Hera created me to be her weapon, not just against the Nether Royals but everyone else? Fuck. That meant that the one who made Jo lose her mate was not the Nether Royals but her own fucking mother.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
This was going to destroy her.
“You’re upset,” Aram said softly, his body heat radiating behind me. “I was under the impression that you were aware you’d been made to be a weapon. This shouldn’t come as news to you.”
I laughed without humor. “Oh, I’m well aware, big guy. No. It’s not that part that’s upsetting me. It’s just that…Jo lost her mate because of what they did to her, and to know it was her own mother behind everything...well, I’m not looking forward to telling her.”
“Ah, yes. The Daughter of Shadows,” he murmured. “Her mate?”
I pivoted. “She and her mate fled this realm for mine to avoid capture after…well, what she said you and your brothers did.”
“What we did?” he asked in confusion. He really had no idea what I meant. “I had no business with the Daughter of Shadows, though I’ll admit I was tempted. In the end, she wasn’t one of the Chaos Fae who helped them destroy my clan that day, and unless she made herself a nuisance, I never intended to do anything to her. Hera loved no one but herself, not even her own blood. Chaos is all-consuming and leaves nothing but destruction in its wake. It devours its host. The Daughter of Shadows—”
“Jo,” I corrected.
He sighed and trailed his knuckles down my naked arm. “Jo,” he amended. “From what I knew, it hadn’t consumed her. Now that you mention it, I suppose she was one of the lucky ones. I specifically remember whispers about several of Hera’s children dying shortly after that day.”
Jo had siblings and they died? What the actual fuck. I would’ve been skeptical if I didn’t see into his head and confirm he’d never really drawn much from what happened to them outside of perhaps his power worked too well.
Several faces flashed inside my head, a few that bore a resemblance to Jo. One specifically that was nearly a carbon copy of her the way her mother was.
Jo had lost so much. It explained why she was so afraid of getting attached. Why she was so quick to be distant. The fact that she’d been through everything she had and still chose to get close to me the way she had spoke volumes.
“If it wasn’t you who killed all the Royal Sirens, then who did?”
His expression darkened. “I thought that was obvious, little mate. It’s always been Hera.”
I mean, I connected the dots, but I wanted to hear him say it. He couldn’t tell lies, and our connection confirmed he was convinced of it.
At first Aram thought it was because his power had been too effective and considered it the price she paid for all she’d done. But later he realized she’d used it as an excuse because Hera never did what he instructed. She didn’t kill herself to bring it full circle. It meant the coercion never took root.
Still, I pried, “Because you coerced her?”
“My coercion failed, but I think you know that. It was that Dark King of yours who made me realize it could,” Aram leered down at me, his stance slightly guarded.
Talking about Cash bothered him. More so, being accused of things he didn’t do bothered him, especially by someone like me. It was why I pressed. Every bit of information I could ascertain as truth would be what I used to convince my group he wasn’t our enemy.
“If it didn’t work, then why?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I suppose she saw the others as a threat to her reign. If they knew what she did that day, they might’ve turned on her. I can’t pretend to understand that mad Fae’s mind.”
He stood in front of me, leaning against the map and still obnoxiously tall. We’d satisfied the Season’s urges, but still, I couldn’t help but find the giant Fae alluring with all the light beaming down on him at every angle, giving his hair an ethereal glow. He peered around the room, his red eyes glinting like a pool of blood catching the sun’s rays before they settled on me again.
“Before the attack, Chaos and Nether stayed out of each other’s way. It wasn’t as if we were enemies, not really. We didn’t much care for them, and no doubt they felt the same, but that was the extent of it. We were never at war. I’d even venture as faras to say that if they discovered Hera’s treachery, they would’ve offered her life in exchange for mercy. It was never my intention to wipe them out. It’s as you human’s like to say, ‘An eye for an eye.’ So, it wasn’t me or my brothers who sought out and killed their kind. Unless they attacked us first, we kept our distance.”
“Cash said you guys went after anyone who could pose a threat,” I argued, glaring up at him.
He didn’t speak at first, head tilting. “We did.”
“So—”
“Those remaining Chaos Fae were not a threat to me on the run,” he cut in. “I suppose I let the rumors of our ruthlessness linger so they never were.”
Go figure. Rumors did all the work for them.
I scowled at him and crossed my arms. “Oh? But others were?”
