FORTY-SIX
Abyssian could sense whenever someone crossed the barrier into Pandemonia.
Weirdly, Lila had gotten that sense not long ago, glancing up from her book. Though her ears had twitched like crazy, the hellcats all around her had snoozed without so much as a whisker twitch.
Either Lila was developing the Force, or her queenly gifts were expanding. Maybe she could do even more than reading Abyssian’s stray thoughts and seeing hallucinatory deer.
Tempted to go investigate, she closed her book—one of millions.
In their first week of marriage, Abyssian had told her he had a surprise for her. . . .
He traced her to a different part of the castle, squiring her through an arched double doorway. “This is the Tower of Learning.”
Her jaw dropped at what must be one of the largest book collections in the Lore.
Balconied landings were spaced every twenty feet or so, ringing the inside walls of the tower, with the center open. She could see straight up to a painted ceiling, soaring above them.
“You like your new library?”
“It’s unbelievable!”
“The tower holds nothing but books,” he said. “Most of them were in Demonish, so I implemented a spell for you. Whenever you enter, all the text will change to your tongue of choice.”
Guilt had dampened her excitement, her lies and secrets weighing on her. She’d nearly blurted, I know Demonish.
Damn it, she’d never expected to develop lasting feelings for Abyssian Infernas.
The temptation to confess everything continued to grow. Yet always, she would recall the tension at court on the heels of one of Rune’s assassinations.
Had she learned nothing from the past? Secrecy meant survival.
Take it from my parents. . . .
Part of her longed to grab Abyssian’s brutal demon face and say, “I want you. I want a future with you. I need to be honest with you.”
Another part of her would look in the mirror and say, “I want to live. I want a future. I need to protect myself.”
Would she feel differently once he claimed her? Would that bond them so much she could relax her guard and confess all?
One way to find out. She’d decided tonight was the night. She remained nervous about the actual deed, but she trusted him, and she didn’t want him to have to wait any longer. . . .
Stretching her arms over her head, she asked her heavy-lidded pets, “Should I investigate any new arrivals?” The hellcats were snuggled up with her on the comfy couch in the library’s reading den.
Purrrrrrr, they answered.
She’d released them into this tower. The little spazzes had gone nuts, treating the place like their personal jungle gym. But as long as they continued to go outside to do their business and didn’t shred any more books, all was well.
She’d even coaxed Chip and Dale to visit. After a tense introductory period with the cats, they’d gotten more comfortable. Presently they were napping in front of the den’s fire.
After peeling cats off herself, she made her way from the library to the candlelit corridor. Fluttering drafts made the flames dance. Shadows leapt.
Sometimes this mystical castle could be spooky as fuck. Earlier today, the Lôtān head had come back—for the third time—which meant it’d be staying. Great. She’d glared at the creepy head. “Are you happy now?”
Though her life in hell was turning out to be both provocative and dreamlike, part of her still longed for Sylvan—
Clickety-clack sounded from behind her. She pivoted around to find the fawn standing in the hall.
It blinked its lustrous eyes.
She often saw Bambi. Sometimes it followed her around the library, going still whenever she peeked over her shoulder, like a supernatural version of the red-light/green-light game.
Was Graven supplying this illusion? And if so, why?
She hadn’t told Abyssian about the fawn. It always disappeared right before he appeared, so she’d stayed mum, figuring what would one more secret hurt?
She still saw Bambi in dreams as well. Each time, it would bound toward the edge of that desolate cliff as some light blazed from below. No matter how much she urged the fawn to come to her, it headed right off the cliff.
Lila had no idea what the dream meant, but it made her hesitate to trust the creature now.
The fawn turned in the opposite direction, glancing back at her. Lila vacillated. . . .
Screw it. When Bambi started down the dim corridor, she trailed behind. She passed dozens of doors, each leading to one of Graven’s treasure-trove rooms. She and Abyssian had explored many of them, investigating chests of jewels, wardrobes, art, antiques, and more.
