Chapter 5 The skin

The skin around my eyes grew hot and the edges of my vision turned red. No one ever needed to tell me I was ugly because the truth was plain to see in the mirror. It hadn't mattered because I had a purpose beyond making myself attractive to men. I was going to carry on Dad's work as the alpha.

Griff popped the champagne cork. Foam spurted across the table, making them all laugh.

I ground my molars and snarled. The moment our eyes had locked, my wolf had recognized her mate, even though I'd been reluctant to acknowledge our connection. But Griff had noticed it too, and he'd been determined to make me his.

Until he'd gotten what he wanted and rejected me.

He filled their flutes with the bubbly liquid, and the trio clinked glasses.

"And where is he now?" I snarled.

"Franklin Gri ths is safely ensconced in the heart of Shifter City," Hades replied. "The most magically secure enclosure in the Supernatural World."

If I wasn't so transfixed by the sight of my mate molesting those beautiful twins, I would have given the Demon King a look as blank as my mind. "I've never heard of the place," I growled, already devising a way to break out of Hell so I could kill him all over again. "Is it in Atlantis?"

He sighed. "It's in Logris."

I finally turned to lock eyes with the Demon King. "What?"

He drummed his fingers on his thigh. "Humans found the location of Logris shortly after Yule. We had to separate the city into its smaller villages and scatter our location across parks around London."

My gaze darted back to the screen, where one of the twins had disappeared. Griff lay back on the booth's leather seat with a lazy grin. I ground my teeth. I didn't need to have memorized my dog-eared copy of The Joy of Sex to know she was giving him a blowjob.

"After your execution, your beta, Gerrison, took over the pack, and he became the Shifter King," Hades said. "Unfortunately, he was murdered by another wolf named Mondo, who subsequently lost an alpha challenge to a creature named Beowulf Kenneally."

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wanted to ask why he'd referred to someone with a wolfish name as a creature, but Griff threw his head back on screen, looking like he was in the throes of ecstasy. A growl reverberated in the back of my throat. That wretched bastard.

"Beowulf was challenged by Gerrison's daughter, Lydia, who lost the position to Fenrisùlfr."

"What?" I turned to look at Hades, whose lips had tightened. "Are you talking about-"

"Fenrir, the Norse god?" he asked. "Yes. He's another one who escaped Hell and now rules Logris. There's an open invitation to every shifter in the Supernatural World to fill your former city."

"Wait, so Logris is now-"

"Shifter City," Hades said, his words clipped with impatience. "Franklin Gri ths absconded with thousands of wolf shifters, and he continues to steal more. Nobody knows how he did it, why he took so many with him, or what he's done with my former inmates, but he now resides within the impenetrable walls of what used to be called Logris."

My gaze drifted back to the screen, where Griff was devouring the other twin's mouth. Each moment was a fresh slice of anguish across my heart, making me feel lonelier than ever. After they'd sentenced me to death, the executioner had severed my soul, cutting me off from my beautiful white wolf.

Losing her had been even worse than discovering that Griff had not only rejected me but usurped my position in the pack. His large hand cupped the woman's tiny breast and kneaded it like it was a round of dough. My insides, which had been empty since I'd refused my last meal, now filled with revulsion.

Then the screen went blank.

I jerked forward, my mouth falling open. "Where's the rest of it?"

"You've seen enough to know that your unfaithful mate is enjoying a life of unbridled luxury in the Living World," he said.

Bitterness coated the back of my tongue, but I managed to swallow back the bile. "Why am I here?" I rasped, my throat feeling like someone had scratched it raw. "Is this part of my torture?"

Hades sniffed and smoothed a manicured hand down his lapel. "Hardly."

I stilled, waiting for the man to speak. Maybe if I drew out this meeting and gave him a few vague answers about Griff, then I might get to spend the night in the palace dungeons while he continued the interrogation. It was strange to have lived for years in that gritty cell. Stranger to crave its safety during my torture sessions with the imps. But what was most strange was that I couldn't face going back to the Punishment Pits.

"Part of me found my stay here bearable because I knew Griff was somewhere in those stalagmites, suffering the same torment." I dropped my gaze to my lap.

"He wasn't." "What?" I whispered.

"Griff, as you so fondly call him, resided in a village within the Asphodel Meadows," Hades said, his voice filled with regret.

"But he was a back-stabbing bastard." I raised my gaze to meet the Demon King's.

Something in his eyes said he could relate to my anguish, which was bizarre because he was so handsome and looked like he could get the pick of women and keep them endlessly fascinated. Not only that, but Hades didn't need to trick anyone into going to bed with him.

"A bastard who committed minor crimes." Before I could speak, Hades raised his palm. "Miss Aibek, you need to understand that there's an ocean of difference between seducing women for fun and profit, and shooting a man in the kneecaps, beating him to an inch of his life before shooting him again in the chest and then setting him alight?"

My lips puckered. When he put it that way, he made me

sound like the villain. "But-"

"No," he said in a voice sharp enough to cut through my counter argument. "When the enforcers broke down the door of the alpha's basement, they found you dancing a jig on his charred corpse."

"I'd do it again if you gave me the chance," I snarled.

Hades looked like he was trying not to roll his eyes. "And this is why an incorrigible soul like yours would never leave the Punishment Pits without my assistance or intervention." "Why?" I spread my arms wide. "Because I broke the law

to get justice?"

He shook his head. "Fortunately, I would like to offer you an opportunity to escape your deserved punishment and live out your afterlife in the comfort of the Asphodel Meadows."

My heart skipped several beats before rolling like thunder. "You want me to track him down and kill him?"

"More or less," Hades said with a smile, "But your mission is slightly more nuanced."

"I'm listening," I said.

Hades rose to his feet and stalked across his study with the grace of a panther. My throat dried, and I straightened in my seat, my hackles rising. Everyone knew never to make deals with demons, bargains with faeries, or promises to gods. Such arrangements always backfired, and 99.999 percent of the time, it was the god or demon or faerie who won.

My heart beat faster than a drumroll, and the room became too hot, too small, too stifling. Hades' power was overwhelming to the point where I couldn't breathe.

"Miss Aibeck," he said in a voice older than time. "Will you go into the human world and retrieve your errant mate?"

Mate.

At that last word, all common sense evaporated into the ether. I blurted, "Yes, as long as I get to kill him."

Hades grinned with a throaty laugh that made the fine hairs on the back of my neck want to skitter to the fireplace and hide. "If you complete this mission to my satisfaction, you'll have a cottage in the Asphodel Meadows and employment in my Pits, where you will spend the rest of eternity punishing Gri ths."

My breath turned shallow. This was more than I could wish for. A place to stay that didn't give me constant discomfort, an existence free from torture, and the chance to hurt Griff as much as he had hurt me.

Only a fool would refuse such a tempting offer. "When can I start?"

The Demon King's eyes glowed like Hellfire. "How about now?"