SIX
Recognition came slowly to Lila. She was tucked against the body of some kind of creature. Hadn’t the Sorceri sisters threatened her? My mind’s so foggy.
Warmth cocooned her, and she felt . . . safe. She hadn’t felt this way since she’d first learned an archer loved to hunt her kind.
She forced open her eyes and drew her head back. An instant passed before she realized she was gazing at skin. Lots of bloodred skin with glyphs that resembled illuminated raised scars. They coiled in ancient-looking patterns on the chest of some towering creature.
The being’s scent was like fire—and male.
Leather straps crisscrossed his mighty chest. Both of his nipples were pierced with thin metal bars. She glanced over her shoulder. By the light of those glyphs, she saw the wings that had wrapped around her.
Wings???
They retracted with a swooping sound. She faced forward and tilted her head up and up. . . . Her mind turned over.
A monster.
It was more than seven feet tall with jutting horns. A band of black radiated out from fathomless onyx eyes, down its cheeks and above its heavy brow.
She swallowed thickly. “Demon?” This could not be Abyssian Infernas.
Its features were rough and sneering. “Demon.”
When those wings closed around her once more, she loosed a scream that had been building for all her life.
Sian traced his shrieking captive to one of the seven great towers of Graven. Once an amusement hall for hell’s orgies, the decrepit top floor in this tower would make an ideal prison.
Forty chambers surrounded a central court and a broken fountain, yet no doors led into the castle.
There were zero comforts, just crumbling stone, thick cobwebs from poisonous blood-meal spiders, and toxic fire vines.
Those red vines forked out across the walls and covered the exterior of the tower as well. If Kari tried to climb down from this height, she’d be in for a nasty surprise.
The only light came from lava oozing down neighboring volcanoes. Shadows slithered along in constant motion.
She squirmed against him. He’d been a teen when he’d seen her last, but now he responded as an adult demon male, his body tensing.
Fighting harder, she twisted in his arms. He didn’t want to hurt her too badly—yet—so he released her, dropping her without care as he teleported to the other side of the courtyard.
She bounced on the stone floor, dust and ash rising to blend with the mud covering her. Sian was tempted to toss her in a bath.
Coughing, she sprang to her feet, then sprinted from him. With her fey speed, she was a blur as she charged from one room to the next.
Each one had celebrated a different sexual facet. If she could read the lurid Demonish inscriptions covering most of the walls, she’d probably expire. He crossed his arms, waiting for her to discover the lack of exits.
She finally slowed, stopping across the courtyard from him. “Where have you taken me?” She breathed wisps of airborne ash, coughing.
“To hell. I am Abyssian Infernas, the king of it. Do you remember me?”
“You are . . .” She shook her head. “I’ve never met you before, but I’ve heard of you. You’re the oldest demon alive, and one of the Møriør.”
She truly had no memory of him? “This tower is your prison and will be for the rest of your immortal life.”
“Why would you keep me captive?” She coughed again, her eyes watering. “What have I done to be locked up in hell?”
“You will pay for wrongs done to me in your past life. And for wrongs you and Nïx no doubt have planned.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Past life? You clearly have the wrong woman. I’m not a reincarnate, and I don’t know anyone named Nïx.”
He traced to her, clamping her slim arm in his fist. “And yet here you are.” He teleported her to the tower balcony, a spacious stone terrace. At the run-down railing, he gestured to the legions teeming below.
Freed from their punishments, demons of all species had filed in from Slaughter Gorge for the Vrekener battle, one that would never be. But he could promise them another. . . . “If you try to escape my castle, my legions will catch you, and they will not oblige you with a death. They’ll keep you alive for their use.”
The tips of her pointed ears flattened against her head.
“If you wish to survive here, you will obey my every command. Any hesitation to heed an order will be considered a refusal. Any command only half obeyed will be considered a refusal. Any lie will be considered a refusal. Do you understand me?”
Her gaze narrowed. Instead of shrinking from him, she looked like she’d briefly lost her footing, but had managed to right herself. “You have no right to take away my freedom and threaten me, Møriør!”
“Might makes right. Now, answer me: Do you understand my commands?”
“I understand them.”
He relaxed a fraction, until she added, “And I reject them.”