Sian frowned. “The hellfire?” Legend held that their ancestor had spied a colored flame across the black vastness of space. It’d lured him to this dimension, but proved elusive forever after. Sian and Goürlav had hunted for the fire, digging up clues, determined to solve the puzzle. “We cannot locate it.”

She gave him a weak smile. “If your sire could, then anyone can.”

Goürlav quietly said, “Why will he not tell us where it is?” His expression was wounded.

“Because the search prepares you for what is found. . . .”

To this day, despite countless desperate attempts, no one ever had uncovered the hellfire. Searching for it was futile, hopes of it ridiculous. Before Goürlav had left this dimension, he’d scoured it, draining himself of magic—only to become even more disillusioned.

Sian had searched no less. He could see every inch of hell in his mind, could picture everything from a crooked step in the castle to a dragon separated from its pack, but he couldn’t spy the source of that flame.

It’d probably faded to an ember, or extinguished entirely. Desperate. Futile. Ridiculous. Sian knew that.

So why had he been out here looking even now?

He burst into a clearing, startling a pack of hellhounds. They cowered before the king of hell. All creatures in Pandemonia—including demons—recognized Sian’s horns. But not all creatures recognized his dominion.

Like the mysterious Lôtān, now extinct.

Sian pushed on. He passed traps intended to snare trespassers. Apparently the Vrekener queen and her king had escaped two of them during their Pandemonian exploration.

Sian would devise new ones. That would help settle his mind.

He wondered what traps his mate would come up with. He couldn’t decide what was more aggravating: that she’d gotten the better of him, or his continued arousal over the memory.

As he headed into the great moonraker forest, uneasiness warred with his frustration. Maybe he shouldn’t have left her alone. After so long without her, he half-expected her to disappear again.

Or die. He’d been unable to prevent her first death—from childbirth.

Sian had never understood why her . . . husband hadn’t waited a few months or even a year for Kari to become invulnerable before getting her pregnant. Those two had had all the time in the worlds to start a family.

Why the urgency? Why hadn’t Kari insisted on waiting?

When he’d been sixteen, her needless death had leveled him. Unrelenting rage, jealousy, and grief had overwhelmed his young mind.

All these years later, he roared to the sky, unable to handle it better.

Even so, the pull to return to her was intense. He fought it. He’d told Uthyr he would be out in the wilds for a couple of months.

She was safe in her tower. Food automatically appeared for her. As long as she was within the bounds of Graven, she was protected from all the dangers of hell.

But she also seemed to be a magnet for trouble. And she wasn’t yet immortal.

Once Sian eventually returned, he would give her a ring bespelled to accelerate her healing until her immortality took over. With that in place, he could relax away from her.

He slowed his steps. Then shouldn’t he return and do it now?

No, until he’d wrested more control in this form, he might be the biggest danger to her.

Damn it, he didn’t trust his own judgment! He rammed his horns into a massive moonraker tree, toppling it.

Before he acted, he would confer with the dragon. His ally was here for just this purpose.

Sian closed his eyes to sense Uthyr’s location. . . . Got you, dragon. Though Uthyr usually hunted far afield, he’d been sticking close to the castle, was just behind the nearest mountain.

If Sian traced that close to home, he’d be foolish not to check on his prisoner at the same time. Telling himself he was not rushing back to his mate, Sian appeared at Uthyr’s location.

The dragon was nowhere to be seen.

Sian detected his ally’s invisible presence. Uthyr was crouched behind a boulder to pounce on his unsuspecting prey—a large reptile the size of a hellhound.

Uthyr said, —Do not spook my meal, demon, or you’ll be my meal.—

Clenching his jaw, Sian waited.

The dragon’s camouflaged tail swished side to side. Like a shot, he vaulted forward, snaring his quarry between his forepaws.

Shaking off his invisibility, Uthyr snapped the creature’s neck, then tossed the carcass above his head. He seared it with fire until it landed, roasted, in his mouth.

GULP. —Ahh. Medium well.— He stifled a belch with his bloody forepaw.

“I could have provided you a feast of those creatures.”

—Hunting keeps a dragon shifter young.— Uthyr turned back toward the castle along a canyon trail.

Sian fell in beside him. “I want your counsel about my prisoner.”

—I’m surprised to see you so soon. Not quite the two-month absence you predicted.— The dragon smirked. —I gave you a week. Seems we both overestimated your willpower.—

That smirk raised Sian’s hackles. So much for an ally’s wise counsel. “I returned because I might place protective magics over her. You’ll have to excuse my hypervigilance since this female has already died once!”

Uthyr kicked a boulder along as they walked. —Yet you somehow survived the loss.—

What was the dragon getting at? “Luckily I hadn’t claimed her.” Sian had never heard of a demon who wouldn’t greet death if his claimed mate perished. His own sire had. Somewhere in the Elserealms, Devel had led the front in an impossible battle—an immortal’s version of suicide.

Massive neck stretching, Uthyr craned his head toward Sian, making him feel like a laboratory animal under inspection. —Plus your hatred numbed what you felt for her and kept you from comprehending the magnitude of what you’d lost.—

Not helping Sian’s anxiety.

—To sever that lifeline of hate after so long would be like cutting off a limb.—

Or horns! “Why sever it when I’ve no doubt she’ll give me new reasons to hate her?”

—Such as her trap?—

“You know about that?” Was there anything his ally didn’t know about?

—I might have been observing the terrace that night.—

Sian bared his fangs. “Worthless dragonic spy!”

—I wanted to make sure you didn’t do anything drastic when you were fresh from a legion gathering. Picture how crazed you must’ve looked to her. She protected herself. Quite resourcefully, I might add.—