Becoming His Monster by Hutchins, Amelia, Hutchins, Amelia (3)

Chapter 21

Inside the club the men paced, every once in a while tossing me a dirty or disapproving look. I got it, I’d walked Lucifer right up to their front door, but he had been coming here no matter what I’d done. My gaze moved between Lucian and Ryder; both men refused to stop pacing, and I was getting tired of the looks they kept throwing my way. I shrugged at them when they did, somehow managing to not show how rattled I was at what I’d just accomplished and how it felt.

I’d smashed Lucifer’s head into the ground until it had popped, just as mine had done when he’d sealed my death in a pretty bow. Chewing my lip, I peeked at the coven from beneath my lashes, watching them as they stared between them and me as if they feared I’d be punished. They were terrified, and they should be. Lucifer was coming to claim his daughter one way or another, he would take her.

“You do realize that you brought the fucking devil to the one place we have brought people to be safe, right?” Synthia groaned softly. Her hair hung down her shoulders in gentle waves of platinum as she stared me down. Her hands lifted, rubbing her temples as the stress oozed from her into the men around her.

I nodded as I slowly took in her stiff demeanor. She had changed from her fighting leathers into a soft, cool baby blue camisole that hugged her full chest snugly. A tight pair of jeans hugged her shapely legs, showing off the well-muscled physique of her lithe frame. Weapons were holstered, and yet I didn’t miss the fact that while they seemed relaxed, they were very much ready and on edge because of what had happened outside. They were ready to defend this place with their lives if the need arose.

“He was coming here anyway, and nothing could have stopped him if he wanted in. I needed to know why he’d sought me out, and once I had, I used it to get him to me. He is coming for his daughter; one way or another, he will make a try for her. We thought he wanted eyes on the ground since he was trapped in Hell, and once he was released, he’d forget she existed or was soon to exist, but that’s not the case. He wants her still,” I admitted. I shrugged when she continued to stare at me. “I also needed to get revenge, to show him that I am not the weak mortal who he almost beat to death that day. I needed to show him I was ready for him to buy Kendra time.”

“You could have mentioned you had a direct fucking line to him. Instead, you acted like it was no big deal and that it had been nothing. You smelled of brimstone, reeked of it, actually. You didn’t even give us a fucking clue as to what you planned to do, which could have ended badly or been a fucking disaster, Lena,” Lucian snarled, the room shaking with his anger as he let it out. Midnight eyes locked with mine as he glared murderously, inches away from me. I shrugged, smirking as his eyes darkened with his anger. I owed him nothing. “You could have given us an indication of what you’d planned, or that he was on his way instead of leaving us yanking our dicks in the dark as we stumbled to figure it out. All that little show you just did for him? It’s only going to piss him off more than he already is. It didn’t even buy us time, which it could have. We thought you actually made a fucking deal with him, so you’re very lucky it didn’t cost you that pretty little head of yours.” He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles before dropping them to reveal the unearthly blue glow as whatever lived inside of him peered out at me. “Instead, you forced me to watch you as you rubbed yourself all over his cock, knowing he intended to fuck you right in front of me as I was forced to watch it happen!”

“And? Am I supposed to feel bad for you?” I frowned at him as I shook my head, pushing my hair back from my face. “If I had told you, you wouldn’t have reacted as you did. You wouldn’t have responded at all or enough that he believed it. You’d have given it all away, so yes, I left you in the dark, but I’m not stupid, asshole. You never stumble. I wanted to see how brash and cocky the prick could be, and we now know that he isn’t afraid of us, why? Why isn’t he afraid of you and everyone else? What’s changed since he ran from you last time? Something has, and we need to know what. We also needed to know he was close, which he is. He isn’t leaving this area until he gets what he wants, and that isn’t something we can just hand over to him, now is it? No. He is here because his child is here, which means we judged him wrong. He cares about his daughter, his flesh and blood. So if you not knowing which side I was on hurt your feelings, suck it up, buttercup. I don’t have time to worry about your feelings right now. I released Lucifer from Hell, and now he is after my family, my blood. So I’m sorry that watching me seduce the devil hurt your feelings or bothered you, but we no longer need the witches to scry for him because I’ve tasted his blood. He cannot hide from me any longer. That’s a win, Lucian. No matter what you think, it’s a win, and we fucking needed one.”

“And if it had gone wrong, what then? If he’d suspected you would betray him, he could have fucking killed you!”

“I’m already dead!” I shouted back crossly. “He already helped kill me, and it wasn’t what he wanted to do. He wants to do whatever brings you the most pain. Not me. Killing me doesn’t work anymore because he’s already done it. He may want, now that I smashed his head into the pavement, but this has never been about me. It’s about you. I’m already on borrowed time, and I no longer fear death. I can’t, it doesn’t help us get anywhere. I’m tired of losing, aren’t you? I want to end this war before he succeeds in bringing down the doors between the worlds, before the veil falls and monsters we cannot possibly hope to win against come to this one. We can’t close the doors without knowing his plans first, and even if we do manage to close them, there are still thousands of creatures who have escaped their worlds into this one. I’m tired of fucking losing. We’re losing right now, and no matter what we are trying to accomplish, we have to start now. Monsters are feeding off the human race, devouring them to sustain life, and they need our help. I’m sick of smelling the coppery tang of blood in the air and the noxious odor of brimstone. We’re immortal, standing in a Guild that was erected to protect humans. It’s time we start doing it, and we give them no mercy. No option to return home, we slaughter anything that doesn’t belong here.”

“That’s a beautiful fucking speech, but we don’t know how to close the gates or stop them from pouring into this world,” Ryder injected, growling as he stared me down as if I’d just insulted them.

“The girl, Erie, she can ward the gates long enough for us to figure out how to close them. It should buy us time.”

“She’s gone,” he admitted. “She’s been on the run for weeks, and when she does stop here, it’s only long enough to place new wards and get a hot meal and shower. There’s no telling when or if she will show up again.”

“Call her,” I growled back at him.

“She’s in hiding, and it’s not like she left us a number to dial her up on,” Synthia interrupted. “She’s got her own problems going on. We will find another way to close the gates.”

“We need something now,” I pointed out, my eyes twitching as I considered just how many monsters were flowing out of those gaping holes in the world with every passing moment. More and more bodies were piling up as we stood around, waiting, wondering, and searching for a way to close the holes.

“No shit, but there’s no easy way to close a portal,” Synthia said in frustration.

“The only way to close them would be to destroy them,” Lucian pointed out. “The portal is a door, destroy the door, and destroy the portal.”

“And what’s to stop another one from opening?” I asked. “There’s multiple entryways from Hell into this world, so how would we be able to destroy them all?”

“Hell isn’t the same as the other worlds,” he stated.

“Hell is the most dangerous of them all, isn’t it?” I countered with a glare. Lucifer was coming for Kendra, and I felt it to the center of my being. I sensed his intention, and it scared me that she was a target. “He will come for his daughter.”

“Kendra has agreed to hand her over,” my grandmother injected, and my blood turned to ice as I swung my eyes to her.

“The fuck she will,” I snapped coldly.

“He will never stop, and as far as we’ve learned, he cannot be destroyed without offsetting the balance. As much as I hate to admit it, Lucifer is needed in this world. He and the angels alike have created a natural balance. If we destroy him, we ruin that balance. He will never stop reaching for the child, and she is a Nephilim. Which means she is not ours to keep,” she said softly, tears swimming in her eyes as she watched me.

“That’s bullshit,” I growled. “He doesn’t get his child. He took away the chance of me having mine, and that babe isn’t evil. She needs to be protected.”

“She is a harbinger, the antichrist so to say. Nephilims aren’t meant for this world.”

I glared at my grandmother and turned to stare at Olivia. “Olivia is a Nephilim. She isn’t the antichrist.”

“She isn’t of Lucifer’s seed,” Ristan pointed out as his hands rested on Olivia’s protruding belly. “His child is and will always be considered something of a troubling matter.”

“We’re talking of an innocent child who didn’t ask to be born. One who was created because he thought Kendra was me, and now you want to just hand her over to that monster? No, absolutely not. No one is born evil. Evil is created, and if we hand her over to him, she will be made into a vile monster like her father, by her father. No, that’s insane and not happening. If Kendra fears what she carries, we will deal with it. We will find her a mother who wants her, but we do not hand our bloodline over to the fucking devil!”

“And who will protect her?”

“I will!” I shouted, my blood rising as I stared at my grandmother, who frowned as she shook her greying head.

“There’s another problem which we came across as well. Mothers who birth Nephilims seldom survive the birthing process. Kendra’s life is endangered with every moment she approaches this birth, Lena. She is weakening, as if it is slowly sucking the life from her to grow.”

“What?” I whispered as I fought the sickness that clenched in my stomach. This wasn’t happening. I hadn’t made the sacrifices I had to lose her in the end, it wasn’t happening.

“She grows weaker with every day, and no amount of magic seems to stop the process or whatever is happening to her. I have tried magic, vampire blood, and many other things but none of them stop the problems she is experiencing. Her bones are brittle, her hair is lackluster, and whatever she carries is feeding from her, as if it is slowly consuming her as it grows.”

“Olivia, your mother, she lived?” I asked, dismissing my grandmother as I was unable to accept her words. I’d seen Kendra, and she looked fine; tired, but she hadn’t looked like she was being consumed. Or had I not wanted to see it?

“My mother didn’t survive my birth, no.” Her head bowed, and she frowned. “I’m sorry; I know it wasn’t the answer you wanted. She died giving birth to me, and I was left outside a Guild, as most of our kind is.”

I swallowed hard past the thick lump in my throat. “Other angels? Are there any who we can ask? Can you ask them?”

“I speak to my father, but they’re rather busy with the current situation of the world and the sudden overwhelming numbers of souls entering heaven. I do know that carrying a Nephilim can oftentimes kill a mortal, and sometimes what they birth is barely human. I can tell you that it isn’t rare for them to feed from their parents, or for them to kill a mother when they’re born into this world. Angels aren’t meant to be carried by humans, which is why heaven forbid them from mating with them. There’s a handful of Nephilim births recorded, which means our information is limited. I’m sorry, Lena, but even if I could manage to call my father here, he wouldn’t have much to tell you, and I think he’d be more inclined to murder the babe before she was born.”

“I’m sure he would,” I grumbled as I rubbed my temples. “She cannot die,” I uttered as I turned to stare at Lucian. “She cannot die, do you hear me? I didn’t lose our child just to watch her do the same fucking thing. Lucifer isn’t touching her daughter, not as long as I draw air into my lungs. I’d rather fuck the balance than hand him my niece or watch my sister die because he mistook her for me. I suggest you figure out what we have to do to prevent both things from occurring.”

“And you think I can fix it?” he scowled as his hands rested on his hips, eyes feasting on me in challenge.

“I think you better figure out how we prevent it from happening. You are the one he wanted to hurt, and we’ve paid enough for whatever game or slight you two have. Lucifer wants to hurt you, fix it. Now tell me how we destroy the portals because I really need a win right now. So tell me, how the fuck can he hurt you? What would he do to strike you where it hurts?”

“You’re my only weakness, Lena. I don’t care about anything else, never have, never will. I have been trying to save this selfish world so long that I don’t even wince at the idea of it being gone anymore. They’re so fucking hell-bent on destroying themselves that even their Gods have abandoned them.”

Chapter 22

Lucian

Fucking Lena and her flawed logic! I’d watched her through the night, scenting the brimstone that clung to her flesh as we’d fucked, and bloody hell had we fucked. She no longer feared what our bodies did, she didn’t hold back.

And yet I’d smelled his putrid calling card, and I’d ignored it, even when her eyes had closed, and she’d appeared to sleep. I knew she couldn’t sleep, she was like me now. Sleep wasn’t needed, nor was feeding per se, even though if I had to pick a meal, her flesh would be it and I’d eat, often. Her smile when she’d awaken from her dream walk had punched me in the gut, and I’d let her control the situation, or I had until she straddled me.

Magdalena was a fucking beast in bed, and she wouldn’t take an inch if it were given, she’d take it all. But the fact that I’d been stupid enough to even consider her switching sides…that was on me and I knew it.

I knew her, I knew her faults, her strengths and every fucking weakness she had, and yet I’d thought her a part of Katarina’s and Lucifer’s diabolic plan for revenge and wouldn’t she have been the sweetest icing on the cake? Watching her mouth on his had awakened the monster within; the darkness had risen its head and peered out, demanding we eradicate the entire world to show her what monster she’d fucked over, and then he’d touched what was mine in the most primal way possible.

Her sweet smile for him had ached, man, had it fucking ached, as if it had torn through the shields and barriers of what I am and ripped it to shreds in her wake. Her body against his had every soul inside of me screaming for retribution, to judge her and execute the threat, and then she’d smashed his fucking head.

Glorious in her naked perfection as she bathed in his blood, uncaring that it made her a horrifying monster as she smiled, finding pride in the bloody heap of tissue and bone she’d created. Her hair painted red from his blood, body painted in the stickiness of it as she’d stood, staring down with a darkness that was more ancient, more primordial than any other creature in existence at that moment.

I’d fought the urge to go to her, to lay her down in the middle of the chaos and fuck her to show her how turned on I was, how hard my dick was from watching my girl tear the devil to pieces with nothing more than her bare hands. She’d been beautiful. The most beautiful thing I’d ever seen from the moment I’d been created.

My motherfucking monster.

Then those cold, beautiful blue eyes had turned in my direction, and she’d smiled, she’d fucking smiled with blood dripping from her hair, from her body which had remained naked, right before she’d took his head for our son.

This wisp of a mortal, the girl who had told me to go have pretty babies had become a killing machine, and the pain she’d released, the anger, I’d tasted it. I’d stood there, feeling every pain, every loss, every moment of her life that she released in rage as she turned night to day with it, demons to ashes that filled the sky as she alone took on an army of them, uncaring of the odds, or the danger.

