“Only to let you fall further,” he said harshly.
CHAPTER 12
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Loki and I rode inhis chariot across Hell’s twilit sky, a dark version of Earth’s with many shades of purple painted lavishly across the horizon.
Picasso, the black stallion, had adopted a slow speed, unlike the last time when he’d zoomed across the air’s highway.
I kept my silence. I didn’t even bother to ask about Hell’s academy and the school rules or whatever. I already knew I’d be on my own and would have to fight to survive every day.
Which was fine with me.
As I’d said, a dead demon was the only good demon. One less demon, one less problem for Earth, my demigods, and my friends.
My hand rested on the hilt of my sword, and the confidence it brought me relaxed my shoulders. Give me a weapon, and I was golden. I now recognized and accepted that I was a born killer.
Asmodeus and Leviathan had never demanded I return the swords, and I had every intention of keeping them.
I had decided on my first rules for Hell: claim what you want, never apologize for it, and never fucking thank anyone.
“Did we get Grandpa Smoky today?” I asked, growing restless at this slow pace as he glided in the air. “It’s like riding a balloon. I bet he’s properly napping at his old age. We could get there faster if we just walked.”
The horse snapped his head at me, his crimson eyes glaring in displeasure. I prepared to duck behind Loki as soon as Smoky shot a stream of smoke at me.
“Smo—Picasso, quit it,” Loki reproached. “You should not get riled up so easily. Behave while I have a word with the princess.”
The prince turned to me and lunged. Before I could pull out my sword to stab him, his hands had clutched my head, the heels of his palms pressing into my temples.
All of a sudden, I was staring into the face of the most darkly striking woman I’d ever seen.
She had a pair of short, silver horns. However, what snagged my attention wasn’t her seductive, lethal beauty, but the toddler in her arms.
The toddler wiggled until she stared straight into my eyes—no, Loki’s eyes.
He was the one who faced the woman and her child.
I was inside a memory he’d invited me into—more precisely, that he’d forced me to see.
The toddler had hair the same shade of purple as mine and eyes that were greener than anything I’d ever seen.
A realization hit me.