Becoming His Monster by Hutchins, Amelia, Hutchins, Amelia (4)

Chapter 31

The warehouse loomed, vacant and abandoned before us. The entire thing seemed off, wrong, and yet the closer we got to it, the more those unsettling feelings turned into curiosity that drew us in, wrapping us in a dark embrace that made us need to see what was inside. It alone sat untouched by the fires that blazed all around it. As if similar wards to the Guild protected it. Since the angels had told us about it, I was guessing it was protected by strong magic. The sky above us was an eerie orange haze filled with smoke and sulfur that threatened to choke us, rendering us useless and yet still, we remained in place.

“Something is wrong, do you feel that?” I asked, turning in a circle as I peered up and around us, wondering if they felt the lure to run inside with everything inside of them. It called to me, beckoning me closer, forward, and yet something in my head screamed against it. It slithered over my flesh, the wrongness of this place. My flesh pebbled, sending goosebumps over my skin with every step I took that brought me closer towards the large abandoned warehouse.

“I feel it,” Ristan muttered as he paused, hesitating as we stared towards the building that seemed to call to us, luring us towards it.

I stared at the large three-story building, an abandoned warehouse that looked as if no one had been inside it in a very long time. The lower portion of the warehouse had been tagged by graffiti that looked worn and muted now, as if time had taken away from the art they’d placed onto it. The ground around us was littered with debris from the homeless who sought places like this to stave off the cold of the winter. Yet no fires burned, no tents or other signs of the homeless had remained next this building. I stared at the garbage that also looked aged, long forgotten and left to decay around the building. The lower windows had been shattered, and yet the higher-up windows were made of thicker glass, probably to protect it from birds or other flying creatures from breaking them. I swallowed as my eyes climbed higher, taking in the different levels that seemed to change as I watched it.

On the highest level, there were grates outside windows yet no way into them from that height, and yet it looked as if they’d been recently placed. Scaffold seemed to surround the top, yet I knew that wasn’t something humans would do, since they usually didn’t go up that high without some semblance of safety measures, and yet there it was. Perched on the edge of the scaffolding were creatures or stones that had been chiseled and carved to look like gargoyles, watching us as we stared up into the thick smoke that clung to them. 

I narrowed my eyes, fixing my gaze on them as I wondered why they’d be here of all places. This was an abandoned factory on the Spokane River, next to Gonzaga College, which had been one of the highest ranking colleges in the region. It all seemed wrong, horribly so.

“Those things aren’t just for looks, I’m guessing?” I asked, dropping my gaze to find Ryder studying them as I had been moments before.

“They’re part of the wards,” Erie answered, her fire-red hair a mess of curls that she pushed out of her face. “Some asshole sent us here to die, horribly.”

“What do you mean?” Ryder asked, his growl resonating from deep in his chest as I shivered at the fierceness of the sounds he made.

“If the wards are tampered with in any way, those beings awaken and rain down hell upon whoever touched them. They’re tied into the wards, a backup spell if you would. An added security to take out any threat to whatever they’ve hidden in this building,” she explained as her fingers moved in a slow pattern, as if she was testing the wards.

I swallowed hard as one of the gargoyles turned its solid head, tilting it as it stared down at us, luckily remaining on the perch it had been placed. I stepped closer to Zahruk, who snorted but stepped in front of me, as if I was something deserving of being protected.

“You scream a lot, woman,” he whispered thickly as he watched me turn and eyeing him carefully. “You ever tire of him, come see me. I’ll show you what it is like to be manhandled, and consumed by a desire hotter than the fires he was forged in.”

“That’s a nice offer, but you seem to forget that even if I wanted you, I couldn’t feel you,” I pointed out as I let the heat of his body sizzle against mine as I considered what he’d said, and Lucian’s absence today.

“You think we wouldn’t have ways around that?” he chuckled as his weapons withdrew from holsters, my own following his as if he’d perceived something I hadn’t.

“I’m not sure I can remove them,” Erie said, and then all hell broke loose as the wards pulsed in warning and those things on the top started to wake from their slumber. “Run!” she hissed, but it was too late.

Swords against creatures that weren’t of this world did little to no damage as they attacked us. Ryder’s clothes shredded as his beast emerged, towering over us with an impressive wingspan that both protected and blocked us from the first airborne assault.

We tried to sift out; or rather they tried and failed as explosions rocked the warehouses around our location. Something was off, wrong about us being here. I spun in a circle, staring at the Fae who seemed to put it together at the same time.

“It’s a distraction,” I uttered and ran from the fight, uncaring that they called for me as I moved at an inhuman speed away from the barrier that prevented me from teleporting. I materialized at the Guild at the same time as the Fae began to pop in.

The Guild’s doors stood ajar, hanging from the hinges as if something had exploded from inside it. My feet were heavy as I peered around, swallowing the nausea that threatened to spill from my lips as I stepped over the body of my mother. Tears burned in my eyes, obstructing my gaze as I moved deeper into the Guild’s now-charred main room.

“Where is she?” I demanded as Joshua turned and stared at me. His shoulders drooped as he shook his head. My wings unfurled as anger rushed through me. “Where is my sister?”

“They waited for you to leave, and then they set off a device,” he answered thickly, his own emotions rolling through him as fire burned in his eyes. “The angels took her, saying her child couldn’t be born into this world or any other.”

“They sent us to the warehouse to die,” I growled. “And they attacked us from within.”

My stomach sank; tears blocked my words as I shook my head. This wasn’t fucking happening. Not my sister, not now, after everything we’d been through, after everything we’d come through.

“Count the dead, tally the numbers, and bring in the healers,” Synthia uttered from the door where they’d entered behind me. “Your mother…”

I swallowed tears as I spun around, staring at Zahruk, who cradled her crumbled form in his arms as if she was a treasure he’d discovered. I dropped to my knees as I swallowed scream after scream and then stopped holding them back.

I stood, staring at her as I searched for my grandmother. “Grandma?” I asked Joshua who shook his dark head again.

“All the witches are dead or missing, as if they vanished when the angels took Kendra,” he admitted. “I searched the dead, but I didn’t find her among them.”

“It’s possible they went after them,” I mumbled as I surveyed the dead or dying in the midst of what was supposed to be a sanctuary. “How could they do this?”

“It was spelled from those intending harm, or to enter to do harm. And something removed the wards to prevent fighting,” Erie admitted without her usual candor entering her tone. “Someone fucked us. They removed the wards, and yet they twisted them as well. They work against anyone who casts or cast spells inside here. You need to not cast or use magic until I fix them,” she said, turning her eyes to my mother’s lifeless body. “I’m sorry about your mother.”