Lena had come back darker, yes. But she’d come back as a force of nature that even the Gods themselves would kneel to. Naked, she’d slaughtered a horde of demons naked, flesh painted in their leader’s blood and she hadn’t even once tried to cover it, rather she reveled in it. Her eyes had been wild with hatred as she took from them as they’d taken from her. No, Lena wasn’t the sweet girl who blushed when I had told her what I wanted to do to her sweet, innocent body.

She was my fucking monster, and monsters didn’t fear anything. They moved on, moved forward, and she was. Gods help Lucifer because she was hell-bent on destroying him. When we finished here, I’d take her away from this place, show her another world where she could let that darkness out to play, to let down those walls and just be who she was without fear of the coven rejecting her.

I’d take her home, to the one place I could release my own power without fear of it destroying all those she loved because no matter what she tried to tell the world or show them, Lena loved her people, all of them, and she still fought for them.

She had never needed Lucifer to become the queen; she was already one in her own right. She fought for the humans when no other thought them worthy, for the witches who the world judged and found lacking; she was the queen of the unwanted, the unloved, and the fucking underdog. And she was mine.

“You plan to crawl out of that fucking head sometime today?” Spyder asked as he escaped from the shadows, staring me down as if he could see the same image I was, Lena bathed in blood, naked.

“Kallum is back?” I asked, staring him down as I watched him shrug the words off.

“He’s been back, he’s no longer needed to watch Lucifer since he’s here now,” he admitted, and I grunted.

“You pulled him out?”

“I figured you’d be okay with it since we have our hands full here and figuring out how to close the portals without cutting Lena open to remove the seal isn’t an ideal task.”

“It’s dormant, sleeping inside her womb,” I expelled as I exhaled and turned to face him. “What the fuck is up with the dancing bullshit? It’s unlike you.”

“She needed a laugh, and I felt it. That need to know she’s still her, no matter what she has become. Open your fucking eyes and look at her, Lucian. She’s strong, but she is fucking broken inside. What she did for them, for you, it cost her everything. She may look healed, but she’s still that scared little girl who walked into that circle and died. She’s layered now, you need to peel them back, see what is waiting for you inside. She may just fucking surprise you.”

“You don’t think she hasn’t? She took Lucifer to the ground with the promise of her sweet flesh and bashed his fucking brains in. Naked. Naked and uncaring that the entire world watched as she took on the devil in her birthday suit, with her bare hands,” I mused softly, considering exactly what she’d done. “She showed him who she was, and how much damage she can do alone to him, but she also went bare bones to do it, making sure the world knew what lay in those layers beneath that pretty smile. She’s not just one of the Furies; she’s more, which may spell trouble, considering she does still hold the seal within her. If it ever awakens and figures out just how strong she has become, we could end up with us all on the losing end of this war.”

“You saw the runes she used to seal it into her flesh,” he muttered as his hand rubbed down his face as his sapphire eyes held mine. “Those were older than the Fae inside this Guild. The grimoires she still contains weren’t just from this coven, they’re of Hecate herself. Lena is a walking fucking killing machine, one who could set this world on fire alone. She cannot remain here once this is over. The Gods will never allow it.”

“I’m aware, but they’ll never make a move against her so long as she remains at my side. They won’t chance me unleashing myself on this world or any other.”

“Let’s hope you’re right. The portals are open, and heaven is teetering on chaos, which I’m sure you are already aware of. If heaven opens up, the angels will fall.”

“They seem to be staying out of it for the most part. Those pristine fucks wouldn’t care if the world ended; their father would, but they have been itching to fight for millennia against the children He created. Seal the Gates of the Gods; leave the rest alone for now. Let’s see who slithers out to help and who runs. Hades has enough to deal with; we don’t need more Gods coming here to move pieces onto the playing field.”

“On it, but they won’t be too happy if they figure out we locked them up for this fight,” he pointed out. His eyes lifted to the top of the Guild as if he was seeing her, where she prepared for bed. “She was something to witness today, even if she toed a line she shouldn’t have. Not many can say they’ve gone toe-to-toe with the devil and left him a bloody, lifeless mess of shit on their shoes.”

“She was something else, but do me a favor and stop picturing her naked. Half the fucking Fae are already doing so. There’s also the fact that we need to sever that bond between you and her, now that it’s unneeded.”

“There’s only one way to reverse it, and I’m not so sure I want to go there. That’s a line I don’t want to cross, and neither does she, not really.”

“It’s not a line I want you to cross either, but I need you focused and feeling you with me every time I fuck her cannot continue. No offense, Spyder, but I want you out of her head when I fuck her, and out of mine.”

Chapter 23

Lena

Silently, I sat on the bed lost in the turmoil of my thoughts as I processed everything that had happened today. I’d gone toe-to-toe with the devil without anything to protect me, without anything between us to show him just who had come back from the dead, and I hadn’t flinched. That wasn’t something the old me could have accomplished, and yet I’d enjoyed it. I’d enjoyed the feel of his blood as it bathed my flesh, painting it red as if it was war paint. I’d risen from his corpse stronger, weightless of the guilt from luring him to me. I’d wanted to scream and rage in that dream walk. I’d wanted to rip him apart, but the darkness inside of me had craved revenge more.

I exhaled and frowned as I stared at the door of the bedroom I now shared with Lucian, not because he’d asked me to stay here, but because I didn’t care if he liked it or not. I needed him; some part of me needed him to be okay. Maybe it was the bond we shared, or maybe it was something of the old me holding on to what it could still grasp on to without destroying it. He was durable, unbreakable, which was more than I could say about Kendra.

I’d watched her tonight for hours after Lucian had left with his men to check out the damage along with the width of the portals to other dimensions that now were opening. Dominos, it was like fucking dominos, and once one world opened, another began the process.

My mind replayed Kendra, how she looked, the way she cradled her stomach as if she carried some gift from God himself instead of Lucifer. A Nephilim, they’d called it: Half-angel, half mortal, and death to the poor girl carrying it. She and Olivia had both taken to walking the halls for exercise, and I’d felt a flare of jealousy that I wasn’t with them. That I’d lost my chance to be one of them cradling their protruding bellies as they discussed pregnancy together. I’d wanted to be the one who laughed with her, talked to her about the joys of it, and yet I’d never know that joy that spread on their faces as the child moved or kicked. No, I’d sacrificed mine because a monster had grown in his tiny, innocent soul.

The thought of Kendra dying flared anger into my mind, licking against it red-hot and it also terrified me. I knew I shouldn’t feel it, and yet I did. I felt what was coming; the knowledge that Olivia’s mother had also died in childbirth didn’t help me. It was how she’d ended up in the Guild, and little to nothing was known about her actual death. I lay back against the soft pillows as I closed my eyes, forcing the turbulence of my mind to calm, the ache in my chest to cease throbbing as I considered how much longer she had before her time would be here.

Wasn’t living with a soul supposed to stop the pain? Wasn’t I supposed to be free of the burden of feeling this sense of loss? Yet I felt it, right down to my black soulless core. I felt the loss as if it had already unfolded.

“You’re in my bed, woman,” a thick voice purred, and then a shadow filled my line of sight as I pried my eyes open to peer up at him. I gazed longingly into the dark exquisiteness of endless desire that offered infinite salvation, an escape from the debilitating pain of my thoughts. 

“So I am,” I uttered softly as I continually watched him, unwilling to close my eyes for a moment as he stared back. Slowly, he began to undo the cuffs of his suit jacket, his darkened stare daring me to argue as he began to strip bare.

Only Lucian Blackstone would wear a suit in the middle of an honest-to-Gods fucking apocalypse. He looked as if he’d just stepped right out of the pages of a GQ Magazine and right into the shithole of a mess we called home. He turned, dismissing me as he folded his jacket onto a vacant chair before he turned back, leaning against the wall as if he was trying to figure out how to handle me, or how to proceed.

“Your people are out tonight, scouring the streets and yet here you are, in my bed sulking. Not that I don’t mind you waiting in my bed, but you don’t seem like the wait-around type, little lady,” he chuckled softly, his eyes turning into liquid pools of heat. His fingers lifted, slowly undoing the buttons on his crisp white shirt as he continued to stare at me.

“I’m not sulking, and I wasn’t waiting for you either,” I lied. I was waiting, not that I’d ever admit it. He didn’t need me to boost his ego or add to the cockiness he already had in spades. Not that he hadn’t earned the right to be cocky, or use that ego, I mean, he did. But I wasn’t building onto it tonight.

“You’re sulking, and you are waiting for me, in my bed.” He slipped the shirt from his body, and my gaze slid down the coils of tense muscles that were covered in delicious tattoos and runes. I licked my lips and let my eyes drift to the V of his body that dipped below the suit pants he wore. He knew what I needed, what I’d come here for, and yet he didn’t demand shit as he watched me with heat banked in those darkened depths.

“I can’t lose her, Lucian. Not now, not after everything we’ve been through.”

“And if you can’t save her? Because it’s not something I can stop from happening. Humans are not meant to bear Nephilims, Lena. Not even I can stop death when he reaches for a human; witch or not, she’s his if he comes for her.”

“I told you to prove it to me, to earn me back. I’m asking you to save her, to use whatever you are to save her life!”

“And I’m telling you that I cannot,” he muttered as he placed the guns on the sideboard and sat beside me, his leg brushing against mine with his close proximity. “I can destroy worlds for you, slaughter millions, but I cannot save her. If it were that easy, she’d be safe from the cold grasp of death, and you’d have never died. I can’t fight the natural order, no one can. If you are planning on me saving her, we’re fucked.”

“Then how do I save her?” I demanded as I stood up, putting distance between us.

“Come with me,” he said, offering me his hand.

I stared at it as if it would bite me, and then slowly, very slowly, I placed my hand into his and let him tug my body closer to his. He started out of the room, and I followed him, allowing him to lead me towards wherever it was he was taking me.

We passed several doorways in silence. The sound of couples laughing or otherwise engaged met my ears as we moved towards a winding staircase that led upwards at the end of the hall. I followed him up the stairs; silence seemed to follow us as if those in the rooms had paused to listen as we moved higher into the Guild.

Eventually, we met with a guard, a giant Fae with burning green eyes that skimmed over Lucian before letting that eerie gaze land on my face.

“Yum,” he said with such intensity that I swallowed audibly.

“She’s mine.”

“I wasn’t interested in her, just her pain,” he elaborated as those eyes seemed to see beyond me to what burned in my center: Pain and anguish that almost buckled my knees.

“Asrian,” Lucian acknowledged softly with a nod of his dark head towards the door.

“It’s not pretty,” the Fae said, his eyes still focused on me, as a new sensation started around us. “I can take it from you. But only if you want me to.”

“Take what?” I asked hesitantly.

“The pain, you have so much of it. Too much for someone so young, but you do wear it so beautifully if I may be so bold to say.”

I stared into his multicolored eyes and winced, knowing he was taking it from me already. I felt the subtle pull of it, the offer for oblivion he could give me and yet I pulled it back to me, like armor. He was almost seven feet in height; his copper red hair was striking against his pale complexion. Eyes the color of lime surrounded by a darker grass green watched me, beckoning me to let him feed from my pain until the weightless oblivion of it took over.

“I need it still,” I informed him coolly, as if it didn’t debilitate and obliterate me from inside as surely as if it was a wrecking ball slamming into my heart over and over again. “Maybe another time, Asrian,” I offered.

“I look forward to it, creature,” he smirked as he reached for the door, pulling it open to let us pass through.

Outside was bathed in nothing, no lights covered the city. It was bathed in darkness, minus a few fires that burned here or there. A few blocks away from us, smoke billowed up through a building, which if I wasn’t mistaken was where I’d once met a girl who had helped me. I wondered if she had gotten out of here, or if she was among the dead.

There were a lot of people I’d once worried about when the world had first begun to unravel, and even now, I hadn’t figured out what had befallen them.

Across town the lights burned at Nightshade, a bar I now knew Vlad ran, which was currently doubling as a hold-up for those who needed sanctuary but weren’t allowed to be around the humans whom the Guild housed.

“That is our reality right now,” he pointed out as he stood behind me.

“I get it,” I stated, not turning to look at him. I could feel his heat, soothing the chill in my bones that the sight created. “But she’s my sister.”

“And that means what in the larger picture?” he asked, his breath fanning against my ear as I stared out of the darkened city. “She may survive it; she’s stronger than you think. When everyone else broke apart at your funeral, she rose. She remained brave even though she was breaking apart just like everyone else. Yet Kendra kept them together. You’re a lot more alike than I thought you were. I couldn’t stand to look at her, and yet I watched her hold the coven together, stepping in to keep them heading towards the larger picture. She knew what having this child would cost her, and yet she soldiered onward. She’s been aware that she is growing weaker, and never once has she asked anyone for help. She intends to hand her child to Lucifer because she fears what it could become, and she is right to.”

“Children are not born evil,” I said, turning my head to glare at him over my shoulder. “Evil isn’t born, it’s learned. You choose to become evil even as you choose to be good. Life isn’t black or white; it’s lived in the grey areas. You make choices, and those choices decide what you will become, but you make them.”

“Did you see him?” he asked, and I didn’t need to ask who the he was that he asked about.

“Yes,” I whispered as a shiver rushed up my spine. “He had midnight eyes and black hair. He looked like his father.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, placing a soft kiss against the back of my head.

“I know. I know you are. So am I,” I admitted as I turned, staring into his dark gaze. “I need you to teach me how to control my urges, because I have to be able to be close to her in case… In case her time comes, and it’s her end.”

“I’ll teach you control, but more than that, I’ll teach you how to take over the world, Lena. How to make it tremble at your feet so that we can close the portals between ours and theirs,” he said as he kissed my forehead. “I’ll show you everything.”

Chapter 24

The room was utterly silent; only his eyes spoke as he slowly pulled the silk that wrapped around the post of the bed down. I didn’t need words to hear what he was asking of me. I wanted this from him. For him to teach me what only he could, to learn to control my emotions around Kendra, to harness the monster I’d become in her presence. Lucian was my teacher, but more than that, he was a monster who was unafraid of what I’d become. 

