Scowling, he kicked back into motion. He’d search every alley in the area if need be. Only, halfway down, the shadows around him thickened, consuming him, choking out the golden glow of the street lamps. Thousands of muted screams seemed to seep from the gloom. Tortured screams. Agonized screams.

He stopped, lest he slam into something—or someone—and palmed two blades. What the hell was—

A woman—the woman—stepped from the shadows, only a few feet away from him. She was the only light in that sudden, vast expanse of dark. Her eyes were as black as the gloom around her, her lips as red and moist as blood. She was pretty, in a feral kind of way.

Wrath hissed inside his head.

For a moment, Aeron feared Cronus had actually listened to him after all and sent a female to torment him. But as he stared over at her, there was no heat in his veins, no flutter in his heartbeat, as he’d heard the other Lords expound on whenever one found a female he just “had to have.” She was like any other to him: easily forgettable.

“Well, well, well. Aren’t I a lucky girl. You’re one of them, a Lord of the Underworld, and you came to me,” she said, her voice as raspy as smoke. “I didn’t even have to ask.”

“I am a Lord, yes.” There was no reason to deny it. The townspeople recognized him and the others on sight. Some even thought they were angels. Hunters recognized them on sight, as well, but were all too quick to renounce them as demons. Either way, the information could hardly be used against him. “And I did come looking for you.”