“My mother…” I swallowed hard as I felt for the pain, and yet nothing. I felt nothing, as if something was holding the pain back from me. I swallowed again as I shook my head. I shook my head; denial clung to my tongue as I continued shaking my head. This wasn’t happening. Not now, not when we’d been doing everything we could to prevent this from happening, to save the world! “No. No, this isn’t real.” I stared at her, waiting for the pain to rip me asunder, to tear me apart and yet there was only a cold detachment and denial in the place where it should have been. “They sent us away, and then they did this. What kind of angel would send people to their deaths and then murder innocent people?”

“The kind who think they’re right. They think they’re saving the world, so in their heads, we’re the bad guys,” Ryder expelled on a sigh. “Zahruk, catch their scent and get the hounds out covering every inch of this town searching for Kendra. Her time is near, and I fear they may not care or wait for her to have the child before they remove it. Zealots who fear what they cannot understand don’t need a reason to murder innocent people.”

“On it,” he said as he moved to the table and placed my mother onto it.

Joshua stepped closer, closing her eyes as he turned to look at me. “I’m going with.”

“Go,” I said softly as I stared at my mother, the woman who had given me life. “Where’s Alden?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t have left my mother unprotected.

“No,” Synthia growled as her head snapped up at my words. Her violet eyes moved me to my mother, and then out the door. “Find him, now!” she demanded and blinked back black tears as I stepped to the corpse and pushed her blonde hair back from her face.

There wasn’t a single mark on her that I could identify or find, and yet her heart wasn’t beating. She looked peaceful in death, as if she was sleeping. I touched her cheek, lowering my mouth to her forehead as I placed a gentle kiss against the cold flesh.

“I’ll fucking slaughter them all,” I promised. “I will avenge you, mother. I promise you that,” I sobbed as I shook my head, stepping back and feeling his presence before he even materialized behind me.

“Why are the wards down?” Lucian demanded and then his midnight depths settled on my mother’s unmoving body, and he expelled a breath before he pulled me against him. “What the fuck happened? How did they get in?”

“We let them in,” I uttered through rage and despair. “We let them in, and they killed her, and have my sister. They’re going to murder her and her unborn child.”

“No, they won’t,” he growled. “Spyder, find them, and the moment you do, fucking destroy them all.”

“My pleasure,” he chuckled as he stepped closer, running his finger down my cheek before leaning over and kissing it. “I will bring you their heads, kitty. I’ll make sure they die screaming.”

“They have Alden and Sarah, we need them back too,” Synthia added as she helped a man sit up, his head a mass of cuts and bruises. “I want them brought back alive; they need to suffer for what they did.”

“They’re archangels, Pet. They aren’t easily killed. If they are to die, it will need to be done swiftly, before they sense it coming. I’m going with him, to see if I can help them.”

“You can’t become shadows, I can. I can also kill angels whereas you cannot. You’ll only hinder me.” 

Ryder stared at Spyder, and I hissed. “You can compare dicks later, find my sister!”

They vanished, and I stared at the blood that covered the floors and then Synthia’s gaze as she did the same. Someone had fought hard…

I didn’t wait to see if they followed as I rushed through the room, following the blood until we were down in the catacombs. I came to a stop as a bloody heap came into view.

“Oh, Alden,” I murmured as I dropped to my knees beside him. Ristan was there instantly, his hands pulling the man closer, onto his side.

“Get Vlad, now!” he shouted as Synthia watched with wide eyes, horror shining in them. “He’ll live.”

“How did he get down here?” I asked, searching the shadows around us.

“Who cares?” Synthia snapped.

“Something dragged him down here and then left him. It was feeding off of him!” I shouted back, watching as the others lifted their eyes and then stared down at the bite marks in Alden’s legs.

“We’re not safe here,” she uttered. She grabbed Alden’s hand and then stared into the shadows, and then they shone with light. She lit the shadows up until there was no place to hide, nowhere for the monsters to go. I didn’t move, didn’t need to as she let loose a scream that misted the monster’s into ashes, her own anger a palpable thing as she let go of the hold she held on it. “Nobody comes into my sanctuary and fucks with my people!”

“They left it open to be attacked,” I swallowed as Ristan’s frown confirmed it. “I could almost understand their need to stop the child of Lucifer from being born, but to leave the Guild open to attack after sending us out to die, that I can’t understand.”

“War doesn’t make sense, ever. Don’t try to understand their logic, or why they did something evil. Evil doesn’t make sense, it just happens, and you deal with it after it does,” Synthia said as we watched Vlad sift in, his silver eyes taking in the damage done to Alden, along with the blood loss.

“I can’t,” Vlad whispered. “I can only try to save him, but Alden doesn’t want immortality.”

“I don’t care what he wants, he doesn’t get to leave me,” she snapped. “Fix him, or turn him. I will not lose any more people today.” She paused, turning to stare at me as tears filled her eyes. “We seriously need a win, people. We need the wards down, replaced, and then we need to get the wounded to Faery where they will be safe. After that, we need a fucking plan that gets us closer to ending this war because I’m sick of hiding and licking our wounds as they throw punches.”

“Then let’s do this,” I uttered as I stepped closer to her, watching as Vlad pushed a needle into Alden’s vein and started the transfusion. “He will need to heal mentally.”

“He’s the strongest man I know,” she stated.

“He just lost the love of his life,” I mumbled. “My mother…is dead.” Tears slid from my face as I turned to find Lucian watching me from where he leaned against the wall, staring. “Find her, Lucian. Before it’s too late,” I begged, uncaring that it exposed my weakness, or that it was a plea. She was my sister, my twin. I sent my emotions and senses searching for the bond but felt nothing, only an emptiness where it had once been, severed in death.

Chapter 32

Day turned into night as we waited; every minute seemed like an endless vigil of hopelessness as we prayed to any God listening to bring them back alive. I struggled through emotions, the basic need to mourn my mother, and yet the coldness inside my body seemed at odds with what it took or needed. I’d felt the tears slip over an hour ago and yet they seemed to come and go, as if I felt it, and yet…didn’t fully accept it? It was a war that seemed to be waging in my mind. I knew she was gone, I felt it. I felt the stab of pain that every once in a while would creep up and seem to strangle me out of the blue, but then just as quickly as it had come, it vanished, and I was empty again.

Joshua sat beside me, silent as he stared at the funeral pyres we’d erected for our mother and coven which seemed to spread out further than the eye could see. Over fifty bodies lay bathed, wrapped and ready to receive their final rites. Our entire coven was gone, missing, or dead. It seemed like a nightmare I wouldn’t awake from, and yet in the place where my heart ached, it ceased to beat. As if it was protecting myself from the pain it knew I held.

Lucian placed his hand on my knee, and I stared at it, the warmth it spread through me was comforting and yet unneeded. I was missing a part of me, that part that should be screaming hysterically, bawling my eyes out because I’d lost my mother.

“Lena, how are you feeling?” Lucian pried, his eyes seeming to burn with the question as he stared at my side profile since I refused to look at either him or Joshua.

Alden was being given vampire blood, recuperating from being dinner to some unknown monster that had entered the Guild to feed. My mother was dead, and my family missing, and he wanted to know how I felt? I didn’t even know how I felt.