“I will not stop once I begin, so you need to decide if you really want this from me. After watching you with him, I need to punish you, but more than that, I need to know you’re really mine,” he growled, the vibration of it sliding through me with the force of his words.

“I want this,” I admitted as I stared into the heat that lingered in his darkened gaze. I swallowed hard, staring at him as I forced the words out through the thickness of my throat. “I want what you can give me, what you can teach me. So no, I won’t ask you to stop. Not tonight, and I need this too. I need you to erase him from my flesh, from my mouth.”

“Strip, slowly,” he ordered as he wrapped the silk fabric around his hands, sitting in the chair that was mere inches away from the bed. I faced him as I slowly lifted my shirt over my head, discarding it on the floor as I stared at him. I hooked my fingers through the skirt, slowly preparing to remove it when his growl forced me to hesitate. “Leave that on, but remove your panties and hand them to me. Then I want you to turn around and show me what belongs to me. Make me need it, Lena.”

“It isn’t yours, yet. You have not earned it.” My words were an open challenge; the fire that lit in his eyes only encouraged me to push it further, taunting this monster to take what he wanted. “This is just another lesson.” That reminder seemed to darken those inky depths as he shook his head with a wolfish grin flitting onto his sensual mouth.

“Careful, that sounded like a challenge,” he uttered with a guttural tone as lust pooled in his stare. That tone hit every nerve ending, firing neurons that triggered my body’s response to him. Heat pooled in my apex, and the ache began to throb where I needed him the most. I hooked my fingers through the thin lace thong I wore and turned, bending at the waist as I pushed them to my ankles, stepping out of them before I brought my hand back up, testing the wetness that his heady stare created in my pussy. Once I’d teased him purposely, I deposited my wet panties in his hand and waited. “Are you wet?” he asked, already knowing I was from what I’d just shown him. The liquid pool of midnight that stared back at me made my knees weak, threatening to leave me at his feet, on my knees.

“You know I am,” I replied hoarsely, my voice escaping my lips like the most skilled siren as she called to her prey from the depths of their grave. My back arched, hips flaring to spread for his viewing pleasure. “Why don’t you touch me and see for yourself what you do to me?” I asked, needing his hands to explore my needy sex. I turned to face the bed, giving him my back as I placed my palms flat against the floor, showing him my needy pussy as I clenched with need for him. My legs spread apart, and I waited there, anticipation spiking as his heated stare greedily took in my flesh.

I wanted him, needed him, even if I wasn’t ready to forgive him. I still wanted him to prove he wanted me, to prove he felt something for the loss of our child, instead of the coldness that seemed to enter his gaze when I spoke of our son. I should deny him this, the pleasure of my body and yet I also had my own selfish needs. The need to figure out how to control my emotions around Kendra, the deadliness of the wings that seemed to flare when my emotions ran high scared and terrified me around her. She had little time left, and I needed to be there when her time came without fearing what I may do to her.

The silence stretched in the room, and I tensed as I waited for him. I began to wonder if he’d just leave me there, standing exposed before his heated stare. I could feel the need of my sex pulsing, clenching with the urgency he awoke in my body, which was wet, dripping with anticipation for the man who drove me mindless with pleasure. This creature could send me to the highest peak, and then send me to the darkest, deepest depths with words alone, but his touch? His ability to control and wring out every single ounce of pleasure my body experienced was unmatched. I wanted what he could give me, no matter how bipolar it made me feel or sound.

His heated kiss touched my flesh, and I jumped as a scream bubbled up from my throat, escaping before I could contain it. His hands gripped my hips, holding me there as his tongue pushed through the folds of my sex, sending pleasure ripping me apart as he tasted what I’d so freely offered to him. My knees wobbled, and if he hadn’t held me, I’d have taken an ungraceful swan-dive into the floor.

“You taste like heaven,” he mumbled, the vibration of his words graced my flesh, and I rocked my ass against his face as throaty laughter purred from his chest. I whined as the heat of his mouth left my pussy, his body rising to stand behind me. “Such a greedy little thing, aren’t you?” he asked as his hand slapped against my ass, biting into the flesh as pain replaced need, and then his fingers pushed through the slickened heat of my pussy, replacing it.

His other hand dug into my hair, pulling me up until I was leaning against his naked chest. My nipples hardened, needing his mouth to taste them. His subtle act of dominance turned me on, it made my body react violently with such subtle acts that I felt heat flushing my cheeks as I swallowed back the need to beg him to fuck me. He tugged my hair, aware of the reaction I had to it; his other hand left the wetness he created as they slowly trailed up my spine. I felt the stirring of my wings, the overwhelming panic that they’d hurt him took control of my mind, and I started to pull away from him, from the harm they could render to his person if I lost control as I was.

“They won’t hurt me, Lena. You won’t let them,” he promised as if he trusted me enough to think I held some control over my wings, which I didn’t. I felt my eyes watering at his words. The calmness they created was soothing. “You control them, they don’t control you.”

They unfurled, and I swallowed hard as I felt him release my hair as he dragged a finger over the tip of one wing. The sensation was intense, erotic. His touch upon them was pleasurable on a level I hadn’t expected, and a moan ripped from my lungs, pushing past my lips as he leisurely explored them without fear.

“They’re beautiful, just like the woman they belong to. But I don’t want to play with them right now; I want to play with you. Put them away, force them to retreat,” he ordered thickly, and I winced, unsure how to accomplish it.

“Normally they go away when they want to,” I admitted sheepishly. “I’ve yet to master how to force them to go. They tend to leave when they want to.”

“They’re ruled by emotions and the need to protect you. They react when you are overwhelmed, so send the emotions away, and they will go with it. You don’t need them, make them feel it. Make them sense that you’re safe, protected,” he explained huskily, yet he didn’t slow or stop his fingers as they danced on the extended wings. My body trembled from his touch, what he was doing to them as they shivered against the pleasure he created.

My mind slowly replayed what he had just told me; his explanation made sense. He repeated it, and I listened to the order in his tone, his cool control which seemed to ring in my ears. Nothing happened. I turned, facing him. Holding his inky stare as he smiled softly, the tips of his mouth the only indication he wasn’t upset with my inability to control this extension of myself. Hell, I was frustrated by lack of my control over them, and he seemed immune to my faults.

“Kiss me,” he ordered, his tone a mixture of lust and command. He didn’t wait for me to agree or disagree. Instead, his hand cupped the back of my neck as his mouth crushed against mine. His tongue delved into my heat, twirling in an ageless dance of time as he took control until I was helpless to anything but hold onto him as he turned my bones to liquid. His hand slid down my back, and I gasped as I pulled away to stare at him in wonder. He pressed his forehead against mine, struggling to reel in his breathing even though I was pretty sure he didn’t need air to live. Once I could think, I pulled away, sucking my lip between my teeth.

“How?”

“You were in control of your emotions the moment my mouth touched yours. Your body sensed your needs, your wants. As I said, you’re in control of what your body does. They’re reactive to what you want, need, and crave.” He backed away from me, staring at my perky breasts before he bent down to retrieve the silk he’d dropped when my wings had expanded. He straightened, staring down at my body which was bare minus the short, mini skirt of black ruffles I still wore. He flicked a finger, and candles leapt to life around us, bathing the room and me in a soft glow. “Get on your knees, and submit,” he demanded. “From this moment on, I am Master or sir, and you do nothing unless I tell you or you ask permission for it. Do you understand?”

“You and I both know there isn’t a submissive bone in my entire body.” Pointing it out didn’t seem to get the point across as he stared at me, demanding I follow his command.

“I know what you are, Lena. I also know every bone in that tight little body and what it craves. That’s not what this is about. This is about learning to control it, to become immune to the emotions that draw those beautiful wings to you. You’re going to submit so that I can teach you how physical and emotional responses stimulate them. If you can control your body’s response to pleasure and need, you will control them easily. The most basic need you have it to react to pleasure, or pain. I’m going to use both to push you to your limits, and I’m also going to force you to ignore them. I can only do it if you submit and let me teach you.”

Slowly, I dropped to my knees at his feet and bowed my head, and the silk curtain of it spread to skim my flesh as I folded my hands in front of me, on my legs. I sat there, exposed and at his mercy. I listened as he slowly walked around me, his heated gaze singing my flesh as he took in my pose of submission.

The sound of fabric being removed told me he was taking off his clothes, or what he’d yet to remove before I’d stripped down to nothing for him. I imagined the taste of his flesh, the way it felt against my mouth as I’d leisurely tasted every inch of it. I craved the tang of his cock, the heaviness of it as it pushed into my mouth. Fuck, I craved everything about him.

“What are you imagining right now, sweet girl?” he queried thickly as his fingers traced the puckered flesh of one nipple, and then the other before it pinched the sensitive flesh, forcing a small cry of pleasure to escape my lips.

“Your cock,” I admitted and then cried out louder as his fingers tightened, pinching me harder than he had been.

“Try that again,” he offered.

“Your cock, sir,” I purred huskily. I lifted my eyes to his, showing him the fire that pooled in mine, the match to the inferno burning in his. I watched as the eerie blue glow ignited. His mouth curved into a wicked grin as the last word slipped before between my lips, off my tongue. “The taste of your flesh against my lips, Master,” I smiled demurely. “The feel of you as you invade my throat.”

“You’re going to cut this fucking thread I’m hanging by, but then you know that, don’t you?” he growled as he stood, slowly unbuttoning the jeans he wore. “You’re a bad girl, aren’t you?”

“I’m your bad girl, sir,” I uttered hoarsely, the huskiness in my tone as rough as his. I lowered my eyes to the floor, willing to play his game to learn some semblance of control again. I hated feeling out of control, and while I’d discovered my wings could be used to kill, and well, honestly I liked them, they were still new and being unable to control them was a problem.

“Stand up, grab the canopy of the bed, and don’t let go.”

Standing slowly, I turned towards the bed, doing as he’d instructed. My hands barely reached the wooden frame of the bed, but I forced my body to reach it as I stood perched on my tiptoes. I swallowed hard as his hands covered mine, slowly wrapping the silk around them and then tying them to the bed frame. Once he’d finished with them, he pushed my legs apart and gripped my hips. It forced me to hang there awkwardly. I had no control over my body. The only thing I could do was lean against the silk that held my arms suspended as he lifted my hips, parting my legs.

“I can’t move,” I uttered. His hand slapped against my ass, and I cried out, turning my head to stare back at him. I watched in stupefied silence as that hand landed against my ass once more before it rubbed and soothed the ache it had created.

“You can’t move, what?”

“Anything,” I grumbled only to cry out again as his hand landed twice more, turning the pink flesh red where he punished me. “Anything, sir!”

He laughed, the sound a husky mix of possession and lust. His fingers trailed through my pussy, slowly pushing through the heat and wetness he was creating. His finger pushed into my pussy, and I moaned at the fullness he created, riding them as he used his other hand to hold my shoulder and control the rhythm.

“Your body is hungry for me,” he rasped, the sound sending my already heightened senses over the edge as my body clenched around him. “You’re close, aren’t you?” he asked, and I nodded. “Words, Lena. Tell me what you need from me.”

“I need you to fuck me, sir,” I groaned as he added another, forcing my body to yield to his thrusts as he stretched it and readied me for his entry. My body was an inferno. The need to let go and feel overwhelmed me to the point that I was seconds away from succumbing to the orgasm that promised to let it all go, but he pulled away. I whimpered as the ache increased. Turning my head, I followed his back with my heavy glare as he pulled open a drawer and withdrew something.

“Face forward, Lena. Close your eyes, and spread your hips.”

I did as he instructed and then cried out as he pushed something hard and thick into my pussy. It clenched, tightening around it as he slowly pulled it out and then pushed it in deeper. His mouth skimmed over the globe of my ass as his other hand slowly began to work my clit with sure, strong strokes that fueled the fire.

“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Don’t come, not until I say you can.”

“Please?” I begged, only to feel his fingers leave my flesh and slap against it in an exquisite mixture of pain and pleasure. “Lucian,” I continued, and then the slap was harder, and everything inside of me began to uncoil. The moment I thought he’d send me over the edge, he stopped touching me, and all sensation stopped.

I blinked at the abruptness of it. My body ceased to feel pleasure or the mixture his touch allowed me to feel. I struggled to reign in the emotions but before I could, the wings unfurled, and I shook with the anger that it caused. Everything had changed. I’d changed into something I no longer recognized.

“Calm down,” he instructed and I struggled against the silk that held my hands as the need to run took hold. “Lena,” he urged as his hands slowly stroked my back, trailing down my spine between the wings. “Breathe, you’re safe.”

“I’m a monster,” I cried as I ceased struggling. His touch calmed, it soothed the ache in the center of my being that told me the protruding things that currently flapped behind me were evil, vile things.

“So am I,” he crooned as he kissed my spine. His mouth sent the fire pooling in my core, and I closed my eyes, just feeling the sheer magic of his mouth and what it did to me. “Put them away,” he urged.

I shook my head as my body trembled. “I’m done, I’ve had enough for tonight,” I whispered and felt him rising, leaning over my body to release the restraints that held me. He didn’t push it, didn’t question the need I had to end this right now, to stop everything because it was just too much.

Once I was free, I turned and stared at him. I could let myself feel with him, or I could walk away and not have to feel anything. I moved without thought, rushing him as he allowed it. I jumped before I slammed into him, feeling the power he projected as he caught me, slamming me down against the bed without me noting he’d teleported us.

His hands parted my legs, and his cock pressed against my opening. I rocked my hips in a needy motion as I waited for him to enter me, but he didn’t. I gazed up into his eyes, eyes that asked permission, and I blinked.

Lucian didn’t ask, he took; he conquered and destroyed and yet here he was, asking permission. “I need you,” I whispered through swollen lips as tears filled my eyes. He didn’t hesitate a moment longer. His body slammed against mine, and I screamed out as pain ripped through me. I dropped my head against the softness of the bed and met his body thrust for thrust with everything I had in me.

