“The Temple of Chaos is a sacred place,” Apollion said sharply. “We shall never defile it with violence.” The words rumbled like thunder again.
Hunt sized up Apollion, then Thanatos. What the fucking fuck—
But Thanatos sniffed toward Bryce, almost as canine as the hounds in the shadows, and said, “Your starlight smells … fresher.”
The hunger lacing the male’s words stilled Hunt’s chaotic mind—honing him into a weapon primed for violence. He didn’t give a shit if he never got answers about his parentage. If that asshole made one move against Bryce, ghostly forms or no—
Bryce said nonchalantly, “New deodorant.”
“No,” Thanatos said, missing the joke entirely, “I can smell it on your spirit. I am the Prince of Souls—such things are known to me. Your power has been touched by something new.”
Bryce rolled her eyes, but for a heartbeat, Hunt wondered if Thanatos was right: Bryce had explained how the prism in the Autumn King’s office had revealed her light to now be laced with darkness, as if it had become the fading light of day, of twilight—
“We don’t have much time,” Aidas said irritably. “The dreaming draft will only last so long. Please—come into the temple.” He inclined his head in a half bow. “On my honor, no harm shall come to you.”
Hunt opened his mouth to say the Prince of the Chasm’s honor meant shit, but Bryce’s whiskey eyes assessed Aidas in a long, unhurried sweep. And then she said, “All right.”
Pushing aside every raging thought and question for the moment, Hunt kept one eye on the exit behind them as they traded the pebbled shore for the smooth temple steps. As they walked up those steps and entered a space that was a near-mirror to temples back home—indeed, its layout was identical to the last temple Hunt had stood in: Urd’s Temple.
He shut down the memory of Pippa Spetsos’s ambush, the desperate scramble for their lives. How they’d hidden behind the altar, barely escaping. In lieu of the black stone altar in the center of the temple, a bottomless pit was the main focal point. Five chairs of carved black wood encircled it.
Hunt and Bryce claimed the chairs closest to the stairs behind them—closest to the river and the boat still idling at the shore. Aidas took the one on Bryce’s other side, sitting with a smooth, feline grace. The braziers bounced their bluish light off his blond hair.
Apollion’s eyes glimmered like coals as he said to Hunt, “I am disappointed to see that you have not yet freed yourself from the black crown, Orion Athalar.”
“Someone explain what the fuck that is,” Hunt snapped. Of all the things he’d ever imagined for his life, sitting in a circle with three Princes of Hel hadn’t been anywhere on the list.
“The black crowns were collars in Hel,” Thanatos answered darkly. His powerful body seemed primed to leap across that pit to attack. Hunt monitored his every breath. “Spells, crafted by the Asteri to enslave us. They were a binding, one the Asteri adapted in their next war—upon Midgard.”
Hunt turned to Aidas. “You seemed surprised to see one on me that first time we met. Why?”
But before Aidas could begin, Apollion answered, “Because the Princes of Hel cannot be contained by the black crowns. The Asteri learned that—it was their downfall. As you were made by Hel’s princes, it should not be able to hold you.”
Made by them? By these fuckers?
Hunt had no idea what to say, what to do as everything in his life swirled and diluted, his heartbeat ratcheting up to a thunderous beat. “I—I don’t …”
“Start talking,” Bryce snapped at Apollion, scooting her chair an inch or two closer to Hunt’s. Not from fear, Hunt knew—but from solidarity. It settled something in him, soothed a jagged edge. “Hunt’s mother was an angel.”
His mother’s loving, tired face flashed before Hunt’s eyes, twisting his heart.
“She was,” Apollion said, and the way he smiled …
White rage blinded every one of Hunt’s senses. “Did you dare—”
“She was not ill used,” Aidas said, holding up an elegant hand. “We might command nightmares, but we are not monsters.”
“Explain,” Bryce ordered the demon princes, starlight rippling from her. Thanatos sniffed the air once more, savoring it, and earned a glare from Aidas. “From the beginning.”
Despite the heated words they’d exchanged earlier, Hunt had never loved her more—had never been so grateful that Urd had chosen such a loyal, fierce badass for his mate. He could trust her to get the answers they needed.