Dawnlark Plains the imp of the perverse

Her coldness proved his point, though Atreus hardly took any comfort in being right. Even as Avicus commanded him to come home—not because she wanted him there as her nephew but simply to serve a pack he had come to hate—he realized he’d graduated from purgatory into hell.

No, he replied in the same tone she’d just used on him.

Atreus took a step backward, prepared for her to lash out at him for his insolence. He wasn’t sorry—except, perhaps, about his brother—but he also wasn’t stupid. He knew he should probably just get the hell out of dodge, though he stayed still for the moment just to see if she’d fulfill Atreus’s little prophecy.