“Open your eyes,” he demanded. “You and me, we exist in a place that others don’t understand. You and me, we don’t live in their world. You exist in places of my mind that no one else has ever explored, or been allowed to see. Do you understand me?”

“Just move!” I ordered, not needing his words or possessing a mind to know what he said, let alone comprehending the meaning. The man needed to stop speaking in codes. I felt him thrust; rocking his hips as he took me to that place that one could or ever would. My body exploded in blinding light as pleasure shot through me. My wings expended, and I rolled us as I took what I needed without thought, or care.

I rode him as if the hounds of Hell had set after me and he was my salvation. His grunts and moans encouraged and then I lowered my head, nipping against his piercing as my tongue flicked against it, pulling it as an inhuman growl escaped from my throat. I kissed his chest until I found his shoulder, and then I claimed him. I bit into flesh, tasting blood as it pooled against my flesh. I drank, sucking against the flesh until he was writhing and whispering my name as his orgasm tore through him.

Mine followed his, a never-ending wave of pleasure that washed through me and into him until we were both screaming and holding on to each other for an anchor. I uttered his name as I lifted my head, and stared down into inhuman eyes that seemed endless, ageless. Souls stared back at me, and I didn’t flinch or back away.

“Mine,” I said in a guttural tone, only it wasn’t human. It was Fury. It was what I’d become, and as I pulled back from him, I saw the cuts from my nails, the gouge in his flesh from my teeth and I felt my stomach drop as I lifted my worried gaze to his, and found him smiling up at me. “I…Lucian, are you okay?”

“You’re my monster,” he chuckled. “You can’t hurt me,” he said softly. “I’m not human, nor am I something that can sustain pain, Lena. You think you’re a monster? You have no idea what has laid claim to you. I promise you this, though, you will. And once you know, you may try to run from me, but this much you do know already. If you run, I will follow. There’s no world where you aren’t mine, do you understand? I would crush them, one by one to find you. Whatever this is that we share, it’s more than I’ve ever felt before. It’s more than I want to, but I’m not willing to walk away from you either. Do you understand me?”

“I understand,” I lied. I didn’t grasp anything other than the blood that oozed from the cuts my nails had created. I’d been oblivious to the pain, and never once had he alerted me to the discomfort he’d had to feel at my hands. I swallowed hard, staring down at my blunt nails and then back to the wounds.

I had to get away from this place, from him. I had to get away from my family because losing control wasn’t bad, it was gonna be a fucking catastrophe.

“Don’t you even think it,” he snapped.

“I hurt you,” I whispered horrified.

“Because I let you,” he growled as he sat up, wrapping his arms around my waist. “If I was human, yes, you would have hurt me. I’m not, and I won’t let you hurt them. Even if it means separating you from them, or forcing you to back down if you lose control. Let me help you. Let me teach you. Because either you let me or I’ll chain you up and force you to let me.”

“If I kill them, I will never come back from it.”

“I know, which is why I would never let it happen.”

“You can’t always be there to stop me.”

“Between me and my men, we got you. I got you, Lena. You’re my monster, my Fury. I promise to not let you hurt them, to keep you grounded and protected,” he said as he kissed the side of my face and my forehead. “Pretend to sleep with me,” he chuckled, and a smile tugged at my lips.

“Fine,” I uttered as I let him tug me down beside his naked body. “Someday you’ll tell me what you are, right?” I said after a few moments in silence had passed.

“Someday you’ll know what I am, Lena. Pray to the Gods that you can accept it when it happens, because I’m not strong enough to let you go.”

Chapter 25

I stood outside, perched on the roof of the Guild. This spot was quickly becoming my favorite place to think or ponder the world around us. I escaped to it when the tension or foreboding sensation grew too much to handle, and the world seemed to tighten the hold it had on my throat a little more every time something else seemed to go wrong. Everything was going wrong, as if the deck was stacked against us and we were running out of cards to play. I had begun to open myself to Kendra, while still holding certain pieces and aspects of what I had become away from her. Those feelings, those pieces of my old self she craved, they didn’t exist anymore, which she was slowly figuring out. I’d changed more than I could explain; choices I’d made had carved me into someone else, something else.

Lucian trained my body at night, and I craved those lessons like a drug user wanted a fix. I didn’t let him reach the pieces of me that weren’t healed, the broken parts that had yet to mend back together from the loss of our child; I wasn’t ready for him to see them. I wasn’t sure if I would ever be prepared for that. He either wasn’t processing the loss, or dealing with it in his own way, which I understood and respected, but some emotion would have been welcomed.

“You rang?” Hades’s deep baritone filled the air around me before a cloud of smoke filled the air, which he stepped out of as if he some way to literally step from the Underworld, into ours. I swallowed hard as I stared at him, peering into the bluish-purple depths that new my pain intimately.

“I need you to save my sister, make her into one of us,” I uttered without bothering to hide the pain that laced each word.

Snowflakes began to blanket the world as the air grew colder around me. I turned away from him, staring out at the multitude of fires that burned through the city. Some built by humans who had yet to seek sanctuary in the Guild, fighting to stave off the cold of winter. I’d remembered how cold the world was, and didn’t fault them for seeking warmth in the new world they’d found themselves trapped in. Besides, this was the Pacific Northwest, known for arctic cold fronts and unforgiving winters. Even though the cold no longer bothered me, I remembered what it felt like in the dead of winter.

“You want me to fight Death for her?” he asked, stepping up beside me as he hiked a dark eyebrow at my nod of confirmation. I felt him studying my face as I refused to turn away from the chaos of the city, or the billowing smoke of the fires that burned like my emotions.

“Name your price, and I will gladly pay it,” I assured him, knowing it wouldn’t be cheap. I finally glanced away from the fires to face him. His skin was utter perfection, bronzed as if he’d spent months sunbathing in the Caribbean’s sun.

“She cannot be saved, Lena.” It was a statement, unwavering as he watched me ever so slightly taking in the darkness that seemed to escape my hold as I processed his words. “If she is to die, she will die. She may survive it, but it is doubtful. But if Death has pulled her card, it cannot be placed back into the deck.”

“You saved me, why not her?” I argued.

“You weren’t one of them,” he admitted. “You were and are different than she is. She was the one born of your parents’ unions; you were created with magic that Katarina wielded. You were just an empty shell that was forged to be used for another purpose. Magic created you, and that made it easy to save you since you held no purpose. The others…they were harder, and yet they made a sacrifice and willingly released their souls. Kendra will not do that, and you already know it. You never really existed, Lena. The same goes for Joshua. He was the first they created, and therefore able to shape into a Fury because for you, he was willing to change. We didn’t fight Death for you; we just created you from what was left of you. The others, they were much akin to what you are, and it wasn’t Death who plucked their cards, it was Nyx. It wasn’t their time to die, and their selfless sacrifice awoke something in her to pull her to them. It made a simple task to intervene and send their souls below while keeping their minds in tacked. Kendra hasn’t made some grand gesture of a sacrifice, nor will she. It isn’t who she is. You know that. You’re mad, but they’ll all die on you. One day or another, they’ll be gone, and you will be here without them. It’s as simple as that. I told you that when I helped Nyx bring you back, I warned you that you’d watch them age and die and that no one would be able to prevent it from happening. Besides, your sister welcomes the end and therefore isn’t worthy of being immortal. She isn’t created like you, to know you were meant for something bigger than yourself. Hell, Lena, you stood up to the devil himself knowing your life was being forfeited and yet you didn’t flinch away from it. You are worthy of being immortal.”

“So I’m just supposed to accept that she may die?” I growled as my mind fought against the idea of a world that she no longer existed in. One where my family was gone, and I had to continue pushing through, moving forward. “I don’t accept that. You’re a God, Hades! Fight Death with me, we can win. Do nothing, and we all lose. No, no, you’re a God, and you can win this. We can win this.”

“It’s not black and white, Magdalena. Nothing is as simple as that. Death doesn’t lose, and you think he isn’t here already if her time is near? He is the one thing that not even the Gods will fight against. He will not lose her if it is her time. If he’s here, she’s already dead, and you’re just going to have to watch it unfold as we have done since the dawn of time.” I tried to ease the frown that creased my brows as he continued to crush any and all hope I had left with his words. “No one escapes their time, not even if the Gods intervene and beg it to be otherwise. Death is certain for mortals. He is everywhere and nowhere at all, and when it comes for them, nothing stands between it and him. You can try other things, but if he has plucked that card, she’s doomed. Nothing short of God himself intervening will stop it from happening. Pray the angels heed those prayers you continually send to the heavens, girl, because only her God can save her, and He doesn’t seem to care lately.”

“Go,” I stated coldly, my hate and anger burning brighter than the fires of Hell that lit the streets before us. It ignited as violent as Hell itself as it burned the world around us to ashes. The fallen cities of this world hadn’t asked for this war, and yet mortals paid the price with their lives as the Gods did nothing, as God did nothing to end their suffering. Why wasn’t anyone helping us? Where were they in this fight? I remained there long after Hades had turned to smoke and disappeared from my side. I stared out over the remnants that had once been a bustling city that was now a wasteland of those strong enough to survive this new world.

My eyes settled on Shadowlands, and I blinked as Lucian’s words replayed in my head. A sad smile played across my lips, and I shoved my hands into the pockets of the jeans I wore. I could ask Vlad to save Kendra, but I already knew her answer. She’d lived, and she wouldn’t accept immortality. Not at the cost of her soul. They were right, and it hurt, it hurt like something was being ripped out of me, as if my own soul had been pushed back into a body it no longer fit, only to be shredded as it left.

The air beside me rumbled with raw power, and I wiped away the tears as I fought the thickness of my throat as hopelessness and despair choked me until I feared I’d literally fucking die from the pain. What kind of world was this fucking cruel?

“He didn’t give you the answer you sought?” Lucian said as he stepped from the shadows and strode slowly to where I watched his approaching form.

“We need a win,” I stated hesitantly, dismissing him as I stared up into the thousands of snowflakes that continually dropped. “I need a win.”

“We found a gate that is weakening,” he announced, stopping when he stood close enough that his heated breath tingled across the flesh of my ear. I stepped back, allowing his body to heat mine.

“And can it be closed? Or is it just another useless thing that we’ll fail at?” I asked softly, dropping my hands until they brushed against his. The barest touch of flesh sent a shiver of desire racing through my system.

“We aren’t sure, but I figured you would want to be with me when we tried to close it,” he uttered as his nose traced the curvature of my ear. I shivered from the subtle contact, the heat of his flesh pressed against mine and I slowly turned, peering up at him from beneath my lashes.

“It’s creating an unbalance in the world,” I informed, knowing he knew it already but needing to know that I wasn’t the only one who felt the disturbance. “We cannot lose,” I murmured before I lifted on my toes, pushing my mouth against his.

Lucian was a distraction, a balm for the pain that filled the place where my soul had once sat. I was darkness, but he, he was the light at the end of the tunnel. Without him, there were no stars in this endless darkness. If I was the stars, he was the darkness that let me shine in its endless silken embrace.

His mouth crushed against mine fiercely as his hand snaked up through my hair, holding me in place as he pillaged and ravished. The taste of aged scotch undid me, throwing all caution to the wind as I started undoing his shirt.

Throaty laughter filled the air around us as his hands captured mine, stilling them. His midnight gaze watched me as I struggled to reel in the roaring fire that had ignited inside of me. He rested his forehead against mine as he spoke slowly and clearly.

“The men are waiting for us below,” he informed in a husky timbre that slid over my flesh, heating the inferno within. “Afterwards, if you want to continue this…” he let the offer hang in the air between us. “You’re hurting, but no matter what we do, no matter how much I distract you, it won’t prevent what is coming.”

“Just shut up,” I growled as I pulled away, wrapping my arms around my stomach as I fought to hide the pain I felt. I’d tried to ask for help from them, and yet no one could save Kendra. But maybe the one who had put her into this position could spare her?

“Don’t even fucking think it,” he snapped as if he’d read my mind.

“He might have a way to save her,” I uttered thickly as my teeth worried my bottom lip.

“He doesn’t care about her, or the child.”

“And yet he wants his daughter, Lucian. If he can save her, I’d do anything he wanted in exchange for her life, anything.”

“He’d want you in exchange for her,” he growled thickly, his eyes raking over my face before his hand pushed through his hair. “I will see what can be done to prevent her death, but not even Lucifer can stave off Death once he’s plucked a card from his deck.”

Chapter 26

Death and despair loomed all around us, and sulfur reeked as it hung heavy in the air. Putrid and thicker near the gate, stronger with every step we took that led us closer to it. Corpses were littered between us and it, the rip of this world into Hell. It wasn’t a Hell Gate that we stared into, but an actual rip in the fabric of the world that led directly into Hell. The ground was bathed in crimson, blood for the human corpses that looked as if something wild had used their bones to create art that had then been discarded like yesterday’s trash. It felt wrong the closer we got, the stronger a sense of foreboding grew in the group who stared into the abysmal world beyond it. I studied the tear between worlds, the disturbance it created as magic mingled around us. It slithered from the hole, escaping to lure mortals to their doom. It made more sense why they’re corpses were scattered about, as if they’d stepped inside only to be spit back out; soulless corpses, rejected by Hell.

“Do you hear that?” Synthia asked, tilting her head as we all heard it, the music and feminine voice that sung from within the other world before us.

The sound of the voice sent a thrill of excitement and fear snaking up through my mind, and I closed my eyes, listening to her sensual promise of seduction if I only stepped through the hole to join her. It was the song of the sirens, a promise of pleasure, and numbness from the pain and chaos that had filled this world.

“Jesus, it’s a siren,” she uttered thickly as she peered down at the corpses. “They’re men, all of them.”

“She is luring them to her, promising to end their pain,” Lucian explained, his eyes slowly studying Synthia’s face before it swung to me. It dropped as he took in the mutilated corpses and frowned deeper before he gazed up at the hole before us. “She sings to them, but once they enter the tear, she slaughters them and then sends them back out into their own world. She’s not happy with her sleep being disturbed. Sirens do not come onto land unless they’re forced, which means someone or something dragged her into Hell against her wishes.”