A couple of days ago, she’d modeled old-fashioned dresses for him, and they’d waged mock battles with weapons they’d found. “En garde, relic,” she’d cried as she launched a sword offensive with her speed.
He’d teleported behind her, lightly swatting her on the ass. “You still haven’t said no tracing.”
Later when he’d closed the door to the room behind them, he’d gruffly admitted, “I haven’t had this much fun since I was a boy. . . .”
He’d also shown her all over the dimension. After each dinner, he would trace her to some new wonder. He’d taken her to a woodsy glade where raindrops fell up and to an ancient temple made of solid gold. He’d introduced her to the hellhounds. . . .
The pack rushed to his side fresh from a hunt. She was baby-talking one of the puppies—“Who’s a cute doggy-woggy? You are!”—when it sneezed on her.
A spray of reptile blood and bits of gristle spattered her shirt.
The demon had looked surprised when she’d laughed it off and named the puppy Sneezy. She’d named each of the other pack members after one of the seven dwarves as well.
Abyssian mused, “I don’t know why those dwarves are noteworthy among other dwarves, aside from their ridiculous names.”
“Ridiculous, huh?” She ripped off her soaked shirt and flung it onto one of Sian’s horns like a ringtoss.
His response to that: “Run.”
She and the demon did have fun together. Among his other roles—as a hell guide and bedmate—he was becoming her best friend.
Abyssian had turned out to be playful, off-the-charts intelligent, protective, and sexier than any male she’d ever encountered.
A hell demon with a raspy voice and a downright sinful tongue.
If only they didn’t have so many barriers between them. The Møriør. Rune. Her background and lies. Their species. The prospect of dark fey children.
Abyssian might not be bedding other demonesses, but that didn’t mean he wanted to bring banebloods into the world. He’d made his thoughts on that clear. Yet she still longed to have children. Would Rune target them—
Bambi slowed. With another glance back at her, it took a sharp left—into a wall. The fawn disappeared as though sucked into the stone.
Lila raised her hand to the wall. Instead of solid rock, air met her palms. An illusion concealed a hidden doorway.
Squaring her shoulders, she passed through the opening.
Pitch blackness greeted her. Even her immortal eyesight couldn’t penetrate it. “Oh, hell no.” She turned back, colliding face-first into stone. “Ow! Fucker.”
She was trapped.
Abyssian had told her he believed the castle liked her, but what if it didn’t? Had Lila just made a fatal error?
Clickety-clack, clickety-clack.
The tiny hairs on her nape rose. She had no choice but to follow the sound. As she fumbled through the dark, the passageway ascended for what felt like miles. . . .
Her ears twitched again. She could hear Abyssian’s voice! The fawn disappeared, just as Lila spied a muted light shining from ahead.
She eased closer, discovering a secret nook that overlooked the throne room. The castle had wanted her here! Though a screen concealed her, she could see below.
Abyssian leaned against a wall, drinking from a flask. Uthyr the dragon slept, his body and tail stretching the length of the room. A stacked brunette with pale, luminous skin and bright hazel eyes slouched in Lila’s throne. Her legs were crossed over an armrest. She wore a miniskirt and combat boots.
A tall male with fangs, pointed ears, and long black hair sat in Abyssian’s throne. A bow was strapped over the male’s back, a quiver around his leg.
Lila stifled a gasp. The fey-slayer.
Rune the Baneblood was here. The star of her nightmares. Her heart pounded so loudly she feared they could hear it.
She’d never seen a dark fey in person before. He was lean, his build similar to Abyssian’s. His eyes were magenta, his features roughhewn. But altogether he was moderately attractive. Tattoos marked his tanned skin, a band of them encircling one of his wrists.
The arrows in his leg quiver looked color-coded. Which arrow decimated armies? Better question: which one didn’t?
That female must be Rune’s mate, Josephine—the halfling with all the abilities.
Lila had known the archer would show up sooner or later, but had hoped on years later.
Josephine asked Abyssian, “Is your chick pretty?”
“Calliope Infernas is exquisite,” he replied. They’re discussing me? Was this why Graven had led Lila here?
