Until now.
The dark fae realm of Midnight… One rumored to have escaped… Ask for his assistance…
Her words were the bolt-cutters on those iron chains, unleashing all the pain I’d so diligently buried. It seeped into my heart, burning it like hot acid, taunting me from across the long years as if no time had passed at all.
Midnight. The most treacherous realm in the universe, controlled by the darkest of the dark fae. A place where the sun never rose and so much blood had been spilled upon its war-torn lands, the lakes and rivers ran red. Melantha was right—there was no way I’d survive it alone.
And the fae who had?
There was no way I’d survivehim, either.
Not again.
“I will return you to the mortal plane,” the Goddess continued, as if I wasn’t falling apart before her eyes. “To the city of—”
“New Orleans,” I whispered, and she nodded, sealing my fate.
A tear slipped down my cheek.
New Orleans. The one place I swore I’d never, ever go. A place that terrified me even more than Midnight.
No, not because of the ghosts that haunted the city’s many cemeteries and historic landmarks.
Because of the ghosts that haunted my heart. The ones she’d just set loose.
“And this… thisfae,” I said, still unable to speak his name out loud, even after all these years. “If he refuses to help me?”
Her black lips twisted into a cruel grin, her wings spreading to their full, terrifying span. The ground rumbled beneath her feet, but instead of flames, skulls rose from the dirt, a dead army blooming at her command.
Behind me, a portal opened, ready to ferry me to New Orleans.
To him.
“Convince him, Darkwinter,” Melantha hissed. “Or the ones you claim to love will suffer the consequences of your failure.”
I nodded and took a deep breath.
Fought off an onslaught of memories—strong hands sliding into my hair. Eyes the color of molten silver. Promises whispered, promises broken. The salty taste of tears and the dull ache of wounds that never fully healed.
I took a step backward, then another.
Closed my eyes.
And tumbled, ass over teakettle, into my own private hell.
2
HALEY
Two years.
That’s how long I’d spent convincing myself this place didn’t exist. Convincing myself that Elian’s return from captivity in Midnight and the subsequent launching of a whole new life in New Orleans—one thatdidn’tinclude me—was just a rumor.
Now, standing before the entrance to his exclusive French Quarter club, I could no longer deny the truth.
Saints and Sinners, the sign read. To humans, it was just another abandoned cathedral with blown-out windows and crumbling spires, complete with a hulking gargoyle perched above the main archway.
But for those of us who could see past the illusion of the fae glamour, a set of glowing silver doors awaited—an invitation I still couldn’t bring myself to answer.