“But it’s more than that, isn’t it?” Synthia asked as she tossed a femur bone down and rose. “Hell itself is calling them here.”

“Like it’s a living, breathing place?” I asked. I hated the mystery and bullshit that went with their fucked-up worlds. Faery was a living breathing thing that, more often than not, killed anyone stupid enough to enter it without the Fae inviting them in, and even those sorry bastards could end up dead. “It calls mortals to it, then what, spits them back out?” I continued carefully, not wanting to sound stupid or naïve even if I was.

“It is, but not what you’re thinking. Hell needs souls to house, like a machine that needs coal added to continue burning. Souls feed the flames, and without them, Hell ceases to exist. Without the flames it would not hold the ones it had claimed, the evil that it contains would essentially be released into this world. They’d be free to roam the world again, with only a need for a vessel to continue their purpose.”

“And wouldn’t that just be fucking dandy,” I grumbled as I studied him and then let my magic out to slither against Hell’s, testing it and then smiling as it recoiled from mine. It fucking recoiled as if it couldn’t stand the feel or touch of mine; as if I was the wrongness in this scenario and it wanted nothing to do with me. I pushed at it, poked it until something else pushed back from within the rip.

“Enough,” Spyder warned as his gaze moved between me and the hole, and then he stepped closer. His finger trailed down my cheek, his penetrating gaze looking into the pain I felt at everything unfolding around us. “If you continue to challenge it, it may decide to become something else, something bigger to stand a chance against you, kitty.”

“How do we close it if we can’t even touch it?” I asked, lifting my heated gaze to hold Spyder’s before swinging them towards Lucian, who watched us closely. His eyes missed nothing, including the connection I shared with them both. It was endless, this need to reach out for it, to touch it to make sure he was still somehow tethered to me.

“We find something holy and convince it to close it. Maybe if enough of them begin to tear into this world, they’d pull their head out of the fucking mud and man the fuck up. We need…a fucking angel,” he said, moving his sapphire gaze from mine to Synthia and Ryder, who hovered just beyond the circle of Lucian’s crew who’d joined us for this excursion. “We need an angel to poke it, and if we have one on tap…”

“I think they’re already here,” Lucian grumbled as he crossed his arms and stared at something behind me.

I felt it, the smothering power that rippled through the air around us. It felt pure, right, addicting as it slithered around me, sliding through me until I opened my mouth to speak and it slipped inside. I spit it out, the wrongness of it as it tried to sense what I was. My mind felt something slam against it, and I pushed back, hating the invasion that tried to see past my barriers. It lessened into a caress, a subtle coaxing to lower my walls, to let it into my mind to see what I was. I spun around slowly, searching the area around me for whatever had just tried to get into my mind, my body. My wings uncurled from spinning, sensing the need to protect me from whatever it was trying to blast into my being.

Blinding white light exploded around us. Streetlights exploded, raining glass and sparks down onto the streets around us. I brought my arms up to cover my eyes as it grew to a painful fluorescent explosion of blinding light around us. The scent of freshly fallen snow emitted, luring me to lower my arm as it slithered against my flesh, burning it at the same time. Once I felt it had dimmed enough, I dropped my arm and blinked against the utterly perfect creatures who stared directly at me. Beautiful, ethereal creatures stood before us, all gazing at me as if I was somehow wrong, and shouldn’t exist.

I felt it, knew it without them saying it. I was wrong, evil. I felt it to the very fiber of my being as they gazed at me, pushing magic into my system, searching for a way past the walls of my mind to seek out what my intent was, to know what I was. I knew what they were as I pushed back, touching the minds of the beings before me who tilted their head, aware that I struck them hard and fast to know who and what was assaulting me.

“You don’t belong here,” one snapped, his green eyes reminding me of freshly cut lawns in summer. It stared back, an archangel from heaven that viewed me as something foul, something wrong. As if I’d been forged in the cauldrons of Hell and brought back solely to destroy Gods creation. “You’re wrong.”

“This world has gone to hell, and you’re more worried about me? No wonder we are losing,” I growled with an edge to each word, making sure he heard the underlying blame I was tossing at him. “Look around, we’re the only ones here trying to close the gaping hole of Hell, and you want to come out and say I’m wrong? I’m not here to hurt this world, no. I’m here to mend it, to repair it and help the humans remain where they belong instead of pushing daisies up from Hell.”

“And you think they belong anywhere else? They’ve brought this on to themselves with their treachery and killing of each other.” He spat into the grass as if that settled it. His dark-skinned hand pushed his hair back from his face as he stared at me. Power radiated from him, his body a weapon forged by God himself when He’d created these beings.

“I don’t think they deserve to end up dead,” I shrugged. “I was mortal not too long ago, and I didn’t deserve my fate. They deserve better; not all humans are evil. Not all humans kill or murder others. Besides, I’ve always been one for an underdog.”

“They’re vile creatures who seek and crave destruction. They enjoy chaos and ruining what was created to be cherished, loved.”

“They’re flawed, I’ll give you that. But then, that isn’t something new. They were created to be flawed, so you tell me if God would want His children slaughtered by Lucifer. I’m guessing He doesn’t want them all bathing in their own blood at Lucifer’s feet.”

“Enough, creature,” he growled, and then his eyes widened as he stared at me. “Fury,” he uttered as his gaze slid down my frame and then back up to take in the wings behind me. He walked past me, his wings brushing against mine to send a sizzle of awareness pushing down my spine until I clenched my teeth against the power that burned through me.

Lucian and Spyder stepped up to protect me, their arms brushing mine as we watched the angel pushing his hand through the hole, watching as it disappeared into the void. The world around us trembled like the aftershock of an earthquake as he pulled it out, and then pushed it in further, pulling out a skeletal figure that he smiled down at before it began to sing, as if it could lull him to her side. My breathing hitched as he shook his head, confidence unshakable as he grabbed her head as she opened her mouth to scream. It was deafening, the noise that escaped her decaying mouth, and then her head was removed, hanging in his hand while the other released its hold on her body.

More archangels stepped past us, amassing in front of the hole as they spoke low, guarded against those of us who perked up to hear what they said. We all watched them in silence as they pulled and examined the hole, more and more angels seeming to converge on the location as they worked. A female archangel stepped behind the first one, turning cerulean blue eyes in my direction before she dismissed me.

Their light seemed to grow, and grow until I had to lower my eyes as they continued to work to do whatever it was that they were doing to close the hole in the world.

“How did you know where it was?” I asked, wondering if Lucian had felt the wrongness as I now did, or if he had another way to sense a disturbance in the world.

“It’s not of this world. Anything that doesn’t belong here calls to us. We’ve chosen to ignore it until Raphael called us to him,” a female voice answered, and I turned, staring into the beautiful face of an angel. “Furies are only released when the end is upon us. So how are you here, how are you possible, little one?” she questioned as she stared me down, her power pushing against my mind, but her push was a question. She sought an invitation from me, without trying to force her way in, so I let her. I showed her my life, my world, and watched as she flinched at my choices. She exhaled with a gentle nod, staring at me as if I was some mythical beast she wanted to commit to memory.

“I tried to end this from happening before it had gotten this far. I sacrificed my life to save the world,” I admitted out loud, knowing the other angels were listening. Her eyes softened as she nodded again, her wings expanding from her back into golden things of beauty that were mere outlines against the night sky.

“You sacrificed your life and the one you’d created to save the world, Magdalena Fitzgerald. A noble sacrifice and yet something unheard of for someone so young,” she whispered softly, her blue eyes taking me in as she frowned deeper.

“And yet heaven wouldn’t take me,” I scoffed.

“Heaven can only hold a soul, which you didn’t have. Hell, on the other hand, can only punish a soul. Tricky things; souls make a human…well, human. That was why when the archangels were forged in heaven; He left them out of us. He may have welcomed you, but not once you allowed the darkness inside. Had you come to Him before Nyx had found you, you could have been made, as I was,” she said.

“I was made as I was promised to be,” I returned softly, not wanting to get on her bad side. “I do not care to be of heaven or Hell, I wasn’t done fighting yet.”

“And you think we do not fight in this war?” she asked as her mouth lowered into a frown.

“I think thousands are dead, and millions more will die before this ends. You could have helped us before we got to this point, the moment Lucifer entered this fight, you could have helped us and yet you chose not. Why?”

“Because we have rules,” she said.

“Fuck rules,” I growled. “Rules are meant to be broken. You let innocent blood fill the streets, and that’s unacceptable.”

“Lena, they can’t fight unless rules have been broken. It’s forbidden,” Lucian explained.

“By who?” I demanded.

“God,” she chuckled as she watched the anger drain out of me.

“Wouldn’t God want us to win? Wouldn’t He want to spare the lives of those who died needlessly?”

“There are always needless deaths on this plane. Hitler is a good example. Do you think He didn’t sense what was happening? Humans are His favorite creation, but they’re a very young race. They learn from their mistakes, and even He cannot prevent the big ones they make. He gave your people life, and He gave you choice. What you do with it is up to you. Not Him. He doesn’t interfere unless it is something else He created that threatens this world. Hence why the archangels are now here, released to help close the holes in this realm that lead into Hell,” she hissed. 

“And what about the other ones?” I countered.

“Those are not something we can close, or help with. They’re not of His making, and though we can help if you need, we cannot close the gates you opened by walking into Hell, Magdalena. Those were created by a choice. Lucifer knew those would remain open, and while he is of His creation, He will not interfere with him or fight against him. You let him out; you can put him back in.”

“Tell us how to and we will,” I said.

“You’ll figure it out,” the male said.

I turned to look at him as something exploded, the world trembled, and we were thrown backwards, away from the inevitable blast that burst from the hole in the world. I tasted blood in my mouth as something soft, yet hard moved beneath me. Lucian stared down at me, and then back towards the gaping hole in the world. My ears rang with pain as I swallowed blood and struggled to get back up. The world heaved in pain, and as I righted myself, lifting to my feet, I stared at the outlines of wings that covered the ground, where the lesser angels had stood seconds before.

“What the fuck was that?” I demanded, but as we got to our feet, we were left alone with no angels to answer us. Some of the archangels hadn’t survived either, because the headless angels were there, no winged outline…just…dead? “They…died?”

“They only left the bodies that had housed them. Or at least the archangels did, the others, they are finished,” Lucian muttered as he stared at me, dropping his gaze as he took in my disheveled appearance. He reached up, wiping away what looked like ash from his face, and I looked around the ground we stood on, noting there was in fact ashes everywhere.

“But it killed them? Closing that void killed the lesser angels and forced the others out of their host bodies, which means we’re fucked,” I mumbled as I let him search me for injuries as Ryder was doing with Synthia. Ristan seemed uncertain whether or not they’d actually closed the hole and continually searched the area around us for any sign it had been moved or something else.

“It’s more likely they used a dead body to hold their light, and then used their grace to project their image from it. Angels are vain creatures, created in the image of purity and beauty. They hate mirroring His lesser beings that He created, even for a moment in time.” Lucian finally released me once he was sure I hadn’t been hurt by the blast.

“They think I’m wrong, that I’m bad.”

“Furies are creatures who the Gods call to seek vengeance and retribution. They don’t create you to host tea parties and galas, kitty cat.”

“No shit?” I smiled as Spyder smirked at the sarcasm dripping from my lips.

“No shit, but I’m guessing you still fuck like you’re going to war, and I’m owed,” he pointed out with a heat-filled gaze that sent a ripple through me.

“Spyder, enough,” Lucian growled as he pulled me closer to him as Ristan shook his dark head.

“It’s gone. But something is wrong with the ground where it was,” he murmured as he knelt down, examining the blackened earth. “I don’t think they meant to explode with it.”

“Lucifer has gotten smarter since the last time he came here,” Lucian growled.

“Well…shit,” I said as I felt the wrongness in the air around us. “I think they opened the fucking world up to the creatures Hell housed.”

“I think you’re right,” he replied. “I think Luc knew they’d come, and they did exactly as he wanted them to. He alone didn’t have enough power to open the realm, but with theirs, he would.”

“So what you’re saying is, Hell is wide open, and we’re fucked in a not good way that leads to absolutely zero pleasure.”

“Exactly,” Lucian confirmed, and the ground began to creak, as if something was cracking below where we stood. “We should go, now,” he snapped as he grabbed me as the others began sifting out.

Chapter 27

It took less than an hour for Hell to rise up and claim the city as a whole. Screams tore through the night, and no matter how fast we moved to save the humans, they died continually before we could even reach them. We moved through the night, long past the rising sun of dawn, and deep into the next rising moon as we fought to save those we could. We made quite the fighting force, tearing through the streets as one, ending any creature who had decided to feast upon the blood of those we sought to protect. It didn’t matter how many we saved, as long as we saved those we could reach before the monsters of Hell devoured them. I’d thought the acrid scent and taste of sulfur was bad before, but it was nothing compared to the taste of it now as it mingled with the coppery scent of innocent blood that had been spilled as Hell had risen up, into our world, fully freed.

Hell was here, a part of our world now. There was no barrier standing between the creatures of it and ours; only us. Hours passed, and yet it felt like days as we fought to save those who had yet to be slaughtered. Side by side we fought to save the people of the city until fewer and fewer heartbeats sounded around us.

“We can’t keep going like this,” Synthia said as she removed a head from a demon and stared down the blood-soaked street at the corpses that littered it, dead before we could reach them. Bodies were strewn as far as my inhuman sight could reach. Some had been torn apart, others lay sightless as if they had just sat down and given up. Looks of horror covered their faces in death, as if they’d stared down the purest form of evil before meeting their end.

“We can’t stop,” Joshua snarled as he tore through a demon’s chest, ripping the human soul from it as the body sagged and fell upon the ground to join the other corpses. Rivers of blood flowed down the streets, all draining into the sewers as we watched it, like a horror show playing out right before our eyes. “They’re dying. It’s our fucking job to save them.”

