Chapter 5

I slammed my fist onto the desk, and the maid by the door gasped as my goblet tipped over. Red wine spilled across scattered papers, turning the documents into illegible scribbles.

My jaw ticked. The vines beneath my palms writhed.

I rolled my shoulders against the onslaught of adrenaline urging me to let my frustration out on this innocent woman. She was a new hire, and I'd already forgotten her name again. Besides Emily, I didn't interact much with the staff and didn't care to, either.

I knew my anger wasn't her fault, but everything was so damn annoying.

The waistband of my trousers, scraping along my skin. The flickering candles of the chandelier. I took a deep breath, trying to ignore the music and shouts of amused guests coming from the hall beyond the office door.

"How dare they deny me?" I seethed.

The maid wrung her hands, shrinking. "They're … busy , sir. It's very short notice and?—"

"They're all busy?" I shouted. "Who gives a shit if they're busy? I need a mage capable of opening a portal to Xar'vath, and I need them tomorrow morning! I'm willing to pay extra, whatever fee they want."

The woman's eyes bulged as she stumbled, pressing her back against the wall. She stammered, gaze flicking to the floor.

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Have you contacted every mage on the list Emily gave you?"

"Yes, s-sir."

"And you used the messaging stone she gave you?"

"Yes, sir. Until its energy ran out."

I sucked on my teeth, my tail lashing. Fuck. The messaging stone was a rare, experimental device I'd bought from a shady merchant. It cost a small fortune, and I'd kept it for decades, saving it for an emergency. With its magic depleted, I had no method of reaching out to anyone else.

"You're dismissed," I growled.

"Thank you, sir!" she brought out, nearly smacking into the wall as she spun to escape my wrath. In a flash, she was out in the feast hall, closing the door behind her.

So much for my plan.

A sigh streamed from my lungs. I dropped onto the upholstered leather chair behind my desk, opening the squeaky top drawer. My foot tapped on the floor as I took a cigarette from a wooden box inside and lit it with a candle on the table.

I leaned back, my legs spreading as I huffed little rings of smoke into the air. My free hand found the gold chain around my neck, feeling down along the links to the oval locket hanging low on my chest. I traced the floral engravings, and the tension fell from my shoulders. My pulse slowed.

Except to clean it or replace the chain, I hadn't taken this necklace off in a century. It was so much more than a pretty piece of jewelry.

This pendant was a shrine, my place of worship where I prayed for repentance and forgiveness. But not to the Gods, no.

To her .

Her wedding gift to me was all I had left of my beloved Keryssa, my darling wife.

I pinched the cigarette between my lips and pried the locket open, holding it above my face. The corners of my mouth tugged upward.

There she was, smiling at me from behind enchanted glass.

The tiny painting looked so real, as if I could just reach inside and pull her into my reality, into my arms.

What I wouldn't have given to slide my fingers along the bridge of her cute, upturned nose, trace the cupid's bow of her full lips, or peer into her bright blue gaze as endless as the summer sky, glimmering with pride and mischief.

My wife. My Goddess. My Empress.

I ran a finger over the smooth, light amber on the other side of the locket, encasing a strand of her hair. Tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them away.

I never understood how I had gotten so lucky, how I'd made Kerys fall for me.

When we met, I was a nobody. Worse than that, I was a kid from the poor quarters in the capital turned criminal.

At the beginning, every sin I committed was out of necessity, keeping the family afloat after my father left us. I stole small trinkets or food because my two younger sisters needed to eat, and my mother had always been too sickly to provide.

Admittedly, I was a shit thief. I didn't even have magic. But at the tender age of sixteen, when I rammed my rusted knife into the belly of a guard who caught me red-handed, I realized I was good at something .

Two things, in fact.

First, killing. And second, not caring about who I killed, so long as there was something in it for me.

I came to enjoy it. The sticky crimson warmth on my fingers, the cracking of bone. The screams.

It was addictive.

Maybe that was why I eventually got caught. For many years, I did well for myself, spending my life hunting down targets all across Xar'vath for anyone who paid well. But in the end, I was too careless. Too arrogant. I got sloppy. A witness saw me entering the house of my last victim, and the city guard barged in—just as I finished the fucker off.

So when I met Keryssa, I was a prisoner serving a life sentence in one of Xar'vath's largest privately owned penal colonies, the Che'rath emerald mines. Green hell, us inmates called it.

A man like me had no right to want a noble-born woman like Keryssa. Charming. Intelligent. Educated. Gorgeous.

I still didn't have a right to want her.

But when I saw her for the first time, it was as if an arrow struck my chest. I could have fallen to my knees right then, and I knew she was the only cure for my bleeding heart.

She'd walked into the pit on the arm of the mine's new proprietor, He'zath Xyrkor, a middle-aged male with a short, curved tail and a personality as crooked as his horns.

His family name was known among denizens of the seedy underbelly of the capital. I even had personal dealings with his equally vile brother, Ytzal, once when they still ran their petty clean up business. He was hard to forget, his left horn snapped at the base, a gnarly, purple scar running from his forehead across his left eye.

A killer for hire like me, the kind that got a little too into their work and liked to make a mess, needed people like them to deal with the blood and guts. That was before they made a fortune.

Rumor had it they found directions to a massive dead drop of bone dust—Xar'vath's most popular and most addictive recreational drug—on a body they were paid to dispose of. They invested all their money into buying the mine and building a ridiculously lavish mansion overlooking it. But no sparkle could hide their filthy personalities.