“Empty,” I admitted as I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “I feel…numb. I’m hollow, like I’m missing a part of me. I know I should be screaming, or crying, or shit, anything but this cold unfeelingness that I feel, right?” I reached for Joshua’s hand, curling my fingers around it as I shook my head. “I feel pissed, like I need to kill things, anything. I can’t just sit here doing nothing, it’s too much.”

“You’re in shock. I saw a lot of it in Afghanistan. You don’t sense what happened, you just keep moving. Not feeling it or giving into the pain of the loss you witnessed seemed to work, until you’re alone and it’s the only thing you do know. I think I’m in shock too because I’m just…numbed to what I should feel,” he stated as his fingers tightened around mine.

“We should be screaming or crying,” I uttered through a heavy tongue. “So why aren’t we?”

No, the truth was I couldn’t feel her loss, not fully. I couldn’t feel shit right now, as if all my emotions had gone mute other than rage and anger. Sure, it felt like something was squeezing my heart, or tearing it out, but not the debilitating pain I’d felt at losing Joshua, which is what I should feel, right? I wanted to burn down the world, to dance in the blood of the archangels as I bathed in their entrails. It was all wrong.

“I want to feel their organs as they turn to dust in my hands,” I amended. “I want to drink their blood, and paint my flesh with their blood.”

“That’s…that’s one way to cope with it,” he said as he scratched his head, staring at me. “I feel sad, and lost. I feel like I lost my mother,” he admitted, and I turned empty eyes to him, watching as a black tear slid down his cheek. “We lost our mother, and yet we have not even considered bringing her back. She’s our mother.”

“She is gone,” I stated firmly. “She wouldn’t have wanted to be like we are, or be immortal. She made it clear when shit started happening at home that if her time came, we let her go. I promised her.”

“You did what? You knew immortals existed and that vampires were real and you promised to let her go?” he cried angrily, his hand dropping away from mine as he stared at me.

“I promised to honor her wish to go when her time was here, and so it has come,” I said gently as I frowned. “I know you want to bring her back, but look at us. Look at how wrong we are, we’re not even processing her death; instead, we are sitting here staring at her corpse as we prepare to burn it.”

“You’re not thinking of bringing her back, but I am, so who is the wrong one?”

“I am what I was created to be, what you brought me back to be, Joshua. I cannot change that. I know if I had a soul, I’d feel her loss so fucking completely that I’d be shattered, but I don’t. You got to retain a part of yours, but mine is gone. The sliver I have never loved her, I’m not sure it ever loved anyone. Maybe that is why I feel this weirdness in my being? You want me to scream and cry with you? I’ll do it, but I won’t feel it. I loved my mother, in life, I loved her so fucking much that it hurt, but I’m not the same, and neither are you. You want me to rip the creatures that did this to tiny pieces and eat their souls? That I can do, and I’ll relish every second of it. But mourning her loss? I don’t feel the earth-shattering sadness I should. Maybe Hades can bring her back?”

“She isn’t like you,” Hades’s deep voice emitted as he appeared before me, his violet eyes moving between us and my mother’s corpse. “Her sacrifice wasn’t pure; it was to protect herself, not Kendra. She cannot be brought back as you were, her soul is already gone. When I brought you two back, you wanted to come back. You were just hovering between life and death, reaching for Nyx and her power to bring you back. Your mother made a choice, and where she is now, it’s so much better than what we face. You should have known the angels were here for the child, Lucian. When have those selfish, self-serving pricks ever stepped out to help without having alternative motives?” He spat onto the steps, as if it was vile on his tongue.

“I was busy hunting for something that’s been lost a long time. Something that can hold the devil himself,” Lucian stated as he stood up and stared down Hades.

“And the warehouse?” Hades asked as he pushed his thick, midnight hair out of his face.

“It was a trap, one meant to kill us,” I admitted.

“And yet you didn’t die?” he countered.

“No, we had Erie with us to dismantle any wards, but the moment she began to search them for a way to bring them down, it triggered a failsafe in the wards, and gargoyles awoke to attack us.”

“Gargoyles?” he shivered. “Nasty pricks, those little buggers.”

“Buggers?” I frowned. “They meant to rip us apart.”

“I’m sure they did, but that shouldn’t have stopped you. Lucian, you fancy a trip to an angel warehouse? I could use a workout.”

“Lena?” he asked, watching as I slid my gaze back to my mother and then to Joshua.

“I’m staying,” I uttered as I slid my fingers back to Joshua’s and held his hand. “My family needs me more than you do. Kendra is still lost.”

“Gods, they took her?” Hades huffed. “The fucking hell did you guys do? Leave those bloody bastards alone here while you went off to search for shit?”

“They’re archangels; they’re supposed to protect people.”

“That’s your first mistake, Lena. They serve no one but their own needs; they brought heaven to its knees with Lucifer.”

I swallowed hard as I stared up at him. “They’re working with him?”

“Those particular ones, yes,” he nodded. “Raphael helped kill a few others, Diana included, you met her briefly, I believe. There’s only one being who could kill an archangel minus current company and a shadow who seems to have gone missing, and that’s Luc. I’m sorry, but you fuckers got played. And it looks like it cost you an entire coven’s worth of witches.”

I stared out across the funeral pyres that were being built and realized it had cost us greatly. Assuming they’d been on our side had lowered our guard, and we’d rushed at the chance to bring Lucifer to heel, and in doing so, we’d lost most of the coven, and a few humans in the process.

“They came for the witches,” I uttered thickly. “They wanted them out of play, why?”

“They have ancient ones who need new bodies, and the only way they can transfer souls is to have ones who match them in magic and power. My guess, they needed vessels to transfer into. A Sarah suit would indeed be something they’d want, and need.”

I stared at Hades and then opened my mouth and closed it. My teeth gritted as anger shot through me, unfurling my wings to deadly tips as I rose and faced him.

“The warehouse can wait; to transfer would take a magical point of the leyline. They’re in Metaline Falls. At the house. At our house. It’s where the leyline meets and dumps power into the Inland Northwest. Once they removed it from this Guild, it’s where it began to push up through the ground. Lucian…” I growled, but he smiled, watching me with pride as I reached for him. “Take me home.” I shivered as memories seemed to slither into my mind, my heart clenched as I considered the last time I’d been home.

For Kendra, I’d go back.

For Grandma, I’d go back.

To get revenge, I’d go back.

“Lena, the last time you were there…” Joshua argued.

“I slit my fucking throat. This time, I’m going to slit theirs.”

Chapter 33

Lucian

She’s darkening, deeper into the form she’d become. Her eyes leak tears, and yet she doesn’t feel the death as she would have if she’d housed a soul. Empty and cold, devoid of the emotions she should feel for the loss of her parent.

