“I… I’m unsure, your highness.”
The demon narrowed his eyes. “Lie to me again and I will remove that troublesome tongue.”
“Please.” Papa’s voice was barely a whisper, a broken plea spoken from a broken man. Even though she’d been warned not to, the wolf pup used a bit of her magic to soothe him. “Please, your highness. Ask me for anything else. Please don’t take my daughter.”
“How does your wife feel, raising the by-blow of a demon you bedded?”
“She will grow to love the child. My daughter shouldn’t pay the price for my sins. Please. Please strike another bargain.”
The demon’s mouth pressed into a displeased line as her baby brother cried out from his crib. “Has your son shifted early, too?”
Papa glanced at the cradle, swallowing hard. “No, your highness. He shows no signs of shifting early.”
“Then our business concludes here. Hand over your daughter and stand down.”
The stranger jerked his chin, and a man with deer fur and liquid brown eyes stepped from the shadows. The pup whined as the monster—demon—reached out and took her. Her whines turned to shrieks as he shoved her into a sack and cinched it closed. Through her earsplitting howls, she heard the stranger say, “You were foolish enough to bargain with House Greed. I suggest you think about the consequences the next time you gamble something so valuable away.”
Tears streamed down my face, and I gritted my teeth against the mournful howls I still heard as the young wolf had been taken from her family. I felt the sorrow, the despair, the terror she’d experienced, but there was nothing I could do to help that pup. I desperately searched for a clue from the memory to guide me to her, to seek her out once I’d accomplished my task here.
The father seemed almost familiar, but his features had been obscured by both the darkness of the room and the tears of the wolf pup. I was almost certain his accent had been from my version of the Shifting Isles, but there was nothing to indicate how long ago that memory had been purged. It could have been months, or decades. Perhaps even a hundred years. Still, I felt helpless. And I hated Greed a little more.
How he could have taken someone’s child, no matter what they’d gambled…
“A hybrid child.” The result of a wolf mating with a demon. Just as I suspected Vesta had been. If she still lived—as I believed she did—then this memory proved the court rumors the duke had shared were correct—Vesta had to have been unhappy.
If she recalled any time with her true family, being torn away from them… it would have been hell, living with her captor. Serving as his commander. I prayed that she had escaped him, that my sister had aided her in some way.
I wanted to tear out of this well and pay House Greed a visit to exact some vengeance for the wolf pup, but I had to focus solely on my question. A feat more difficult than I’d imagined, given the rage searing through my veins. “Where is the Blade of Ruination?”
I tossed the wolf pup’s memory stone aside and wrapped my fingers around another, immediately getting sucked into a new memory…
Sursea heard the king approach his throne room, his footsteps as loud as thunder. He was in a foul mood, and it was growing darker the closer he got to her. Good. It was time he paid attention to her request, took it seriously. All he had to do was demand Pride give up her daughter, forbid them from marrying. Surely he had the power to stop such an unholy union.
If he wanted Sursea out of this realm for good, this arrangement would suit them both. All she had to do was ignite his hatred until it matched her own. She’d considered bringing her notorious hexed blade if he refused, but she needed him alive. For now.
The devil flung open the double doors, and Sursea felt the heat of his glorious wings on full display. She didn’t glance up, refusing to give him the satisfaction of staring at his wings like so many others had. She’d seen them before, when he’d banished the vampires to the southern court, bypassing the mountains that belonged to the goddesses as if they were cursed. His wings were silver-tipped white flame, lethal, beautiful. And his most prized weapons, according to her spies. There was nothing he cared for more.
A general of war would surely do a great many things to retain such a prize.
Refusing to look in his direction, she caressed the bare skin along her outer thighs. She knew he would not be aroused; her act was not meant to seduce as much as to infuriate.
“Get out.” His voice was harsh, brutal. It irked her greatly, though it had been what she wanted.