“Everyone is dead,” I whispered as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, choking on bile that pushed through my throat and threatened to spill into the river of blood and entrails. I took in several husked-out humans, as if something had literally sucked the life out of them, leaving only a dried up version in the bloody mud that lined the streets and alleyways. “Something else besides demons are feeding now, those are not normal corpses.” None of this was normal.

Husks had been shed like something had lived in them and then discarded the humans’ form like a snake shed its skin. As if it was wearing humans like flesh suits, but where the demons used them to walk on earth, these had been sucked dry and left behind. I bent down, touching one, and watched as it crumbled the moment I did. Its essence had been sucked dry, and then the creature had moved on to the next. The other bodies which had been similarly crushed into ashes the moment they were touched, blowing away in the wind as if they’d returned to the world as they’d come to it, in ashes.

“What the fuck does that?” I demanded as I fought the need to spew what little substance I’d kept down on our trek into the hellish world we now lived in. As far as I could see with my new senses, husked corpses filled the darkened alleyways.

“Something bad,” Lucian offered.

We’d lost.

We’d thought the angels appearing would be a win, but instead we’d fallen right into the trap Lucifer had placed for them and us. Now, everywhere you looked was littered with human corpses, or what was left of them. Fires lit the night; Hell itself had risen and replaced this one classical town of rich history and trading post. Now, now all that was left was shelled out buildings and the dead.

“Welcome to the new world,” Spyder hissed as he pushed his bloody fingers through his hair and stared down at the pile of ashes. “Hell housed thousands of monsters that other worlds couldn’t contain. Hades houses the souls once they’d been punished, but Hell housed the worst of the worst.”

“And what the fuck houses the larger ones?” I asked.

“Tartarus, and if it is opened, we will die. All of us.”

“How do we know if it opens?” I asked.

“We’ll know,” Lucian said in a guttural growl as he followed something in the shadows around us. “We got company,” he informed as Spyder became a mixture of shadows as he disappeared into the real ones. Screams ripped through the night as I watched shadows hit one large one, and then pink mist exploded everywhere, bathing us in what was left of the creatures. No one said anything as Spyder’s form solidified and he smirked at me as he walked towards where I stood.

“We should retire for the night,” he said softly. “There are no more heartbeats near or around us. We need to regroup and get a fucking plan going before this entire shit-show leaves us wading in it.”

“And we’re not already?” I asked. My heart buried in my throat as the reality of what he said hit me. There were no more humans left in this town, not alive. “They’re…we lost.”

“We got played, kitty,” he stated and frowned. “He won’t get that lucky again.”

“What does it matter if everyone is dead? What’s the point of fighting if he won?”

“Because he took the town, he didn’t take the world yet. We fight to survive. We fight until the last heartbeat is extinguished and there is no one left to help. We fight because we are the only things standing between him and his untimely reign of this world. He won this fight, he hasn’t won the war, kitty cat. That is not something we will allow to happen, ever.”

We sifted back to the Guild, and even though there were now thousands of humans we’d saved below, I preferred to be out on the roof, a sentinel guarding the Guild as I viewed the damage around us.

Earlier only scattered fires burned around the city. Now, the entire city was ablaze as building after building caught fire and eventually tumbled to the ground in a blazing pile of embers. How did you come back from this? Could they even rebuild it? It seemed as if we were fighting a losing battle, and those who needed us were now strewn over the pavement, nothing more than husks and empty corpses.

I felt them before I saw them, Layton, Bane, Spyder, and Lucian. They seemed to emerge from the shadows moments before the Fae sifted in, all coming to stand shoulder to shoulder at the edge of the Guild.

“Jesus,” Synthia murmured as tears streamed from her eyes as she surveyed what I had been staring at. “New Orleans just fell.”

“The City of Saints has fallen?” I countered as my stomach churned.

“The Guild…or what was left of it. They’d been gathering as many people as they could to protect, and couldn’t distinguish the difference between the demons and humans. They sent a warning to the remaining Guilds to close their doors, and wait this out.”

“They can’t do that! They’re supposed to stand against creatures who feed off the human race.”

“That’s not the same as demons, Lena. We were trained to fight Fae, to fight monsters we could see or feel, and they cannot sense them. New Orleans let humans in, and demons walked right through their doors and slaughtered what little of their numbers remained. We are fighting an enemy who has never been here before. Not these demons, Mages I can handle, Fae we can face and come out on top, but Lucifer? The fucking devil? They’re unequipped. We are unequipped to fight him, and we are Gods, Horde Fae, Dark Fae, Furies, and whatever the fuck he is,” she flicked her hand in Lucian’s direction as her hair tumbled over her shoulders as they slumped. “Do you think if I knew what to do I’d sit here and watch my city burn?”

“I’m sorry,” I uttered thickly as tears burned my eyes. “It’s hard to watch it happen,” I admitted as I felt Lucian stepping closer against me. “I gave my life to stop this from happening. Now, now I have to watch it happen and know that I gave everything I had and it didn’t matter in the end.”

“You stopped the seal from escaping, from using you to do so much worse than Lucifer can ever dream of doing to this world,” Lucian whispered against my ear as he pulled me back against his warmth and I allowed it. I rested my head against his chest as I stared up at the starless night.

“Even the stars refuse to shine tonight,” I uttered.

“What if we release the seal, and send it after Lucifer?” Synthia asked, and I swallowed hard as I turned to stare at her, not removing my head from Lucian where his heart had begun to thunder in his chest.

“You have no idea what you ask for,” Spyder answered before anyone else could.

“What do we have to lose?” she asked.

“Everything,” Lucian replied. “The seal wasn’t even fully released, and yet it opened worlds the moment Lena stepped into Hell. Can you imagine the chaos it would bring down upon us if it was allowed to awaken? It’s done what it hasn’t ever been able to accomplish while it slumbered, if it is allowed to come out and play, not even your Gods will be able to stop it.”

“But you can,” I pointed out as I stared up at the starless sky once more. “You are its keeper, its holder. You alone can stop it if we unleash it.”

“To release it, you’d have to give it control. In your new body, it would be unstoppable, it’s not fucking happening.”

“You’d need to kill me,” I said softly as I turned in his arms. “But you could, couldn’t you? Whatever you are, you can kill me.”

“We’re not exchanging the world for you, Lena. I won’t allow it. I’d destroy it first. I’d snuff out every life in this realm and take you to mine. Do you hear me? I’d rip this world apart to protect you.”

“So that’s a no?” Ristan asked as he watched us from where he stood beside Ryder. Zahruk’s sapphire eyes held mine before they moved back to the burning city.

“If the seal is released, every world will open into this one. You think Hell is bad? Imagine the outer realms joining this one. It would open to worlds twice as large as Faery with monsters this world wouldn’t sustain holding. It would be like opening this one up to become one large feeding ground.”

“That’s a no,” I stated as I watched another building crumble to the ground as embers shot into the night. “Nightshade,” I uttered as it beckoned me. The bar remained untouched, wards so thickly built that they glowed like an earthy beacon of hope on the burning city was where the humans were running for. “We have to help them, now!”

The Fae sifted, and Lucian held me as we moved through space and time and appeared at the doors of the club, but within, only silence was heard.

“Vlad,” Synthia whispered as she pushed the doors open as humans pushed and forced their way past us into the safety of the club.

Inside the coppery tang of blood was thick in the air, and rancid. I pushed my elbow up against my nose as we entered it, finding bodies of immortals and humans in pieces littered on the floor. Silver eyes flashed in my mind; the gentle being that had always encouraged me and pushed me to be stronger, better, was lying on the bar with an iron rod protruding from his chest.

“No,” I uttered brokenly. “No, it can’t be.”

Chapter 28

Ryder’s approach to the bar was unnervingly slow, as if his feet dragged to the gruesome task of discovering Vlad’s corpse laid out on the bar, with an iron bar pierced through his heart.  I swallowed one, then twice as bile pushed heavily against the back of my throat as tears threatened to fall from my eyes. One foot in front of the other, he passed through the mutilated corpses that had been scattered onto the floor, left in tattered pieces by those who had desecrated the one place immortals and mortals had been safe to mingle. His hands gripped, turning the corpse over to reveal the face and then expelled a shuddered breath as his shoulders slumped and the body was set back down. His voice was thick as he plucked the note from the corpse, and read it before letting it drifted to the bloodied floor.

My eyes stared down at the bloodied note which read two words. You Lose.

“It’s not him, thank the Goddess it isn’t Vlad,” he said thickly, his voice filled with the same emotion we’d felt seconds ago when we’d believed it was Vlad’s corpse on display.

I started to collapse in relief, but Lucian caught me as Synthia released the soft cry of relief that splintered through her. I watched her in disbelief as she began to search for someone else among the littered bodies of immortals that covered the floor, face down in the river of blood that seemed endless inside the club.

It took hours of sorting through them to discover who had died, and who had been able to get away before this place had fallen to Lucifer. Hours passed as we helped her, piecing body after body together as the Fae began sifting corpses in and out of the club and back to Faery for their final burial. Fae sifted in and out, one after another until the bar was empty of death and then we began slowly cleaning it, as if for our own benefit it would help our mental state.

Hours later, humans began lining up at the doors, demanding entrance into the one place they could be assured safety from the new world, and one by one, they were sifted to the Guild where we were sure they’d be safe. It stung, knowing that this place had been a beacon of hope in a world rife with chaos and debauchery, and yet they flooded to it, even though it had fallen. Instead of running to the Guild as they should have, they came here.

“I didn’t think he’d be in danger. The club has always been protected, always safe,” Synthia whispered as she dusted off her hands on her pants. Her top was covered in blood, as the rest of her was, the rest of us. Blood smeared her sharp cheekbones, and then all at once, as if I’d imagined it, she was clean. “It’s always been warded against anyone seeking to cause harm entering it. How the hell could they bring it down?” she demanded as Ryder pulled her close, kissing the top of her head as he comforted her.

“I’m guessing the wards we crossed outside removed the ones inside. Someone turned the new ones that Erie placed against us. They countered it, meaning Lucifer has a powerful fucking Mage or being on his side, working to undo what we did,” Ryder answered, and I shook my head.

“Witches,” I corrected. “He used witches. They’re not strong wards, they’re smart wards. They used wards that turned your wards into a weapon against those inside the club. So once the ones inside the club became entangled with the others, they nulled the beings in the club, rendering them all but mortal. It worked long enough to allow those in the club to be slaughtered, and then his wards once again became the dominant ones. Witches are taught to outthink our enemies, to not work harder, but to work smarter. This was a smart move, for them, not for us. It’s not something those in here would have seen coming, and the moment they tried to fight back, the wards saw them as the threat to the club. They used your wards to kill your people. It’s smart, and yet fits the monsters we are fighting. It was dark witches, judging by the taint of dark magic still heavy in the air.”

“They were placed by Fae and a very talented druid. They wouldn’t fall to mere witches, it had to be something stronger, much stronger,” Zahruk snapped, his sapphire gaze alight with rage brewing in their endless depths.

“I didn’t say any witch, Zahruk. They’re dark ancient witches. Meaning they’ve sustained life for a very long time to gain an unbalanced footing of knowledge. If I’m right, they’ve spent a large portion of that time learning your people. The scent is old, musky and mixed with death. They’re over a thousand years old if my senses are correct. They are searching for chaos and souls. That means they’ve found a use for them, some way to devour them…” I paused, inhaling deeply as the grimoires inside me reacted to the magic in the air, the decay that the witch’s magic had left lingering. Admitting magic to these creatures still felt wrong, like a part of me still lingered in the past. “I can feel their darkness, which is the same as the magic in my head.”

“The grimoires…they’re still alive inside of you?” Synthia asked as her hands fisted at her sides. “They’re old, but not that old. The Guild wasn’t built that many years ago, and the elders have not lived that long. Even the older ones, the ancient Guild didn’t have magic that old.”

“No, but the grimoires were compiled of witches and bloodlines, meaning they kept their magic throughout the years, and the taint of it is in them. The spells that linger inside of me are very old, some light and some dark,” I admitted softly as I explained what I felt in my own head from the grimoires that remained closed in my mind. “Spells are passed down through generations. These wards that took down the clubs are old, ancient ones shared through blood that calls to the grimoires inside of me. I’m guessing whoever Lucifer is using; it’s from one of the bloodlines Katarina was born into. As with light magic, dark magic is also passed down through lines, only it is hidden between the pages where only those who sought out darkness would dare to look. In our coven, yarn was used to find the darkness in a line, to search their grimoires for the spells. If found, the purity ceremony would be used to bind any temptation to use it,” I elaborated as they listened, their eyes narrowing as I laid it out for them. “I house both dark and light magic, even though I no longer house a soul. The magic of the grimoires is still inside of me, as is the seal.”

“Who is it?” Lucian asked, his dark gaze demanding I answer him and yet he already knew.

“You know who did this,” I said softly, staring at him.

“That’s impossible; they’d be dust by now.” His tone damned my words and yet his eyes seemed to sadden.

“Unless they found a way to feed off of souls of immortals?” I offered, and he frowned deeper as he stared at me.

“Who the fuck is it?” Synthia demanded.

“If she’s right, it’s an entire coven of dark witches. Dark, immortal witches now. They’re evil, almost as evil as Lucifer himself, hungry for a power that they can’t contain because they lack the vessel to use it. They’d crave blood, and souls to retain their immortality if they do still exist. I cursed them to contain the souls of the damned eons ago for trying to take something from me. Magdalena is right, though, this is something they could do, and they’d be powerful enough to turn our own wards against us.”

“And they have Vlad now? Adrian?” she demanded crossly.

“Pray to your Gods that they don’t, or they are already dead.”

“Vlad isn’t that easy to kill, he could be a vessel,” I offered. “He’d fight against them, he’s strong.”

“He’d fight them, but they would win. They wield iron claws and teeth to weaken their Fae prey. They drain their strength and then feed on them for however long they can. They suck them dry, leaving a husk of their victims in their wake.”

“They are what were released from Hell today, aren’t they?” I asked, utterly horrified.