Joshua watches her, his stare unnerving and condemning and yet the rest who she claimed were soulless aren’t entirely so. They house more of their soul than she does, she who has none of what she once held, and something Hades slipped into her as if she was a fucking cocktail he was creating.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy knowing that she cannot find release or pleasure with others, but that she doesn’t mourn the loss of her loved one. She should be screaming, tearing the world apart with her loss, but instead, she’s calm, empty.

I watched her pile wood beneath the corpse with a cold detachment that is driving me bugfuck crazy. I wanted to hear her screams, the denial that her mother was lost, and yet she didn’t rally the pain; no, she clung to the cold rage that slithered through what she had become, and begged to bathe in the blood of those who took from her.

Fury: a mythical being who seeks justice for those too weak to claim it…How ironic that my girl would seek to right the wrong done to her, even though she herself ended her life. She no longer fears death because, in her own way, she’s become it.

She’d become a winged warrior who craves chaos and blood in payment for those who took from her. It’s a small miracle that she doesn’t crave my blood for what I had done, for the game she was forced to play as I fought to protect this world from the responsibility I’d fucked up. I’d done this to her, my game with Katarina as I struggled to free her took the only being I craved more than life from me.

She faltered next to the shrouded body of her mother as Alden approached, his eyes rimmed red from the loss. He searched her face, scouring it for any sign she felt the loss, and then she wiped away the single black tear that slipped free.

“You will be okay,” he stated, his grey eyes watching her as she stepped away from him, letting him touch the corpse of the woman he’d briefly found love with. “Fiona knew what the cost was to protect her children; she knew she’d pay with her life eventually.”

“You loved her,” she stated, her hand fisted at her side as she watched him with a detached sentiment.

“I did,” he admitted, his silver hair sparkling beneath the moons iridescent glow. His flesh is red, rimmed with the glow of the immortal blood he’d consumed to heal as he had. He’d woken up pissed, assuming they’d made him immortal against his wishes, but then calmed once he had figured it out. Most people would kill for immortality and yet he’d come enraged when he’d assumed they’d changed him into a vampire.

“You need to back the fuck off,” Joshua snarled, his eyes alight with the need to fight.

“I loved her,” Alden snapped, holding his ground as the Fae sidled closer to the old man who had yet to release his hold on Fiona, as if he could will her back to life.

Personal experience told me otherwise, and yet I moved, closing the distance between Lena and myself as Joshua prepared to fight anyone stupid enough to touch his mother.

“Enough,” she uttered thickly, her eyes slowly moving from Alden to Joshua. “She loved him too, Joshua. You can’t fight him because he loved her, so thank him. Thank him for being there when I died, and holding her through the pain because I remember wishing one person would hold me when news of your death reached us. I had no one, no one to hold me and tell me it would be alright.”

“I loved her,” he argued.

“No one is questioning that,” she replied sharply. “No one doubts you loved her. I sense her loss, even though I cannot feel the pain. There’s a place that is…voided. As if her leaving has left a hole, and yet while I may not feel it, I understand it should hurt. I sense you feel it on a different level, and I wish you didn’t.”

“He retained pieces of his soul,” Hades admitted as he stared at Joshua. “That’s how he found you, knew you as he had in life. You, on the other hand, had no soul to save. You know what you should feel because you’ve retained your mind, but the soul is where we feel loss when it comes, and without one, you only know what you should feel. You just can’t feel it because it isn’t the soul you house’s loss, but you’re aware of it. Inside, you feel something missing, like something was stolen from you. Use that to find the ones who remain, Lena. You know how to find them and when the time comes, you’ll save them.”

“Shouldn’t we go now?” she asked, her voice low but even as she squared her shoulders, no longer letting them droop with the loss she’d felt guilty at not mourning.

“No, it takes time to prepare to transfer souls into a body, and right now they’re expecting you to show up with an army at your back. Right now Lucifer is holding your sister, telling her all of the horrible things that will happen to her when she births the antichrist into existence. She’s safe, or as safe as she can be considering he sees you when he looks at her. You…pissed him off pretty good, Fury. Not many can say they’ve crushed the skull of a fallen angel and lived through it. Luckily, he wants you alive to use against us.”

“Us?” I snapped coldly.

“Us, Lucian,” he nodded as the words left his lips. “He’s aware of why she is alive, and who brought her back to you. More than that, he’s aware she cannot be killed easily, but that she can be killed. That is actually why I am here. There’s a blade, one forged in the river of the Gods that can kill her. We need to find it and destroy it before he does.”

“You think he’d kill her? He wants me to suffer because unlike him, I am not bound to Hell, or trapped there. I’m free to walk the earth.”

“He isn’t bound there anymore. Magdalena freed him when she entered Hell knowingly, remember? I do believe you spanked that perky ass for doing it. Then you impregnated her as the eclipse played out. Now I’m here to help clean up your mess again. The other Gods have been awakened, and while you may not die, Lucian, there are other things, worse things than death.”

“They can try, but they will fail as they always have,” I grunted, watching as he nodded but turned those violet eyes onto Lena, who snapped her fingers as flames leapt to the several funeral pyres around us. She silently stepped closer to me, her hand skimming against mine as if she wanted or needed comfort and then her words replayed through my mind.

She’d never had anyone to comfort her as she’d dealt with Joshua’s death, alone. No, only the darkness she’d let in, the darkness she’d let me glimpse in the blood ritual had comforted her, and even though she’d died, it had remained inside her, like a viper waiting to strike.

Her face was bathed in the firelight, caramel-colored hair as she watched the flames lick her mother’s remains. Embers from the shroud floated in the air, revealing the calm, petite face that looked so much like Lena’s that my stomach tightened. I wondered if she’d have come back if they’d chosen to burn her ashes, to try to force the other side to accept her soulless body. Her fingers curled through mine, pulling my arm closer as she leaned against me for comfort.

“I have you, little one.”

“I know,” she answered as she continued to watch until the flames burned the flesh, filling the area with the intoxicating, obnoxious odor. Still, she remained as others dispersed. I tighten my arm around her, pulling her into my embrace as the Fae, Alden and a few others remained. “And we’re returned to the ashes for which we were born, to the witches who called us into this marvelous storm. I send you back to whence you came, I free you now in this eternal flame.” The flames leapt, sending nothing but ashes into the sky with her words. She’d whispered a spell, one that released the souls of the dead, to speed their process to the other side.

“Only high priestesses can do such a thing,” Joshua marveled as he stared at her with wide eyes and his mouth hanging over. “You’re…you’re not even a witch!”

“I’m…more,” she muttered silently, her eyes watching as the ashes seemed to be sucked into the heavens above. Power, raw, uncut, unchecked power buzzed at my side as she continued watching her mother’s ashes as they returned to where her soul had been born. 

I held her closer yet, unable to get close enough to reassure she was real, that she was still the innocent girl who’d lipped off at me, and had grabbed my dick with a naiveté that had been addictive to watch. Those eyes lifted, holding mine as a subtle smile played across her full lips.

