Hazel flicked her hair over her shoulder. “Adonis. Ruby. I hope you don’t mind the interruption.”
Aereus stepped forward, his body towering over me. “No one told me you were coming.”
Emitting a deep rumble, the golden dragon lowered his head, and Hazel slid off.
My heart thudded hard. Please tell me she had some kind of plan here, that she hadn’t just shown up on a dragon for the hell of it.
As soon as she slipped off the dragon’s neck, the beast began to shift, with a snapping of bones and sinews that pierced the night air, until a man stood before us, his large body covered in gold armor. I shuddered, still repulsed by dragon shifters.
“Hazel,” said Adonis. “You’ve come as a messenger, haven’t you? To give us news about Johnny and Kratos.”
Hazel crossed to us, her gaze on Aereus, features totally placid. “Exactly. I remained in Hotemet Castle, and Adonis told me I was supposed to let him know if Johnny or Kratos seemed as if they were going to fall.” The night air whipped at her dark hair. “They’ve started to change, I think.”
“Change how?” Aereus demanded.
She blinked at him, her features serene, and I knew she was about to enchant him. “They look different, like when you’re staring at the water’s warm surface on a hot summer day, and the lake looks black as iron, and the steam wafts off it, and you think you can see your past in it, you think you can see your mom’s face, right? And you remember how sometimes she made you so mad but you couldn’t do anything about it, and the steam curls around you. All those times you wanted things but you couldn’t have them. And that’s how you know the angels are going to fall, that their heavy, leaden wings are pulling them to the earth. That’s why you need me here, Aereus. To fix things.”
Aereus stared at her, his fiery eyes glazed over. “I see. Yes...” He blinked. “I can see why you’d think they were falling. I’m glad you’ve come to warn us.”
She looked back at the starry sky. “You might want to set up some of your creepy cherubs to watch the clouds in case they show up anytime soon.”
Aereus nodded dumbly.
Apparently, this little teenage fae was capable of manipulating one of the most lethal creatures to ever walk the earth’s surface, and it didn’t even seem to take much effort on her part.
“It flickers in and out,” she added with a slight shrug. “Sometimes they get control of themselves. I just thought you should know.”
Aereus beckoned her closer to him. “Another succubus. No wonder Kratos has been unable to control himself.”
Mentally, a war raged in my mind. She’s sixteen, you creep. Back the fuck off. But we were supposed to be ancient.
Adonis shot me a pointed look—no doubt he could feel my roiling anger. “Thank you for letting us know, Hazel. Now, you must be tired after your journey. You can sleep in our room.”
Aereus’s lip curled. “Oh, that’s how it is, is it? One succubus isn’t enough for you?”
Adonis’s icy gaze slid to the horseman of war, but he said nothing.
Gross. Still, I could see why Adonis had made the suggestion. Hazel had obviously come here for a reason, and we needed to know what it was. We needed to speak with her alone. Now.
Aereus glared at Adonis, his magic tingeing the air around him with gold. “Sleep for a few hours. But in the morning, we must make a move against the other horsemen. We’ll drag their imperiled souls here and pierce their bodies until they see the truth again. Until they once more understand that we must give up the temptations of the flesh in order to rule as gods on earth.”
Adonis’s eyes sparked with a cold light, shadows shifting and darkening around him. “Horsemen were born to make sacrifices.” A hint of regret suffused his words, and I knew that he believed it, even if the rest of this was a sham.
Aereus’s lip curled. “Kratos will feel his sacrifices in his flesh.”
I swallowed hard, thinking of Kratos. Our ruse would never get that far, so I shouldn’t be worrying about it. But the idea of this maniacal horseman of war torturing Kratos with his iron instruments made me feel sick.
Adonis nodded. “In the morning, then,” he said quietly. He strode back into the palace, his night-dark magic trailing behind him. He moved swiftly, with the gait of a soldier, his footfalls clacking over the floor.
On the walk back to our room, the cherubs eyed Hazel, whispering among themselves. I bit down hard on the impulse to turn to Hazel, to demand to know what the hell was going on right now. At last, we reached our door, and I shoved it open.
Hazel plopped herself down on the bed, surveying the rumpled sheets. “You both sleep in this? Cozy.”
I opened my mouth and closed it again. “Hazel. What are you doing here? You just… You summoned a dragon?”
She flicked her hair behind her shoulders. “Uthyr? I was one of his favorites. Like I said. I charmed them.” She lifted the pendant from her neck—a dragon’s tooth. “Remember? Uthyr gave me this to summon him if I ever really needed him.”
Adonis leaned against a wall, his arms folded. “What’s been happening at Hotemet Castle?”
Hazel sucked in a deep breath, and my stomach clenched. She hadn’t come with good news.
“Johnny has slowly recovered his memories,” she said. “He knows Ruby tried to kill him. He knows that she’s not really a succubus, which means he knows I’m not really a succubus. Hence, I had to get the fuck out of there. What else? Oh yeah. He’s on his way here to kill you.”
My jaw dropped. “And what about Kratos?”
She screwed her mouth to one side, eyes narrowing as she thought about it for a moment. “I’m not entirely sure what his plan is, but he was angry enough to go on a bit of a rampage. He started breaking things and lighting things on fire. I befuddled them just long enough so that I could get out of there, but it wasn’t a great situation, per se.”
Shimmering, midnight magic burst from Adonis’s body, and his wings emerged behind him, spreading out. “Did they follow you, Hazel?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. If they’d been anywhere nearby, Uthyr would have smelled them.”
Adonis snatched his sword, Ninkasi, from beside the bed.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
The air around us hummed with his magic, making my pulse race. “I’m going to search for them, and I’ll stop them if they’re on their way. I need to find out if they’re coming for you. While I’m gone, find Tanit and Kur. Tell them what’s going on. Tell them I’ll be back as soon as I know anything.”
I didn’t want him to leave, for some reason, but I just said, “Come back to us soon.”
He was out the door without another word.
Chapter 32
When he left, Hazel dropped down on our bed, exhausted.
I started to pace the stone floor. “Did you hear anything about their plans?”
She shook her head. “Something about archangels. Heavenly something.”
A chill rippled through my blood. “The Heavenly Host?”