Or had the castle wanted her to face her fear?
Rune didn’t appear so otherworldly and ominous right now. He looked like a regular guy—one who needed a shave and could barely keep his eyes off his mate.
Lila’s feelings toward the Møriør had been a mix of resentment and terror. With a mystical castle on her side, that terror dwindled. . . .
“What’s her personality like?” Rune asked. “Uthyr spoke of a fiery temperament.”
“Her temper is as sharp as her intellect—and her ears,” Abyssian said, his tone proud. “She’s a firebrand.”
Lila had never seen him juxtaposed against humanoid beings. As she gazed over his horns, claws, and wings, tenderness bloomed in her chest. She was growing to love everything that made him demonic.
She’d gotten used to sleeping in the protection of those remarkable wings. They were soft on the inside and deadly everywhere else.
Like Abyssian could be. . . .
“Why don’t you let me go talk to her?” Josephine said. “I hated all of you freaks at first, but now I tolerate you. And if I can, anybody can.”
Lila kind of liked this girl.
“She wouldn’t want to meet anyone connected to a Møriør.” Abyssian traced to take a seat on the dais steps—instead of commanding Rune to vacate his throne. A testament to their friendship. “Not yet at least. It will take time.”
“Good news, brother,” Rune said, “we’ve got nothing but time.”
Uthyr’s tail twitched, and he growled in sleep.
Josephine murmured to Rune, “Hey, sport, watch this.” She waved her hand in the dragon’s direction.
Uthyr immediately scratched his earflap.
“Worth the trip to hell, right there.” Was the female using telekinesis to screw with the Møriør’s almighty dragon?
Abyssian raised his brows. “Surely you’ve heard the saying: Never wake a sleeping dragon.”
Rune apparently hadn’t. “Do it again, Josie.”
She did. When Uthyr scratched and smacked his chops, Lila found herself almost grinning. They all seemed so deceptively normal. Too bad one of them has vowed to murder me.
Another wave of Josephine’s hand.
Uthyr scratched so hard that scales popped off, pinwheeling in the air.
The halfling and Rune cracked up. Even Abyssian laughed.
Rune turned to him. “I haven’t heard you laugh since you took the throne.” Tracing to sit beside Abyssian, Rune clamped his shoulder, the two demonstrating such an easy camaraderie. “Like I said, your female is already affecting you.”
Lila thought back to some of the first times she’d heard the demon laugh. He’d definitely seemed rusty at it. No longer.
“Didn’t I tell you? There’s nothing better than matehood.” Rune’s contentedness surprised her. Abyssian had confided more of what Magh had done to the archer, and it’d been horrific. Did Rune deserve revenge? Gods, yes.
Just not against me.
When Josephine joined Rune on the steps, he wrapped an arm around her, pressing a kiss into her hair. So clearly in love.
Lila gazed from them to Abyssian. Though the demon continued to reveal those hints of vulnerability to her, something was weighing on him. Did he have a secret of his own?
Abyssian asked the two, “Have you ever heard of the seven dwarves?”
Josephine grinned. “Yeah, they sound a jot familiar. Why do you ask?”
Frowning, he said, “My mate named a pack of hellhounds after them, but I’m baffled why those seven are significant among all other dwarves in the Lore. If she admires them, I would like to understand better.”
Lila sighed. That demon.
Josephine said, “They’re a band of miners who aided and abetted an endangered royal named Snow White. They’re basically revolutionaries.”
Hey, I’m the only one who gets to fuck with him over mortal-realm references.
“I see,” Abyssian said, no doubt thinking the dwarves had gone by code names. “That makes sense.”
“Is your mate really a reincarnate?” Josephine asked.
Nod. “She lived ten millennia ago.”
“How weird.” No kidding. “Does she have memories from her past life?”
“No. Nor does she want them.”
Lila had told Abyssian as much a few days before. . . .
He asked her, “Have you accepted you are a reincarnate?”
“I . . . have. I’ve also accepted that I probably won’t ever remember my previous existence.”