“I’m…tired,” she admitted, even though she didn’t crave sleep. She didn’t have a soul that needed rest or to recover. Only a craving for what she desired and what she needed: revenge. “I’m hungry.”

“You don’t eat,” Hades said with a lopsided grin. “You need to fuck. Let out the Fury that is trapped within.”

“I have let her out.”

“No, you’ve let her taste a sample of this world, but you’re strong, and you hold her on a leash. Let her out to dance with Lucian, and then to feed on the blood of the angels tomorrow morning. She can’t hurt him; she’s bound by laws older than space and time to protect him. Let her out to feed, to show you what she needs to live.”

“I’m bound to protect him?” she snorted. “He’s fucked.”

“He enjoys being fucked,” Hades chuckled. “Trust me, let her out and see what it’s like to embrace what you’ve become. No more holding back, it’s time you learned your limits, and who is whispering to you when you think no one else notices. You have two faces now, Lena. One is yours, the other is who you are to become. If you think you’re powerful now with only this version of yourself, know this, you’re weak. Once you can let her out, let her spread those wings without fear of hurting others, she will teach you what you have truly become.”

“And if I lose myself when I let her out?” she asked softly.

“Then we will be right here to help you find yourself again. That emptiness you feel, that craving for more? That’s her, trying to feel her way into your world. Trying to merge herself with you to become one. I’ve let you stumble enough, little she-cat, now spread those wings and embrace what you truly are. You’re a fucking butterfly, fly free.”

I swallowed hard as I stared at the composure on her face, the steel spine that spanned straighter as she tilted her head as she stared at Hades. I’d felt her magic growing and then slipping away, and yet I’d no idea she was the one pushing it away.

“Lena, we should…sleep,” I offered, knowing she knew I had no intention of sleeping. “Hades, find that blade. Spyder is hunting the archangels, aware of where they may be hiding. The others are setting up a perimeter around their estate as we speak. Hellhounds have been unleashed, but we know they won’t attack him. Not willingly, let’s give them some incentive to do so. Everyone else should rest because tomorrow, tomorrow we unleash our own brand of hell onto the archangels and the devil himself.”

“Lucian,” she whispered as she turned, curling her delicate frame against my body, seeming so small in the clearing with the ashes still floating into the sky. “Take me to the club, where I can’t hurt anyone.”

“How did you know it was rebuilt?” I asked, and she smiled the most wicked smile I’d ever seen grace her lips.

“You have your ways, and I have mine.” She shrugged as she lifted on her toes, pushing her mouth against mine. “Take me away where I can be free, where I don’t have to fear hurting others. Where I can fucking own you,” she added and a growl resonated from deep in my chest at her open challenge.

“You think you can own me? You can try, but not even letting her out to play will help you from me, little Fury.”

“Prove it,” she whispered huskily.

Chapter 34

Lena

“You’re going to wreck the club, aren’t you?” he asked as I paced in the bar area, noting the new wards and structure. It was built to be comfortable, and yet to withstand an assault. He’d built us a sanctuary in case we’d needed one, but all the witches were either dying or dead now.

It was vacant, empty, not a single other person was inside the club as I took in the newly rebuilt place with a critical eye. Lucian had gone all-out, pulling no stops into the luxury that was his club.

Lights flickered on above us, and I spun in a circle, taking it all in. Above our heads were strobe lights, flickering as music began to play through multiple speakers. The song was quick and fast paced had my body itching to move to it. However, the plasma screens that lit up with gyrating bodies that seemed oblivious to us watching them didn’t miss a beat as they fucked on a crowded dancefloor right as the person filmed it.

“Live?” I asked as I stepped closer, feeling a pull to the screen as the couples moved, dancing as their bodies connected and matched the beat of the light.

“No, previously recorded from another club right before it was attacked,” he admitted.

“He’s targeting you,” I mused, hating that he was, in fact, the target of Lucifer’s rage. Considering everything that continued to happen around us, it was surprising that it was tossed aside.

“He blames me for her death, and a few others he played with,” he shrugged as he watched me closely, as if he feared I’d change my mind. “I created a room for you, would you like to see it?” he asked, his eyes turning to liquid pools of blue fire as a smile danced wickedly on his mouth.

“I’m guessing it was made with pleasure in mind?” I wasn’t going to lie, the man knew how to fuck, how to destroy a girl’s will and take a wrecking ball to her senses.

“Among other things,” he said softly as he reached me and pulled me into his arms. “I burned this place to the ground because that beautiful smile of yours fucking haunted me. When I rebuilt it, I did so with your pleasure, and your needs in mind.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” I pointed out. “Throwing a fit and burning this place, your club, to the ground was rather brash and wrong of you. But I do like the new look.” And I did, it was done in shades of blue that matched my eyes, silvers for the dress I’d worn when I’d first kissed him, and the pictures that covered the walls were of me, things I’d done inside this club with him. Yet you wouldn’t know it was me unless you had been there, been a part of it.

On the far wall was a picture of the dimples on my back, his hands touching my hips as he’d fucked me, which made my panties wet with the memory. Next to it was my body on a bed, with his men around us as Spyder held me, his hands covering my breasts as my hair pooled around them. The dark head between my legs, biting the inside of my thigh was Lucian. Blood oozed from my shoulder, and yet in this lighting, it could have been anyone or anything happening. On the wall over the sex club’s entrance was a picture of me in Lucian’s lap and yet it faced outwards, an image of everyone watching us with their faces perfectly marked by memory and I smirked, remembering exactly how they’d watched us, how they had looked as he’d taken me with his fingers.

“You approve,” he said, not a question.

“I do like that no one else would know they’re of me,” I admitted. “Except you,” my tone lowered, thickened as I turned to stare up into his midnight depths. “You had these made before I died, didn’t you?”

“I had them taken as they happened,” he agreed, his hands slipping into mine as he started us into the next room.

“Because that isn’t creepy at all,” I mumbled as he chuckled.

The next room was hands-down fucking erotic, not because of the round alcoves for lovers, but because an image of me riding him had been painted on the ceiling. His tattooed arms held my waist, and my head had been thrown back in the throes of passion. The glass was tampered, lining the bar along the edge of the wall. I moved towards it, slipping behind it as I pulled down a bottle of scotch, his preferred brand and age.

“You missed me,” I laughed, the sound deadened and yet the light in my eyes seemed to grow as I stared at him. “You put pictures of me up wherever you’d thought of me. Which means, you thought of me everywhere,” I muttered thickly as I filled both goblets to the top, tipping it back to chugged it in an un-ladylike move.

“Someone people leave a hole when they leave so big and so painful that it never stops aching,” he uttered as he drank his, mirroring my action before he pushed the glass towards me. “When Katarina died repeatedly it simply sucked. I felt like you do now, empty and missing something. I ached, but I didn’t know why.”

