AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hecate looked to me for confirmation, and I nodded.
The witch simply stared at me for a moment. Then— “Foolish girl.”
Something snapped in me at that. “Foolish? You’re damn right, I’m a fool. I’m the ignorantidiotyou’ve all refused to give any answers to, so I had to make a deal with a freaking demon. This only happened because you and… he…” I choked for a moment, unable to say Cole’s name. “Because the two of you refused to give me any answers. Time and time again. You kept me in the dark, and now we’re all paying the price!”
All? a dark voice whispered in my ears. No.Colehad paid the price.
“He forbid me to tell you more.”
“And where did that get him, Hecate? Where?”
She drew a breath. Perhaps my question had been rhetorical, but she didn’t take it that way. “It took him to the pits, Soteria. Tartarus.”
I’d suspected. An awful part of me had known, had sensed the malevolence from the ground, but the confirmation… Cole had once called the realmunending torture.
“How?” I demanded. “How did this happen?” When Hecate didn’t immediately answer, I exploded. “You owe me!” I snarled, and the room shook around me. Here, my magic was plentiful and angry. Yet I’d been powerless—again—when the pits came calling. “You call me your savior? You’re damn right. When that dragon came, I saved you all. This whole forsaken kingdom. You say he forbid you to give me answers? Well, look around, Hecate. Cole is gone!”
Slicing me in two would have hurt less than saying his name again. I shook, emotion rocking me. I didn’t have to see myself to know my eyes were glowing with that furious magic; the worried glance Daphne gave me before approaching me, attempting to soothe me,was enough.
But I didn’t want to be soothed. I wanted to beangry. Because anger… anger was better than pain.
“Tell me everything,” I demanded.
I wanted to fight more. To snarl, to throw my weight around, even if Hecate could wipe the floor with me. Even if she wasn’t really at fault—no, the blame lay squarely with me. Or worse… with Cole.
“Very well. I told you there would be consequences, Soteria. When you returned to the realm of the living, you were still a shade. You had no right to alter the lives on that plane, but you killed someone.”
“Maddox was going to kill Daphne,” I protested.
“The laws of the universedo not care, Avery!”
I flinched. It was the first time she’d ever raised her voice.
She drew a steadying breath. “Listen to me. There is a cycle of life. The living, in the realm you remember, the shades here in Hell, and then a final death that draws you to the pits. You moved one piece forward in the cycle, out of order. In turn, another must go forward—you, from the underworld to Tartarus. We hid you with magic, attempting to buy time to find some solution, even though there is no escaping fate. Theonlysolution was for another to take your place. When you used the mirror to scry, you reversed the magic we’d crafted to hide you. It was never permanent—this outcome was inevitable—but Phaidros must have wanted to hasten the process.”
“Is Maddox here, in Hell, then?” Daphne asked.
Hecate shook her head, the dark waves of her hair falling forward. “No. For shifters, the cycle is altered. The Moon Goddess struck a bargain, and now, you’re set among the stars for eternity, removed from the natural cycle. You will never go to the pits, but your soul willbe enslaved by her forever.”
When Hecate said it like that, it sounded really bad. Which made no sense, because the alternative was Hell and eternal torture.
Where Cole is.
I tamped down on the thought. “When I saw Jett, he mentioned the Moon Goddess. Our pack was never overly religious, but he seemed like a fanatic.”
“The Moon Goddess is more than a figure in pack mythology, Soteria.” She’d gone back to my title rather than using my name. “She is real, and she is the very opposite ofbenevolent.” Venom dripped off the word. “No doubt, she has been the one pulling the strings, using your pack, demons, and even the laws of the universe to her advantage. Her goal is to see both you and Cole in Tartarus.”
I could do little more than stare at Hecate. “And she got one of us.”
She shook her head. “No. A hundred years ago, she succeeded in sending you to the pits.”
I will not let her be taken again.That was what Cole had said to Hecate just hours ago.
It felt like a lifetime.
“But I’m not in Tartarus,” I protested. “So it must be possible for me to get Cole back. A portal or something. A spell. Just let me go and find him.”
Hecate’s gaze was pitying.