“They and countless other monsters that have not fed in centuries and are starving,” he nodded as I swallowed hard. “Unless they were already here, helping him; it would explain how he hid Katarina’s soul in two vessels. I had wondered how he had done it, but if he had their help to remove and create a perfect replica, it would make sense how you are alive, and how you came to be a clone.”

Ouch. I’d been a clone, not even a real person.

“Where would they go? Where would they take them to finish feeding off of them?” Ryder asked, his eyes glowing as he feared for Vlad and what would become of him.

“I don’t know, if I did we’d already be there retrieving him,” he supplied crossly as he stared at the empty side of the bar.

“That is my family they took!” Ryder snarled as his wings and beast exploded in front of us.

“Calm your tits,” a silken voice groaned as people moved through the halls. Weapons were brandished as we stared down the hallway. The hair on my neck rose as they emerged. I uttered groan as dark shadows began slowly exiting the hall, to enter the club.

I expelled a soft cry as I watched Vlad, Adrian and countless others pour from the hallway to where we stood. “I wouldn’t be that easy to catch. Give me some credit,” he said in a guttural tone as he hugged Synthia and limped towards the bar.

I slowly walked to the bar and stared at the bloody mess of his body, noting he’d given them a fight before he’d retreated. He turned as he poured himself and countless other cups with top shelf bourbon before his eyes lifted, and the bottle crashed to the floor.

“Lena?” he whispered thickly before he was over the bar examining me. His hands cupped my cheeks as he stared into my eyes. “Gods, tell me it’s really you?”

“It’s me.”

“How? I fed you my blood, and yet I felt nothing from you. You are…different. You smell different.” His eyes smiled and yet it faded as he took in the tattered state of his club.

“It wasn’t your blood or from lack of trying,” I whispered hoarsely. “I came back because Nyx brought me back as a Fury,” I admitted, and his forehead rested against mine as he chuckled.

“Of course you did,” he said as he pulled back and stared openly at me. “I don’t care how it happened, but I’m glad you’re alive. I’m glad you survived. I’m not even sure why I am surprised anymore when you females come back from the grave. You crazy bitches pop right back up like daisies.”

“What happened here?” Ryder asked as he downed a glass of the expensive liquor and then another.

“Lucifer fucking happened,” Adrian injected, straddling a seat on the bar as he pushed guts off another to allow Synthia a clean spot to sit. “Lucifer and a group of haggled witches, who were surprisingly powerful considering they looked old, sickly and stunk of death and decay,” he shrugged as if he didn’t know what else to say or how to explain it.

“Fucking Lucifer used the world trembling as a diversion to bring down the wards. He brought in a group of witches, old ones. They looked young at first, but I could see past the glamour and the veil of magic they wielded. They were husks of flesh and magic, as if they hadn’t fed in centuries, and then they opened their fucking mouths and began feeding on the partygoers inside the club, immortals and human alike were consumed like they were nothing. Child’s play to the likes of them,” Vlad growled as a shiver shook his large, muscular frame. “I barely got Adrian before I felt the tug on my magic. I felt it pulling me towards them, but a Fae got a shot of magic off, killing one of the witches, and then all hell broke loose. We had just enough time to get to the hidden rooms before the screaming started in earnest,” he said as he pushed his hands through his midnight hair and frowned. “I saved who I could, but it wasn’t much. It wasn’t enough.”

“You did what you could, cousin,” Ryder stated, and I frowned as I took them all in.

They were a family, one who was smack dab in a war they hadn’t signed up for. I turned my eyes to Lucian, wondering if my life could end this. I’d done it once, and even if it did open the gates to the other realms, wouldn’t these beings be able to prevent those monsters from entering it? They were the legends of the Fae realm, all wrapped into one family who’d go to war to protect each other. They could work together to save this world after I’d unleashed the seal to slaughter Lucifer.

“No, they can’t,” Lucian snapped as he watched me. “We are not sacrificing your life, period.”

“Lena?” Vlad asked, his silver eyes swirling as he read my emotions. “No, no sweetheart. Your life is precious to us, and you’re a part of this family now. You all are whether you want to be or not. Releasing one monster to kill another one isn’t the answer. We can face Lucifer together, all of us or none of us at all. There is no I in team, nor is there one of us that would allow you to die to save any one of us. We stand together, now drink. Because I’m assuming shit is about to hit the fan and all we have is right now, together.”

“We can’t beat him if we don’t know where or what he is planning. We almost lost you tonight, and we didn’t even sense you were in danger because he killed angels!”

“He tried,” a deep voice snarled behind us, and we turned as one to watch the same archangels swagger into the club. “It’s personal now,” he snapped as his cerulean gaze met mine.

“The gloves are off, now pour a few rounds, because it’s about to get apocalyptic really fast. Heaven just fell,” he uttered thickly.

“Heaven cannot fall,” I whispered in a horrified tone.

“Earth wasn’t his goal, it never has been. He wanted the seal to open heaven to the world so that he could waltz right in and destroy it. Earth had to fall before he could bring heaven to its knees.”

“So heaven and Hell are now in this world?” I asked.

“They always have been, but the gates were closed to mankind,” he elaborated slowly, as if I wouldn’t understand him. “You can’t see them unless you’re heading into one. That’s why every once in a while, a soul will sneak back into this world. What you call spirits or ghost are just souls who slipped back out of the gates and came back, drawn to loved ones. The ones who wreak horror on humans are the ones who escaped Hell. They just have to catch the gate open or a crack in the walls to come back to what they know. Either way, no walls separate this realm from heaven or Hell, or more walls are cracking as we speak. Now, about that drink?” he asked as the shadow of wings stretched behind his back.

“An angel, a demon, a Fae, and a few monsters walked into a bar…” a feminine voice purred behind us.

“And?” Synthia asked as she turned to stare at Erie.

“And my fucking fantasies came true,” she chuckled. “Bitches, have you seen outside? It’s a fucking shithole. I just got accosted by demons trying to give me mouth to mouth. I need something to sanitize the taste and wash their blood off my hands. Oh, and I blew up a few Paladin to make this night even funnier.”

“You killed Callaghan again?” Ristan asked as he tapped Vlad on the shoulder and helped him pour more drinks to the people piling into the bar.

“Just a little,” she chuckled with a smirk that told me she’d enjoyed it.

“Who is Callaghan?” I asked.

“The male who thinks I’m his salvation. I’m his doom; he just hasn’t figured that out yet.” I stared at her with my mouth open as I tried to form a question and failed. “He thinks my vagina is going to save our races, but it won’t. I mean, the entire world just literally went to hell, and he’s still chasing me.”

“You’re a female druid,” the archangel pointed out.

“And you are?” she countered.

“Raphael,” he said as lightning lit the room and the shadow of wings covered the wall behind him.

“Uh, fucking hell,” she smiled as she slapped him on the back and downed her drink in one swallow. “An archangel, we’re so fucking fucked right now.”

And that was the Gods’ honest truth.

“Female, watch your language,” he urged, and she shook her head.

“Oh hell, you ain’t heard anything yet,” she snorted as she tapped the bar for another drink and then peered around the room at the walls and the bodies strewn around the floor. “Jesus, did someone forget to clean up their dinner?” she asked.

“Lucifer was here,” Synthia said softly as her hand rested on Vlad’s.

“So these…these were your friends,” she said in a whispered voice that spoke of understanding. “I’m sorry, Vlad. I didn’t notice them in the excitement.”

“The wards came down.” Vlad looked at her pointedly.

“No, no they wouldn’t come down,” she said as she turned to focus on the walls. “They were voided out by something powerful. Or many powerful things,” she amended. “The wards outside, they’re not yours?” she queried.

“No, they were placed mere seconds before the bar fell to Lucifer.”

“Dark witches?” she asked, and then whistled as turned back around. “The Guild,” she whispered. “Bloody hell, the Guild has the same wards as we have here!”

People began sifting, and Lucian grabbed my arm, yanking me with him. I didn’t fight it, didn’t struggle as my stomach dropped and tears burned my eyes. My family was there, unprotected while we’d sat here, drinking…

Chapter 29

The Guild was silent as we approached, and yet it seemed calm. On the outside, we couldn’t hear any screaming, no noise at all. We’d only been able to sift or materialize outside since Erie had placed some very powerful wards inside. I looked around; noting the fires that seemed to burn as far as the eye could see had yet to be extinguished. The sky behind it was foreboding, lit from the blazes and curling smoke that basked the night in an orange haze. I sent my magic slamming into the Guild, pushing past the wards as I sought out Kendra and the others and then relaxed as I found them still inside.

“Something was trying to get inside,” Ryder growled thickly, his mouth a multitude of sharp teeth as his beast surveyed the bloody corpses that had piled outside the wards. Creatures had tried to gain entrance and died from their actions.

I followed them up the stairs and glanced inside where the witches were scattered in the main room, sweat pooling and beading upon their brows. They’d fought off whatever those creatures were outside, and won.

My gaze moved to Kendra who held her swollen stomach as she stared back at me. Her hair clung to her face; sweat dampened it and her clothes as she took a step closer to where I’d entered, and then hesitated. Slowly, I made my way to where she stood, and once I was at a safe distance from her, I paused, taking in her form for any sign of injury as she did the same to mine.

“You’re okay?” I asked softly, my hands fisted at my side as I forced them to remain there instead of pulling her into an embrace as I itched to do so. I wanted to hug her and promise her that she’d be okay, but I knew I couldn’t do that. I wasn’t able to touch her without the chance of killing her with the multitude of weapons I now held. Wings that unfurled without warning, claws that shredded flesh, and magic that could kill without meaning to, and she had enough issues without my problems adding to it.

“I’m good,” she said as her own hands dropped to her sides, staring at me with turbulence in her matching gaze.

“That’s good.”

“How is it, out there?” she asked.

“Bad, really bad,” I replied honestly, hiding the sheer terror I felt at what lay outside of the sanctuary she was hidden in. I felt wards being placed, ancient ones that pulled on my magic without warning. I turned, eyeing the walls that screamed as ward-after-ward were placed into them. “You’re safe, though, inside. Stay inside this Guild, do you hear me?” I demanded, and when she nodded, I nodded even though the churning in my stomach told me that even inside, she wouldn’t be safe.

“I know what will happen when I give her life,” she mumbled and I fought to keep my eyes from widening, or my face from giving away the horror I felt at her words. “I know my time is coming, but you’ll protect her. You’ll protect her from the monster that sired her.”

“With my life,” I agreed as I extended my hand towards her and then dropped it as the claws shot from my fingertips. I backed away from her as if she was a fire, burning me. “I need to go,” I informed as I spun around on my heel, rushing away.

“Lena,” she called to me, and I ignored her as if her pleas fell on deaf ears.

I stalked towards Lucian, knowing my time for learning was growing shorter as her pregnancy neared the end. I had to be able to help her through it, and if she expected me to protect a child, I had to contain the monster I’d become and quickly.

Ignoring Joshua’s concern look and frown as he followed my path back to where Kendra stood, I shook my head knowing he’d go to her. He was able to comfort, whereas I wasn’t. I ignored my mother’s judging gaze as I stopped short of plowing into Lucian who simply pulled me closer. He felt my worry, and I didn’t care how or why he could, only that he was my security in the storm of my world and the dangers I created by being here, being close to my bloodline.

“Get me out of here,” I uttered hoarsely as he lowered his gaze to lock with mine. His fingers curled around mine, and yet we didn’t move. He waited, watching as Erie continually added wards until she sagged in exhaustion. Once she’d finished, he and Ryder stepped forward, testing them until the wards screeched loudly, forcing those who had remained in the room to clap their hands over their ears or chance losing their hearing.

Bile swirled through my stomach as my mouth grew wet as I forced it to remain down. It was intense, the magic of them combined filled the room like a living thing, pushing through us as we swayed on our feet and yet the wards didn’t buckle or give an inch.

“They’ll hold for the night,” Ryder stated, turning to stare at his wife, who nodded her agreement. “The others will settle the humans into the catacombs, and those who need sleep should seek it now. Dawn will come faster than we would like it to.”

At his words, people started moving, and yet the majority lingered in the Guild’s main room. I watched them as Vlad stepped closer to Ryder, pulling him into a hug that turned into heavy grunts as they exhaled the relief of finding him unharmed. Ristan and his mate stood to the side, speaking to the angels who had joined us. Adam sat with Alden, speaking in hushed tones to Erie who agreed or disagreed with what someone said.

A cup was pushed into my hand, and I looked up into sapphire eyes which watched me as I lifted the strong liquor to my lips and threw the entire drink back in one large gulp before holding it out for more.

“You think you can do it again?” Zahruk asked, ignoring Lucian’s warning growl.

“Do what?” I asked, making certain I knew where his mind was.

“Get Lucifer to the door so that we can trap him, and get what info we need out of him one way or another,” he snapped, tipping the bottle back as he drank deeply straight from the source. I tipped a second glass back and let him fill it to the rim again.

The heat from the alcohol surged to life inside my belly, warming my flesh that had felt frozen with the shit that had gone down tonight. I handed him back the glass and nodded. I could get him back here, but he’d know it was a trap.

“I can get him back, but he’d know it’s a trap. No, we’d have to make him think he was coming here by his own choice. He’s the fucking devil, not an idiot. Besides, once we got him here, we couldn’t hold him. We’d need something that can trap him here…a devil’s trap?” I asked, turning to peer up at Lucian, who smirked.

“That would hold him, but not long enough to interrogate him. You’d need something more powerful, which I’m sure our new friends could help us with,” he stated as he started us towards the angels who were staring at Kendra. It sent a chill down my spine as we approached their seats.

“You forgot to tell us something?” Raphael snapped as he stood, uncurling from the seat to stand nose to nose with Lucian. “You think she may have something to do with the fact that end of the world is nearing?”

“Her child is half-angel, isn’t it?” he countered.

“She’s pregnant with the fucking antichrist,” he hissed low, not wanting anyone else to hear his words. The hair on my neck rose as a shiver raced down my spine.

