At least he’d given my mind something else to focus on.
Because now I didn’t just want to escape—I wanted to kill my parents, too.
The castle-like buildings loomed overhead, their obsidian stones writhing with snakes and crows that glinted in the moonlight. Tiny gargoyles littered the upper spires, resembling statues. Except one of them moved, confirming they were very real.
And creepy as fuck.
While I knew that we’d moved into a magically protected area of an otherwise inhospitable land—the Hell Fae Realm in all its glory—a heated breeze still found its way through the cobblestone sidewalks and charcoal-colored courtyards, sizzling my skin in a way that was starting to feel like a sunburn despite the midnight sky.
No one else seemed bothered by it.
The realm’s inhabitants were more focused on the Warden than on the environment, their gazes lowering in respect as we began to walk by them. Some of the beings even bowed.
Clearly, I’d been wrangled into submission by one of the more powerful members of this realm.
Not the best person to begin plotting an escape around.
As though to agree with my thought, the snakes writhed and hissed along the walls, the sound a stark warning to my senses.
Right. Not allowed to contemplate escape.
However, that didn’t mean I couldn’t find another way to leave—one I could do “legally.”
Such as finding a way to break the deal my father had made with the proverbial devil.
“Do you have a copy of this deal somewhere?” I wondered out loud.
The Warden glanced at me, his gaze assessing. “I believe there’s one waiting for you in your room. But I can assure you, there are no loopholes. Lucifer penned the documents himself.”
Lucifer.
I’d never had the displeasure of meeting him, but my father had told me stories about the infamous Hell Fae King. Hell was a very real place, not somewhere for souls to live out their afterlives, but a prison for fae—the worst of the worst. Except Lucifer had made it his very own kingdom, one infamous for his twisted deals where only he came out on top.
“And this agreement trades me in exchange for…?”
The Warden shrugged. “I’ve not read your particular deal. It could be anything, really. Wealth. Power. Freedom.”
“And are you here as part of a deal, too?”
He paused in front of a set of marble stairs, his cloak billowing in a shadowy breeze that only seemed to touch him and not me. “It takes a naïve soul to deal with the proverbial devil.” His gaze flicked over me before he added, “And I am not naïve.”
“I’m not the one who agreed to a deal.”
“No,” he agreed. “Your father did.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked him, curious. “You’re not a Hell Fae.”
His lips curled, but his smile wasn’t kind. “And you’re observant.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“Because you haven’t earned a response.” He stepped forward until my breasts brushed his torso. “I helped you with the crows because Lucifer would be disappointed to lose yet another candidate to his alarm system. Don’t mistake that as a kindness, because I am not kind.”
“No, you’re just the Warden.”
“I am.” He held my gaze for a long moment, then took a step back. “This way.”
He started up the stairs with a flourish, his cloak billowing behind him on that shadowy breeze. It was like a perpetual dark cloud that followed his every step, all the way up to the top.
