Life, meet perfection.
TORIN RACED THROUGH the forest, careful to avoid the traps he’d set—traps he would have set even without Keeley’s suggestion, thanks. Limbs slapped at his face and leaves tried to bite his cheeks, but he hardly noticed. One second he’d been preparing to launch a final attack against the Unspoken One, the next he’d been a good distance from the action. Keeley must have flashed him.
Why would she do such a thing? She wanted him dead, right?
Does the answer really matter? He needed his backpack, like, yesterday. He couldn’t let Keeley near his friends—his only family—and if that meant he had to put a bullet in her brain, so be it.
And the Worst Enemy in the History of Ever award goes to...the Red Queen.
Not because she was powerful enough to topple a building—though that certainly put her in the top tier—but because she could make a beast burst apart at the seams, raining blood and guts.
Seriously. She’d beaten that Unspoken One like morning wood with the same end result: an explosion.
Torin could imagine Keeley’s acceptance speech. I’d like to thank my victim. Without him and his internal organs, I wouldn’t be here.
In all the centuries of his life, he’d thought he’d seen the worst of the worst when it came to gruesome.
He’d been wrong.
He smashed through a wall of snapping foliage he’d spent hours erecting yesterday morning. A pitiful defense, but a guy had to work with what he had. Three of the prisoners he’d freed waited in camp despite his threats to kill first and ask questions later if anyone neared him. They expected him to find a way out of the realm.
So far he’d had no luck. Never mind Keeley’s threat.
Torin knew there were hundreds of different realms, some beside each other, some stacked on top of each other, and some even wrapped around the others. He just wasn’t sure how to get from one to another without the ability to flash.
“Hallo, mate,” Cameron said. “So nice of you to join us.”
The trio consisted of two males and one female. Cameron, the keeper of Obsession. Irish, the keeper of Indifference. And Winter, the keeper of Selfishness.
They were cursed with demons even though they hadn’t been among the immortals who’d opened Pandora’s box. But. When it came to evil, there was always a “but.” At the time, they were prisoners of the underground realm of Tartarus. And since there’d been more demons than Lords, a good chunk of the inmates were given the leftovers.
“Time to abandon ship,” he said. Keeley would be coming after him, and if the trio was anywhere near him, they would be nailed in the cross fire.
No one seemed to catch his urgency.
Whatever. He hadn’t signed on as their custodian. If they wouldn’t listen, they deserved what they got.
Cameron eased beside Winter, offering her a bowl of forage stew. The two were siblings, maybe even twins. Both had the same lavender eyes rimmed with silver, the same bronzed skin and hair.
“This little clearing has the best cold spring in the entire forest,” Cameron said, “and daddy needs his happy bath times.” He picked up the tattoo gun he’d created with metal parts he’d found lying on the ground and continued inking a currently indistinguishable picture on his wrist. Apparently he had a compulsion—obsession—to chronicle each of his imprisonments in his flesh. “We’re not leaving.”
“Then you’ll soon experience the joys of self-combustion.” It was as simple as that.
Irish perched on a horizontal tree stump, busy carving a branch into an arrow. He wasn’t as civilized in appearance as his friends. Two horns stretched from the crown of his head. Dark, straight-as-a-board hair hung to his waist, multiple razors woven into the strands. He had sharp cheekbones. Black, mysterious eyes. Hands permanently clawed. And while—for the most part—he had the top half of a man, he had the bottom half of a goat. Fur and hooves.
He was part satyr, part something else, and sensing Torin’s scrutiny, he glanced up. “Fack aff,” he said in his Isle-rich brogue. Hence the nickname. Real name—Puck something. Or maybe Puke something. Hard to tell when you couldn’t care less.
Torin shrugged. “Like I said, it’s your funeral. Enjoy it. Or not.” He dropped to his knees in front of his backpack and emptied his pockets. When he’d thrown Keeley to the ground, he’d frisked her and stolen—he frowned as he looked over the only item she’d carried—a hunk of bloody, scarred skin.
Well, why not? Hotpants McCuddlesworth was just the type to carry a souvenir of someone’s torture. Except, as Torin’s mind returned to the topple of the dungeon, the dust clearing, he remembered the wound on Keeley’s arm, a mess of crimson-soaked muscle. As if a hunk of skin had just been cut away.
He considered the scars more closely. Thousands of tiny orange flecks sparkled inside the tissue.
He frowned as he ran his thumb over the flesh. It was overwarm, the heat unnatural. From...flames? Maybe. Probably. But why wasn’t the flesh melting? Only bits of brimstone could burn bodily tissue without actually—
Brimstone. Of course. Sulfuric rocks with veins of lava running throughout, found deep in the earth, and—hell. The bottom dropped out of his stomach. This was meant to be a ward. The kind used to defeat the Curators.
Was Keeley a Curator? A parasite? Or had she hoped to protect herself from one?
If she was a Curator, she was one of the last of her kind—if not the last—and even more dangerous than he’d realized. Curators created invisible bonds with those around them, and like vampires, sucked them dry.
The bond is broken, she’d shouted.
Oh...damn. She was. She was a Curator.
Disease shuddered.
“Ever heard of the Curators?” he asked his unwanted guests.
A sharp inhalation from each.
“No,” Irish finally said, his tone dry. “We’re morons without a clue.”
Will take that as a yes. “One of them just escaped from the prison, and while that’s bad enough, she’s determined to kill me.” Would have done so already if not for the Unspoken One.
“Then you’re as good as dead, my friend.” Cameron never glanced up from his task. “Because I’m guessing Keeley is the Curator, and check it, that chick is loco in the noco. You get what I’m saying, my man? Her elevator only goes to floors F and U.”
“Got it. Thanks.” Jackass. Torin could talk smack about her all he wanted. But apparently if anyone else did it he wanted to hollow out their liver and fill it with rocks.
He busied himself, withdrawing the semiautomatic he’d packed, then