“Is that a problem?” I asked, sucking my bottom lip with my teeth as the words left my tongue. Of course, it was a problem. It was Lucifer’s child, and as far as we knew, not many Nephilims graced the earth because mating with an angel and being fully human was unheard of. Olivia was proof that it happened, but then her mother had died in childbirth.

“We will address this at another time when the world isn’t burning outside the doors. But I’d say it’s a problem, a very big problem.”

I stared down the archangels who seemed to stare right through me as they began to peel their angry gazes from the unborn child my sister carried. I watched them as they focused on Lucian and then stepped back as if they feared him.

“You want something to trap Lucifer?” Raphael asked, staring at him as if he’d overheard us across the room. “We cannot help you with it, but there’s a warehouse on Mission which just happens to have supplies we once used long ago to trap another archangel. I can’t tell you what it is, or how to use it. We cannot interfere with that aspect. But if you were to say, trap him, we could hold him with what is inside the warehouse, if it even still stands.”

“So you’re saying that we have to sort through an entire warehouse to figure out what it is that will trap the devil because you can’t say it out loud?” I snorted as I stared at them. “Can’t we just use Pictionary to figure it out and then go get it?” I offered.

“Pictionary?” Hades snorted behind me, forcing my head to rubberneck in his direction. “If you’re playing with archangels, I’m filming it for YouTube,” he chuckled as he sat back in the armchair, folding his ankles together as he stretched out. “I’m guessing you assholes played right into Lucifer’s trap and touched the hole that led into Hell?” he asked crossly.

“You knew it was a trap?” Lucian snapped angrily, his eyes lighting with those unnatural blue flames that seemed to explode when he was angry or really turned on. It wasn’t the time or place, but those flames seemed to have a direct line to my core, which seemed to pool with molten heat that wasn’t missed as all the men close to me turned and looked at me irritably.

“Really, woman,” Hades chuckled as his eyes heated and seemed to look right through the leathers I wore. “You smell…good. Really good,” he noted before he turned back to Lucian. “Turn off the lights, before she goes into heat. You forget, her emotions are now tied to yours in more ways than one. As much as I’d enjoy watching you with her, this isn’t the time or place. Raincheck,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “Of course I knew, but I was busy securing other items to be used to close them when you went and fell in it. I mean, you should have known he’d lay traps for his feathery brethren to fall into.”

“A fucking heads-up would have been nice,” Lucian replied sharply, his eyes turned to hold mine before his nostrils flared with my scent wafting to him. I knew he sensed it because I did. My body was lit up from within like a fucking glowworm. “Lena?” he asked.

“I need to speak to you…alone,” I admitted. “In private.”

Chapter 30

Once we entered the room, I spun to him, grabbing his shirt to rip it open as I struggled to force the emotions to sink beneath the ebb and flow of lust that threatened to drown me. My lips drifted to his, and a moan stole from them as a throaty growl escaped from deep in his chest. He claimed my mouth as if it was the salvation we needed, fucking destroying me with the gentleness I didn’t want or need. His kiss was the kind that made you feel drunk, dazed as he lay claimed to me on an entirely different level of seduction.

One moment I was kissing him as if he was the air I needed to breathe, and the next he pushed me away and smirked down at me with a fire banked in his midnight gaze. He shook his head as if he was dispelling the lustful haze my lips had created.

“Strip,” he demanded, his tone even and clear as I swallowed the urge to slap the composure off his face. “You’re not getting off easy this time, and you’re not allowed to surrender or demand shit. You want my dick? Earn it.”

I paused, glaring at him as he fed my words back to me. “Excuse me?”

“You want my cock, you’ll do as I say and as I instruct. If you’re good, and you listen, you can come when I give you permission to. Not before or after, or you will be punished. Do you understand?” he asked as he watched me shimmy out of the leather to expose the black lace panties and bra Syn had crafted from glamour for me to wear. Something I really wish I had the ability to do.

“I understand,” I agreed, knowing from the heat that flooded his eyes as I removed the bra that it wouldn’t take him long to demand I ride his cock. I flung the bra aside, swishing my hips as I moved to the bed, crawling across the silk sheets until I was fully on the bed. I turned around only to be slammed down as his body hit mine, sending a shock of pain rushing through my body.

His hands moved to my throat, applying enough pressure that I gasped as his nose slid over my cheek. “Naughty girl,” he laughed huskily. He released my throat, capturing my hands before I could touch him. He gripped them painfully as he pushed them above my head, using a length of silk to bind them. I lifted my head, staring at the thin wisp of fabric that now held them trapped above my head.

Lucian’s mouth lowered to my exposed neck, trailing his tongue over the spot where my pulse raced and throbbed as he slowly sucked the flesh between his teeth, biting it gently. Heat pooled between my thighs, marking the proof of how turned on I was as he slowly let his fingers dance down my flesh to draw little circles around my nipples.

He pinched the hardened flesh, and I yelped as pain mixed with pleasure as he continued to slowly trail his down the heated path his fingers danced. Right as his hot breath fanned my peaked nipple tip, he sat back on his haunches, slowly taking in the sight of my naked breasts and thin, black lace panties that were drenched with my arousal.

“You want me inside you, don’t you?” he asked, his hands lifting to remove the tie he still wore, because it didn’t matter how fucked we were, or how balls-deep into apocalyptic-land bullshit we were in, he still wore it. I nodded, and he shook his head, releasing the grip he held on his tie to slap the inside of my thigh. “Say it, I want to hear you admit it. I don’t want to see your fucking head moving. Tell me how much you want this dick, Lena.”

“I want it,” I admitted through heated cheeks that flooded with color as he made me admit it out loud. “I want you.”

“Good, remember that,” he chuckled as he moved from the bed and stood, stripping his body bare before he neatly folded the suit up and stalked from the room. I heard the water running and tilted my head, staring where the light was now glowing from the bathroom. Candles leapt to life in the bedroom, bathing me in a seductive light. “Is that pussy still wet?” he asked, calling from the other room.

“It misses you,” I replied playfully as I listened to the water splashing against the porcelain tub. “Are you showering?”

“I am, don’t you wish you were in here with me? Maybe up against the wall with me buried in that pretty pussy of yours?” he called back, and my body heated as I glared at the flame of the candle as it danced on the dresser. “House rules, Lena. I tell you what to do; you say, ‘Yes, sir.’”

“And what else does this little game of yours include?” I asked, watching his shadow as he moved from the bathroom into the bedroom, naked minus the towel that clung to his hips.

“You being helpless, at my fucking mercy,” he purred thickly as his eyes raked over my body as he entered the room further, not in a hurry to fix the ache between my legs.

My gaze followed him as he moved to the large chest in the room, withdrawing several items from it before he slowly walked towards the bed, setting them beside me. He knelt over and placed his mouth against my nipple, nipping the soft flesh until it hardened against the grazing of his teeth as a growl resonated from deep in his chest to hiss over my skin. He knelt on the bed, removing the towel to expose his cock, which was already hard and ready to be used.

I wanted to climb him like a child at a theme park clamoring for the rides as they stood in line. I rocked my hips, letting him know I was ready for it, for him, but his only reply was to smirk, a wolfish grin that sent a shiver up my spine as I lay there, tied to the bed.

“Too easy,” he uttered before he reached behind him, pulling out a length of dark cloth which he used to wrap around one ankle before securing it to the post of the bed, only to do the same with the other as I watched him. Next, he tied a smaller length of the sheer fabric around my head, blinding me to what he’d do next. “What do you feel?” he asked as his fingers traced a line from my cheek to my covered flesh.

“Helpless,” I replied huskily, wondering why it turned me on so much to be at his mercy. Shouldn’t I want to be in somewhat control of this situation? “Lucian…”

“You want to learn how to control those powers; you have to first know what having no control is like, and then how to push the needs away. You’re about to learn what it is like to be denied your most basic needs, wants, and desires.”

His fingers pushed beneath the panties I still wore, running through the wet folds. He pushed his thumb in a circular pattern as he worked my sex until I was meeting him with increased vigor, my body reacting on a primal level with the need to find what he so freely offered, and yet the moment the orgasm danced through my system with the first hint of building, he pulled away.

I felt the bed moving, felt his massive frame settling between my legs moments before his lips traced the inside of my thigh down one leg, stopping just above the knee before he followed it with his fingers, only to change sides and mirror the action.

“If you’re planning to drive me insane, I think it’s working,” I uttered thickly and then yelped as his hand slapped against my pussy. My back arched into that slap, craving it as my mind became a red haze of need.

His throaty laughter was the only indication that he’d heard the whispered words. He pushed my legs apart, and then the sound of my panties being shredded filled the room. Heat fanned my naked flesh, his tongue snaked out, and I cried out as pleasure tore through me. His fingers bit into my flesh as his tongue traced a pattern through my sleek flesh; dancing over it as it flicked the one spot I needed him most.

And just like that, he was gone. I felt the bed move and then tensed as something pressed against my ass. My entire body felt like a guitar string that had been pulled too taut, in danger of snapping.

“Lift your ass,” he ordered, and I swallowed hard, but I did as he instructed. “You look so pretty tied to my bed, so utterly helpless and wanton,” he crooned as he pushed something soft against my ass, and then I cried out as I felt the plug filling me. My body trembled against the intrusion, and yet this time there wasn’t pain but only a fullness that danced with pleasure.

He played with it, watching my body, react as it heated me from within. My body tightened, growing flushed against his heated gaze even though I couldn’t see it; I felt it. As if an invisible thread had connected us on a deeper level, and told me exactly where he looked, grazing my flesh in a scorching trail as it moved over it.

His finger pushed into my body, and I arched into it, using it to gain what I needed from him and yet the moment the orgasm began to grow, he ceased his touch, leaving me there to writhe in need.

“You’re being a good girl, Lena,” he murmured as his teeth skimmed the sensitive flesh inside my leg, his tongue trailing behind them as I fought against the urge to let my wings unfurl, to end this and take what I wanted from him. But in doing so, I’d lose what little thread I held on my control. “You want me to fuck you, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I cried only to buck as his hand slapped my pussy hard. “Yes…sir,” I amended.

“Better,” he growled as his fingers danced on the sore flesh. I felt him moving between my legs, pushing the tip of his cock into my welcoming heat, but he only gave me the tip before he pulled back, tracing it through my slick folds. “When you’re a quivering, sweat-covered, swollen mess, I’ll fuck you. Hell, I may even remove that toy and replace it with my cock and let you come from pain and shock as I take no mercy on your unused ass,” he uttered hoarsely, and then he pushed into my body, and I screamed.

The fullness was unsettling; the ache it created was intoxicating and unexpected. My body clenched against him, holding him to me as the first ebb and flow of the orgasm began to build. He was hard, fast as he used me and then exited, leaving my body bereft and mourning the loss of his. His fingers replaced it, and then something else was there, pushing into my body. The buzzing started, and then pleasure burned and warred with a need too basic and animalistic that I had to fight it off, along with the wings that itched to explode from my spine. My body curled and struggled to get away from it.

There was too much pleasure at once. The fullness mixed with the plug as his mouth lowered to clamp over my soft nub as both began to hum inside my body. I twisted, turning away from it as if I could escape the pressure and orgasm that built white-hot through my body. He sensed it, but instead of helping me prevent it, he used it against me. He worked one as his thumb pushed against the other, holding it there, in place. His mouth was hot, scorching flesh as his tongue worked circles over my clit until I was screaming with sweat running down my neck.

I fought it. I fought my body on a level that terrified me as I fought against the urge to accept the orgasm, to let the wings out to hold him where I needed him, the claws that pushed through my fingers, and it was too fucking much. I begged him to stop, to let me breathe, and yet he pushed, he used the toy to fuck me hard and fast, and I had to fight him for control.

His hungry laughter filled my ears, my senses were sharpened as my vision was blocked and yet I was winning…until I wasn’t. It ripped through me with a force of a hurricane, and I screamed, I screamed until he was there, covering my mouth with his hand as the world teetered around me. The toy was withdrawn, and then his cock was in me, fucking me until nothing else mattered or ever would.

“Naughty girl,” he growled against my ear, and yet he didn’t stop fucking me until I was exploding around him again as tremors tore through me, the sound of wood splintering filling the room. Then my legs were pushed up more, giving him further access to my needy core until his hands bit into my shoulders, using my hips to rip me from the bed to slam my body down on his cock over and over. The only sounds in the room were our labored breathing and our flesh meeting in an endless dance as old as time.

I was too full, too sensitive, and yet I somehow managed to keep my wings locked into my spine; my nails didn’t graze his flesh, and his hands pulled at my hair, giving him access to my throat as he pounded into my body without mercy—and I didn’t want any either. I wanted bare bones, I wanted him and the monster he was to fuck the monster I’d become. His monster, I’d become his monster.

He tensed, his guttural moan igniting something animalistic inside of me and I slammed him down against the bed, ripping the blindfold off as I stared down into the blue flames that danced in his eyes. I smiled down at him, staring at the others who watched me from within his eyes and purred as my mouth lowered to his.

“You’re mine, monster. All mine,” I whispered before I began rocking anew on his cock, feeling him already growing hard inside me again. “I warned you that I was not submissive,” I laughed huskily, staring into his eyes as I leaned my forehead against his.

“You contained them, even though every instinct called for you to release them, to take control. You controlled them tonight, Lena. Good girl,” he uttered as he kissed me with a fervor I matched, uncaring that laughter sounded outside the door.

“You’re a good teacher,” I replied. “I enjoy being taught by you.”

“Good, because you’re not leaving this bed until I finish with you.”

“Is that a threat?” I asked, sitting up as I stared down at him, tracing my fingers down his hard, muscled chest.

“No, I don’t make threats. I make promises, and I promise you won’t escape this room no matter how much you want to until I’ve had my fill of you, and that won’t be for hours, days maybe.”

“Days? And here I had begun to see my eternity as a benefit.”

“I’ll never finish with you, ever. When this world turns to ashes, and the moon becomes dust, you will still be mine, little witch.”