“I could use magic to help you.”
She exhaled. “Why would I want to, Abyssian? And more, why would you want me to remember my own death?” As well as the death of her child. Considering she would never be pregnant in this life, that memory would be all the more devastating. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“How did she die?” Josephine asked, seeming absorbed with the subject of reincarnation.
His expression darkened. “Childbirth. She . . . she wed another.”
In one of Lila’s late-night talks with the demon, he’d told her about her first husband. . . .
“That fuck couldn’t wait a few months for her—you—to transition? I . . . it never made sense to me. How could he risk you?” The demon’s thought hit her. —When I would’ve done anything for you!— “I was supposed to protect my mate, but that sealed portal kept me from reaching you. He as good as killed you, and there was nothing I could do to save you.”
“Did you confront him?”
“I did. His assassination was my first act as a Møriør.” Gaze gone distant, Abyssian said, “They never found all the pieces of him.”
So much rage. How could he not always resent the past—and therefore her? Already he would hate her for her very blood.
Rune told him, “I’m glad you’ve forgiven your female for the past.” When no response came, he said, “You have forgiven her, right?”
Lila held her breath, though she knew the answer. No, he had not.
When she’d asked Abyssian what his life was like before he’d taken the throne, he’d answered, “I thought I’d found a measure of contentment. Now I know I’d just been numb since your death.”
For ten thousand years.
Yet he wanted her to believe that he’d relinquished his anger against her?
Abyssian was a proud trickster. She hoped the joke wasn’t on her, because she was falling for him hard.
At length, he said, “It’s complicated.”
Actually, it was really simple: too many things stood between them. As long as he resented her for deeds done in the far-distant past, he would never give her a fair shake in this present.
If she confessed the truth to him, she would be vulnerable. The tower awaited.
But if she kept concealing her identity, he would find out eventually.
Lila couldn’t see a way out of this bind. Pain was inevitable, no matter what course of action she decided on. Unwelcome realization struck her. . . .
I can’t figure this the fuck out.
Abyssian stood. “I’m keen to return to her.”
Shit, shit! Got to get back! Would the secret opening let her out this time?
Lila hesitated when Rune said, “Will you tell your mate we were here?”
“I won’t lie to her if she asks. But I don’t want to distress her unnecessarily either.”
Josephine said, “She might put her foot down and forbid us from returning. If I didn’t know Rune, I sure as shit would.”
Abyssian straightened. “I will never bar my friends from this castle.”
Good to know . . .
“One last thing,” Rune said. “I accept—grudgingly—that we’re not to harm the inhabitants of Sylvan.” He did? “But I’ve got leads on a few of Magh’s descendants who live outside the kingdom.” Like . . . me? “Are those outliers included in your vow?”
Abyssian shook his head. “If they’re evil, take them out.”
Before Sian returned to Calliope, he traced to one of Graven’s many echoing corridors in search of a mirror.
Josephine had spoken about his appearance deteriorating. He needed to see how bad the hell-change had gotten since he’d last assessed his looks. How quickly was he failing?
Though Sian was transforming parts of his dimension, he couldn’t transform himself. The hourglass kept pouring.
He found a mirror. How much time do I have left with Calliope? Inhaling, he faced the glass.
My gods. His fangs were longer, his horns even larger. The mask around his eyes had spread outward, becoming more prominent. Another line of hell metal had appeared between his brows. So the number of his piercings would keep increasing?
If all of his demonic features continued to grow more exaggerated, a time would come when things he took for granted became impossible.
Such as speech. Or pleasuring his mate.
The patience he’d demonstrated toward Calliope’s claiming was replaced by urgency.
He conjured a picture of himself and Rune from not so many months ago. My former likeness. Sian would’ve made a fitting partner for a beauty like Calliope.
He focused on the picture, noticing the deadened look in his eyes. Sleepwalking . . .
Before Calliope, he’d been handsome, but empty. Now he was wide awake.
All the better to feel my coming misery.
He punched the mirror, shattering the glass.