It was easy to hate my jailer. More so because He'zath let the overseers abuse us, treat us like animals, let them work us to death. There was no shortage of prisoners, and our lives were disposable.

But the moment he introduced Kerys to the guards—not only as the new appraiser and gem enchanter, but as his new wife from Zeridia across the ocean—I realized I'd never known the meaning of hatred until then.

She'd done a fine job covering the bruise on her cheek with cosmetics, and her smile seemed almost genuine.

Yet when our eyes met, I saw the truth.

He owned her as much as he owned the mine, and he treated her like all his possessions—with brutality. She was an expendable commodity to be replaced when she broke.

My heart had dropped into my stomach, just like it did now.

I knew I had to have her.

I didn't have a damn clue how, but I vowed that I would free her. Little did I know she would free me first.

Ashes crumbled from my cigarette, and I flinched.

"Shit!" I shouted and jumped up, wiping over my sheer green gossamer tunic.

I extinguished the cigarette on the desk, adding one more mark to the hundreds of burns and water rings scarring the old wood.

Portal or no portal , I thought as I closed the locket and pressed a kiss to it. I'll try my damn hardest tonight. But whether Kerys remembers or not … she's coming with me tomorrow.

A shiver coursed along my spine, a hint of sulfur permeating my nostrils, and I knew the demon was in the room even before his disembodied, slithering voice reached my ears.

"I could help with your travel problem," he crooned.

I groaned. "How many times do I have to tell you to fuck the Hells off, Aculeus? Maybe I should hang a damn sign around my neck. It'll read, Nobody wants you here ." I waved a hand at my chest. "I don't remember inviting you."

The thorny demon materialized across the chamber, arms of shadow crossing as he leaned against a bookshelf full of old, dusty business ledgers. "I heard your maid frantically speaking to mages across the realm, trying to get you a portal to Xar'vath. I could make one for you."

"Knowing you, you'll send us both straight to the Hells. No, thanks. I'll figure it out."

"Are you sure?" His head tilted downward as though he raised invisible brows over the rim of invisible glasses. I was certain of a big, fat smirk plastered across his non-existent face—his tone told me as much.

In annoyance, I ran my tongue stud along the inside of my lip.

All my contacts were exhausted. Besides, the maid was right. My request was last minute, but when I got word that Kerys had arrived at the warehouse, my brain had malfunctioned.

I couldn't think straight anymore.

This was different from watching her sleep, palming my throbbing cock through my trousers until I couldn't take it any longer, until I had to go or I would've taken her in her sleep. This was different from leaving tokens of my affection in her room.

She was within my reach, and the thinning thread of my self-control was finally about to snap. As soon as she was in my arms, I wouldn't be able to let her leave again. I knew myself that well.

Tonight was the night I would claim her again, take her, make her mine—in front of everyone.

And come dawn, we would go home together.

A few hours ago, I sent a suitcase full of jewels and coin to the Emporium of Desires—enough to make Kerys's debt disappear ten times over. My note had left no room for negotiation, and I didn't expect the owner to cause trouble. After all, my generous donation turned her from a small fry into a big player.

My issue was getting to Xar'vath without a tedious, long journey across the Dreamless Sea. I couldn't waste that much time.

While Dr. Mavix advised caution in the correspondence we exchanged since I found Kerys, warning not to push her too hard, too fast, he became equally worried about delaying. The longer a patient with magical amnesia didn't recall their past, the smaller the chance they would ever do so.

If the adrenaline and pleasure tonight weren't enough to make her remember, then my best hope was to bring her home and perform the ritual the doctor had suggested.

My mouth dried as I considered the option. It was a dangerous spell with the potential to fracture a person's mind and drive them insane, but it was my last resort.

Aculeus cleared his throat, and I glared at him.

Either way, I had to find a quick way back, first of all. Only a handful of extraordinary mortal spellcasters could conjure portals stable enough to travel through. People said money could buy anything, and in most cases, that was the one immovable truth in the world.

Yet the mages able to fulfill my request were employed by rulers and monarchs, and most wouldn't just abandon a position at court and risk angering their overlords—not even temporarily, and not even for large amounts of coin. Now that my rage had cooled, I saw their point. For many, the political influence that came with such employment was more valuable than gold.

I had never craved a job like that for myself, kissing the boots of some royal. It was fucking great to be my own boss, to be free … apart from that asshole demon gloating.

"So you're throwing a party for her. How nice of you, Skrain," he hissed.

"It's my birthday, actually. Not that I'm surprised you forgot. It seemed like a good occasion to spend the night with her."

"Happy birthday!" Aculeus mocked. "You want to impress her, huh?"

My eyes rolled so far back they hurt. Some days, I couldn't tell which was worse, Aculeus's blabbering or his malice, but together, they made me want to throw him through the Gods damned wall.

"Let me guess. This is your last attempt to bring back her memories—short of kidnapping her and dragging her to that horrible desert you call home," he continued, tone disgustingly smug as ever. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be searching for a portal."

"She will remember." I gave him a firm nod to hide the doubt worming itself into my chest.

An armored, clanking knock rattled the door, and a voice drifted from outside. One of the guards. "Sir, Emily sent word that your companion for tonight will be arriving shortly."

My heart catapulted into my throat. "Thank you. I'll be out momentarily."

Aculeus cackled. "Well then, enjoy yourself. I can't wait to watch you fail."