerous. “Auspicious.”
Four
Kaius
When Rowan vanishes into the shadows with the sound of laughter echoing into the night and his wings glittering into the distance like a ghost that never stops haunting me, Adelasia turns to me.
Her eyes are sharp and demanding. Not accusing. Not even cautious. She’s angry.
“Speak.”
Her words are simple, yet full of warning. And beneath it all, it’s not the same voice I’ve memorized in quiet hours and behind closed doors. Not the same voice that pledged her love to me while death stole her from my arms. There’s something hollow and lost in it. Like she’s still speaking from beyond the grave, forgotten parts of herself reaching for me while the fragile girl I once knew stands before me as a wicked vision of her former self.
I nod, and she follows me down the ruined corridors of the Obsidian Palace, the parts of it that we have yet to rebuild in the aftermath of her death and resurrection.
I’ve taken time to carefully rebuild each room to her liking. Before, she always complained about the walls being empty and lifeless. So I’ve filled it with artwork and intricate molding onthe walls. The library is clean and neatly organized. The throne room is decorated with fine velvets on the walls and golden pots filled with florals that die the moment she enters the room—yet I replace them every time.
It is still a work in progress, but I will redesign every room until the stars burn out if that is her wish.
When we reach my old study, she closes the door behind us with more force than she meant to, letting out a gasp when her new strength warps the iron handle. She blinks, turns, and crosses her arms while giving me a brutal stare.
“Who is he, Kaius? I want to hear it from your mouth.”
I give her a challenging glare back, the kind that used to get her to drop things, but she doesn’t back down. I sigh. “He’s someone from my past. Someone from…a long time ago. When I was different.”
“That is not an answer, Kaius. How well do you know him?”
Too well, is what I should say. But instead, I say nothing, and turn my back to her, trying to escape the heaviness in her gaze.
She lets out a dry laugh. “Of course you won’t tell me. Not even now. Not even after everything we’ve been through do you believe I deserve the truth when I ask for it.”
My jaw tightens, but I still can’t look at her.
“He changed his entire body into you and…made me want the filth he was putting into my head.”
“He’s an incubus,” I finally answer. “A pleasure demon. A shapeshifter. Whatever carnal desires you have, he’s made to give them to you. He feeds on the way your body reacts to him.”