I swallowed as my eyes dropped to the glasses as I filled them. It hurt, straight up fucking hurt like someone had just punched me in the gut. Where was the fucking numbness at? How could I feel everything about him and yet not the death of my mother? He reached over the bar and lifted my chin.

“When you died, I wanted to destroy the entire world. I wanted to set it on fire and watch them all burn to death, to feel a sliver of the pain I felt at losing you. I wasn’t created to love, to care if something happened to someone I liked, and through the years I’ve watched thousands, and millions of people being slaughtered and never once had I even fucking flinched, until you. Something inside of you makes me need to be better, to be more for you. That first kiss, I wanted to break your pretty little neck because I felt it, this pull to you. I wanted to fucking destroy you, but first I wanted to see what you were, or why you pulled me to you. Nothing before you had ever kept my interest. You did, I needed to know why. And then you grabbed my dick and told me to go have pretty babies. So yes, I painted your image everywhere and anywhere I saw you because I couldn’t get your pretty eyes or smile out of my head, and even though you’d died, you drove me insane.”

“Good,” I smirked as I pushed his glass across the bar. “I missed you too, asshole.”

“You left me, Lena. You fucking died.”

“Semantics,” I frowned as I stared up into his eyes. “You’re more than me, so I had to become more to stay with you. I wasn’t enough, not strong enough, not stable enough, not brave enough to face the world you live in. Now I am a part of it. I lost a baby, and yeah, I’m pissed about it. I’m changed, but becoming this thing, it meant changing who I was to be who I needed to be. I’d accepted the darkness, so taking the next logical step was figuring out how to wield it, how to make it what I needed it to be. Did it suck? Hell yeah, but I’m here and you’re here, and while we may be losing, we have not lost everything,” I whispered hoarsely as I lifted tear-filled eyes to his. “My mom died,” I uttered as something pulsed through me. Pain? “I hate that you make me feel shit.”

“You need to feel it, to let her go.”

“I let her go the moment I slit my throat, Lucian. I let them all go except you, and maybe I did let you go. I never intended to come back here, to make my existence known, but things happened, and then I was drawn to the Guild, or something in it. I’m guessing it was you, even though I really didn’t want it to be.”

“Good,” he tossed back as he touched my hand and we materialized in a darkened room. This room was dangerous. A large cross sat against a wall with shelves of toys next to it. A bench sat beside it, which looked like a sawhorse with an oval cushion on top of it. In the middle of the room was a bed with cotton sheets, and lengths of lace that hung from the large, metal frame that mirrored a cage. It had a door that led into the bed, and I turned, tossing Lucian a curious look over my shoulder.

“What the fuck is the bed caged for?” I asked hesitantly, and yet my voice came out heated. I blinked as I tried to figure out whose voice it was, that sultry tone that slid over my flesh.

“You, because I’d cage you in a heartbeat to protect you,” he said sharply.

On the wall were pictures of me in all types of poses, as if he’d always been watching me. From the moment I arrived home, to the moment I’d left his club to sacrifice my life to save them all. I wondered if he had some of those somewhere as well.

“You were always watching me,” I stated as I followed his gaze to the pictures as he nodded.

“Minus in the cabin with your brother, and the moment you left this club to do…to do what you thought you had to do to save us.”

“Our son was meant to destroy you, to destroy everything I loved,” I admitted as I watched him carefully. “Your seal would have driven him until he either succeeded or killed you. I saw it play out, seen my lifeline end in the sands and in the bones. I died no matter what scenario we ran or tried. He died as well, probably at your hands. So I chose to go out in my way, not theirs. I know you think there was another way, but if there had been, I’d have taken it.”

“You could have fucking warned me.”

“No, Lucian. I couldn’t because you’d have locked me up and this, this world would have paid the price for whatever it was between us.”

“No one likes a fucking martyr, Lena.” He snorted; his eyes dared me to argue.

“And I’m not, a selfish bitch who knew I was coming back. I knew if I made that sacrifice, that I’d come back in one way or another, but you? You’d suffer for forcing me to play a game I never asked to join. I won, I won even though it cost me more than either of you selfish assholes were willing to give. Neither one of you ever sacrificed your life to end it; that was the cost.”

“Your life never should have ended; you shouldn’t have been the one to die. It should have been me.”

“You weren’t born with a monster in your soul,” I pointed out.

“I don’t have a soul,” he countered, and I blinked at him. “You’re not the only one who was created, Lena. Now, on your knees, so I can show you what that pretty mouth is for. I’m done talking, let’s play.”

Chapter 35

I grinned at him, starting to lower to the floor as he’d asked, but the moment my knees brushed the floor, power ripped through the room. I bowed my body, arching it as I screamed as absolute pleasure tore through me. He watched, his eyes alight with wickedness as he gazed at my body which was alight with every nerve ending being touched at once.

Moaning, unable to get words or even thoughts to register, he watched me, never stepping closer. His fingers moved and my clothes were ripped from my body, shredded in the heavy weight of his power as he fed me the full force of it. I felt my body being yanked forward, my ass in the air, exposed as something pushed into my core, filling me until I cried out as pain lingered, and my body clenched violently around it.

“Come on, little Fury, let’s see what you got,” he purred thickly, his fingers moving deftly to slowly unbutton the shirt he wore. I wanted to rip his clothes off, to ruin the suit he’d worn, but nothing happened. I screamed in frustration as the movement in my body grew faster, harder, his fire blue eyes knowingly anticipating exactly what he was doing to me. “Nothing? I thought you’d at least put up a fight. Pity,” he shrugged as he shook out of the shirt and tossed it aside. “This next one is going to sting a bit,” he chuckled, and then something pushed into my ass and I exploded, my body a trembling, quivering mess of nerves that fired on every thrust as the magic took turns exiting and entering my body.

“Son of a bitch,” I snapped crossly as it lessened, slowly without stopping. I tried to stand but my knees shook too hard to even manage that simple task, and then my body was up, floating as he watched it. My legs spread wide as he stepped closer, pushing his fingers through the wet mess he’d created.

“I didn’t have a mother,” he uttered against my ear as his mouth lowered, biting the hard tip of one nipple and then the other as his teeth scraped against the sensitive flesh. His hand slapped my pussy, and I cried out, and then again as I was dropped to my knees and my hair was pulled, forcing my head back to stare up at him as he undid the buttons to the suit pants he wore. Magic rippled around us, and they vanished as he reached down to grab his heavy cock, pushing it against my lips. “Suck, show me what that mouth is good for other than arguing with me.”

I sent my tongue down his silken cock, slowly drawing circles on the sensitive edge of it until he hissed. The moment my lips wrapped around him, the magical hold on my hair sent it down my throat and threatened to choke me unless I adapted. Then it started using me like I was his to do whatever he wished with. The fullness increased and my eyes watered against the sensation of his too-large cock buried in my tight throat as the overwhelming sensation of being fucked and too full shot through me.

