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Cole sighed as if put out, but I could read him well enough to know he was covering his own concerns. “No doubt Hecate has spent them strategizing for how we may survive the apocalypse.”
“She definitely had contingencies in place.” I swallowed back my anger at the enchantress. How quickly she’d wanted to move on when Cole was gone. But it wasn’t her fault—the feat I’d pulled off would have been considered impossible by anyone sane. Thankfully, with Cole gone, I’d been unencumbered by inconvenient things like rational thought.
“It’s her way,” he said gently.
“It is,” I conceded. “Let’s go talk to her.”
I tried to rise, but he didn’t let me. Instead, he leaned down again to kiss me. He tasted like sweat and blood, gifts from our fight. “First,we need to shower.”
A heartbeat later, we were in the shower. We stayed there for well over an hour. By the time we found Hecate, the day had well and truly begun. Palace staff moved about, doing double-takes at Cole’s reappearance. Even though I’d instructed Hecate to tell them their king had returned, it was another thing to find the ruler they’d believed gone walking the hallway.
The conversation we had wasn’t easy. Stefan, the captain of the guard, joined us so he could prepare our armies as required. We gathered around a table in a quiet room, away from prying eyes. There, we discussed my memories coming back in frustrating fragments. Hecate urged me not to rush them and let them return to me in time. She agreed it was entirely possible that having returned to the last place my soul had been complete, Tartarus, put something right. Cole was unsurprised to hear I’d taken the mantle. I told her about the bargain I’d made, and though she had to hide her shock, the witch took it in stride.
“We knew war would come,” Cole said. “Our enemy is who she is. This just levels the playing field.”
“She’s using the Moon-Ghost pack to do her bidding.” I recapped the battle we’d fled. I wanted to check on Daphne and make sure she was alright.
Cole nodded. “It makes sense. The dead may only attack the dead; the living only the living. Worse, a living creature can defeat a dead one without consequence. The reverse… you know what happens.”
Yes. Because I’d killed Maddox to protect Daphne and myself, I’d forfeited my soul to the pits. Cole had wiped that debt clear, but it could happen again just as easily.
“She’s had a century to gather her own army of dead shifters in the stars,” Hecate warned. “Now she has a living army as well. And that demon of hers moves with impunity.”
“Phaidros?”
She nodded. “He appeared some years ago, but the rules don’t apply to him the way they do to other demons who should be bound to Hell. It’s clear he’d allied himself with her as well.”
“It would help if we knew why,” Stefan added. He stood stiffly, taking everything in.
All I could see was Phaidros, driving a sword through Hector’s abdomen. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll kill him for what he did.”
“My vengeful queen.” Cole’s voice was approving. He certainly had no love of the demon.
“That’s fine,” Hecate said. “Demons are fair game to kill without damning your soul in the meantime. Your old pack, however, may prove problematic.”
I ran a hand over my temple, fighting the growing headache. “We’ll need to talk to Xander. His pack’s elders seemed to know more about this. They went to the moon ceremonies, but they didn’t seem to worship the Moon Goddess the way Moon-Ghost or the Fangs did. Is it safe to scry now?”
Hecate nodded. “It should be, since we aren’t cloaking you any longer.”
“Then that should be our next step,” Stefan said. “Determine who our allies are, and ready our people for war. Whether the battlefield will be in this realm or that of the living.”
“And inform them, for the first time in many years, they have two rulers on the throne,” Hecate added, her eyes brimming with unusualemotion as she looked at us.
Stefan agreed and dismissed himself to spread the word to his advisers.
“In addition to Avery’s coronation, we need to arrange for one other event,” Cole said as our conversation wound down. “Our wedding.”
Hecate’s face broke into a grin, while I gaped at him.
“I never agreed,” I protested.
He snorted. “As if that’s stopped me before.” I glared, and his smirk fell, a serious expression reigned over his face. “Do you really intend to say no after you went to Tartarus for me?”
I winced. That was a fair point. “It’s not me saying no, it’s just that I haven’t had time to really think about it.”
He pulled me in for a deep, dark kiss, not caring who saw, that left me breathless. I’d never expected Cole to be the type to flaunt his affections, but even if he was the King of Hell, he was a shifter. We liked to show off what was ours.
“I’ll persuade you later,” he purred, a tender promise.