My entire body went taut as the orgasm ripped through me without warning. He smiled down, and his thumb stroked my cheek as his gaze consumed mine, holding it hostage as he watched me sucking his cock. His magic filled the room, a palpable living thing that threatened to consume us both.

“Lucian…”

“Let her out to play with me, Lena. She’s hungry and I’m fucking hard. Stop being a selfish bitch and let me see what you’re hiding.”

“I don’t know how!” I growled as the magic started up again, violently until every part of me ached, every inch of my body was covered in sweat. My wings uncurled, pushing from my spine as he watched me, his cock taunting me as his magic used, consumed, and fucked me until orgasm after orgasm held me prisoner. I couldn’t think, couldn’t move, and if I died…well, it wasn’t the worst way to go out.

I rode it, the magic and the orgasms. I accepted it until something inside of me lifted its head, peering out of my eyes to see what was causing us pain and pleasure. He smirked back, only it wasn’t friendly at all. It was wild, untamed, and I shivered violently as the magic got stronger. He was inside of me, I realized, the sweat that dripped from his brow, his body covered in a fine sheen of sweat that drenched him in the most seductive way possible.

He was fucking me every way possible, all at once with a single thought of his dirty fucking mind. He felt it. He’d done it before, only I’d thought it was something else the second time…but it had been him. My ass ached, my pussy was one big sore muscle that clenched, and tightened around him and yet he just watched me come again and again.

Electric blue wings unfurled from his back and lightning moved in his vision as it pulsed through me, making my body hum with the sheer force of it. His wings mirrored mine, his body was covered in pulsing blue runes that seemed to glow from within, and when he opened his teeth, the blunt white ones ground together as he continuing taunting me.

“You’re weak.” His voice filled my ears, echoing off my head as he spoke to me through my mind. “Katarina would have played with me, she’d have…”

Power exploded from my body as I rose to my feet, staring at him. “Finish it.”

“There she is,” he smirked as he watched my claws extend as my wings grew larger, shadowing against the wall as I stared at him in loathing and anger.

“Finish it,” I repeated, and he shook his head.

“She’d have played with me. She’d have let her monster out to have fun.”

I attacked, slamming my fist against nose as he picked me up and threw me across the room. I sensed his move before he made it, slamming against him as I shoved him into the wall, pinning his body between my wings as I hissed with razor-sharp teeth against his lips.

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” he crooned as his tongue came out to lick my bottom lip. “Let her out, Lena. I can handle her, and you. You can’t hurt me, and neither can she.”

“Fuck that,” I snapped crossly, throwing him across the room before I turned and sauntered towards him. He smiled, letting that magic back at me tenfold. I dropped to my knees and then bucked my hips to adjust to the fullness.

His finger traced my wings, showing me how sensitive they were in my current position. He showed no fear for the deadly talons that they exposed, nor did he stop the magic as he settled between my legs behind me. His hand slowly pushed up my spine, and then he entered me, hard, without warning.

I screamed as he used me, his magic never stopping as he took me from behind, filling my body past its boundaries as he fucked and claimed ownership. His hand clapped against my ass, and then magic started pulling on my nipples, pinching them as tight as any clamp I could have imagined. Something sucked against my clitoris, and everything went black.

I went dark.

“I see that wild thing in your eyes,” he uttered. “That monster lurking in the darkness,” he crooned, his magic never stopping as he continued using my body in an assault that forced me to give up control.

I was riding in the backseat of my body. My arms moved, attacked him as my hands flipped him over as I stood, staring down at his body as if he was my fucking dinner and dessert. Emptiness. Anger. Blood. Passion. Sex. I craved nothing but that. I cried out a warning, but no sound escaped my lips, not anything but a haughty laugh that sent Lucian’s mouth contorting into a deadly smile.

“She’s…human,” it stated from my lips.

“She’s mine.”

“You’re ours,” it purred, and then she moved to him, straddling his waist as he shook his head, pushing her away easily.

“She’s mine, and you will let her out once you’ve finished feeding, understand?”

“And if not?” she asked, her eyes surveying him like he was utter perfection. “She isn’t strong enough to hold us both yet.”

“Then help her,” he argued as he strode closer staring down at her. “She’s newly born, you’re not. You’re recycled through the ages, Fury. She holds three of you in her, three. No other woman has ever been strong enough to bear that burden and survive it. She is. So you will teach her, because she needs you. We all do. Your power is hers to call upon, so teach her how to wield it or go back to your eternal slumber, forever. I will take Nyx’s heed to be sure you can never be awoken again.”

I flinched, she flinched, and it was awkward.

“She’s aware of what you threaten her mother with,” she hissed. “She sees you now, what you will us to see.”

“I let her see it before you took control. That girl? I will destroy this entire world to protect. She’s mine. She is everything good in this world and so much fucking more. And Nyx isn’t her mother, her mother was just sent to the otherworld on a funeral pyre she erected and set blaze to.”

Sadness filled me and then something was touching me inside my body. Hands held me, cradling me as if they offered comfort and yet didn’t really know how to do so. I felt the loss; my body trembled as all the emotions I hadn’t felt hit me at once. And just as quickly as they’d come, they were gone.

“She has experienced much and yet she is stronger because of it. Weird; normally mortals snap or break into worthless piles of shit when they feel too much.”

“You’ll also give her back her emotions, her pleasure to feel other men. You will give her back everything Hades took, except her mortality and then you’ll help her heal from within. You will teach her how to wield the power of the three Furies. She’s going to set this world on fire, and she needs you to show her how. So stop being selfish bitches and do what you were awoken to do, save her.”

“We’re awoken to protect you from her, and what she holds within her,” she hissed. “If you’re opened, this world and every other world will die. You will kill them all. Ahh,” she said as I perked my ears and shivered. “She doesn’t know what she fucks, or the beast who rides her for pleasure, does she?”

“No, and if you tell her I will pull you from her body and show you why the Gods tremble in my presence.” She shivered and just like that, she was gone. “There’s my girl.”

“You didn’t need her to feed her, you wanted to threaten her,” I accused harshly.

“Ready?” he asked, and then I was pushed against the wall by invisible hands, and he was there, pushing inside my body as he lifted my legs and then wrapped his hand around my throat, peering into my eyes. “I am the beast, the monster that kills and destroys other monsters, Lena. I am judge, jury, and executioner to immortals. So fuck me like you hate me because I’m about to do the same to you.”

He bit into my shoulder, and blood dripped from it as I exploded around his cock and teeth, feeling every inch of his power as he let it out to play. Mine clashed against his, a mindless thing that tossed him away from me as I swayed my hips towards him as he lifted on his elbows to watch me. I’d knocked him to the floor, and then I straddled him as my mouth kissed my way from his navel to his lips, where I claimed and conquered.

He turned me over, pushing my legs apart as he fucked me without pretending to be mortal. His body moved faster than I could see, and I was forced to hold on or get lost trying to see his flesh, and then I exploded, lights blinking behind my eyes and the room was bathed in darkness, the only light was from his eyes, his wings, and the runes that covered his flesh. He tensed, rocking against me as yet another orgasm slowly took hold, claiming me in an endless pleasure hold that refused to release me.

“You’re mine, from now until the end of time. Not your silly fucking mortal time, but mine. Even when this world ends and we move to the next, you’re mine. Say it.”

“I’ve always been yours since the first moment your lips touched mine, Lucian,” I said huskily. “Now move, because I’m not done with you yet.”

“Good, because someone else is here to sever the bond because he needs to let you go,” he rumbled thickly as Spyder stepped from the shadows, watching me as I stared back, panic and something else ripping through me as I swallowed hard.

Chapter 36

“Kitty, are you ready to purr for me?” Spyder’s thick voice entered the room as he stepped from the shadows, staring at me as his eyes slowly slid over my naked, red flesh. Lucian had left me sore, and yet here was Spyder, needing to sever the bond, which I knew had been building. It had gotten to the point where I felt him to the very marrow in my bones, which meant he’d felt us too. “If you don’t want this, if you don’t want me, tell me now.” His gaze dipped to my naked sex, feasting on the nakedness he found waiting, willing. “You don’t want me, tell me, and I carry this. I’ll carry it to the end with me. This fucking craving for you is too much. It’s consuming me, and I know you feel it too.”

“What…what do you mean?” I uttered thickly, my body heating under his heavy stare.

“The bond that tethers us together, it needs to be severed and this, this is the only fucking way we can figure out how to mute it, or sever it completely. It followed you through death, into this new form. Remember Portland? That fucking need that almost consumed us? It’s tenfold for me. It’s never-fucking-ending, and as much as I wish it otherwise, nothing we have found has lessened it.”

“So how do we end it?” I asked carefully, already knowing why he’d be here in this room with us.

His dark gaze followed my frown, watching every emotion that flowed through me as I stared at him. “I need you to trust us, to see if this will end it, or sever it. If it doesn’t, and it cements it, then it will at least be muted. I’m going insane with the need to have you, to be with you, and that shit doesn’t fucking work for me. You get me? I feel it every time you fuck him, and you don’t need me anymore. You are immortal, and Luc can’t touch you now. Yet I still suffer for what we did, and no matter what I do, no matter how much I fucking drink before you fuck Lucian, I feel it. You don’t need me, and I can’t keep craving you. It’s not fair to any of us that we crave something that we no longer need.”

I swallowed hard as I stared at him as a strange pang started in my chest. Let him go? Could I? He deserved to be happy without having to feel me fucking another man; it was selfish to keep him with me. The things I’d felt in that fucking boutique were things he continued to feel every time I was with Lucian. Because he’d tried to protect me, he hurt.

“Tell me what to do, tell me how to sever it.”

“We have to give it what it wants, but instead of you drinking our blood, we will drink yours.”

“That’s it?” I asked carefully as I turned to look at Lucian who showed no emotion as he watched me. He stepped away from me as the candles ignited inside the room. The cage around the bed vanished, and he smiled sadly as he watched me.

I turned, staring at Spyder as he lifted his shirt, revealing rows of hard, sinewy muscle that rippled as he moved. His hair brushed against his shoulders, dusting the tops as he watched me. He dropped it to the floor, staring at me as his hands went to the buckle of his pants, asking a silent question.

“You’ll be with me tonight, Kitty. Tonight we share you, just this once. Then, if it works, we won’t feel this thing between us, or I won’t. You seem immune, and I need that, I crave that numbness where you’re concerned. I can’t stand this shit, it’s like being punched in the fucking nuts every time you two fuck, and this is the only way to fix it. I mean, you’ll still want to fuck me, because you’re you and I’m fucking hot and one hell of a catch, but it won’t be this brutal.”

“I have to let you fuck me to erase the need you feel?” I bit my tongue as it slipped from my lips.

“We’ll take it as it goes,” he announced. “If we can reach the end without you having to let me into that pretty naked pussy, we will forgo it, unless you want it. Lucian doesn’t like sharing, but he made this deal to protect you from Lucifer, who is no longer a threat as he was. You’re stronger, able to withstand his assault from the other realms. I tire of daydreaming about you riding my cock, and even when I’m not dreaming of it, I’m thinking of it. Everything inside of me screams to take you, to end this endless torture I feel every moment of every day.”

“And you’re okay with this?” I asked Lucian who watched me through liquid pools of lust that carried no anger or judgment.

“If this gets his mind on the fucking job at hand, and you stop slipping your pretty blue eyes in his direction with that lust in them, then yes. I’m willing to let this play out to end it. He did this for me, to protect you. It is no longer needed, and he suffers when you are with me. He’s done what was asked of him; now it’s time to sever the bond, and I’m a selfish prick, I don’t like sharing you, but that’s what is happening when we fuck, Lena. He’s with us, and it isn’t a choice any of us make, it’s just how the magic worked.”

“I understand,” I whispered thickly as I turned back to Spyder, finding his sleek, muscled body bare of anything hindering my view. Spyder naked was something to behold, like the Gods themselves had created the magical perfection that was him. His tattoos slithered, pulsing with a tempo that made my heart stop and stutter before it matched the heady beat of his siren’s song. “This is…not something I’d ever do again,” I admitted. “Just this once, to let you go,” I squeaked as I dropped my gaze to his generous, thick cock.

“The idea is that this breaks the need we feel since it isn’t us who want it, it’s the magic that connects us. We’re bonded; this should sever it, releasing us from its hold.”

I nodded, shivering as Lucian stepped closer with a goblet that he sat beside the bed and tilted his head to stare at Spyder who slowly stepped closer, his hand reaching out to pull me closer. His dark head bowed as he watched Lucian, even as he curled my naked form against his. My wings curled in, hugging my spine as they disappeared as he dropped his lips against mine, brushing them ever so softly as he explored them.

“Can’t say I don’t plan to enjoy this,” he uttered before his teeth pulled against my bottom lip, tasting me. His teeth released my lip as his tongue pushed into my mouth, claiming mine as a growl ripped from his lungs. Magic danced in the room as he slowly walked me back to the bed. Once there, he released my mouth long enough to pick me up and push me onto the bed, staring down at my naked sex as if it was his salvation.

His hand slid between my leg, leisurely exploring it as his mouth kissed the inside of my thigh, slowly, exploring my flesh as he climbed my body to claim my lips hard, no mercy granted as his tongue delved between mine, consuming me as if he was fucking starving and I was the air he needed to breathe.

Spyder’s hands captured mine; pushing them against the bed as his mouth sent me into the unknown, fear slowly kicking my mind as his kiss devoured me. His body against mine was a potent aphrodisiac, sending any fear away the moment it grazed mine. His cock rested between my legs, scraping my flesh with its heavy weight as his tongue took what it wanted from me.

He pulled away, lifting himself up to stare down at me, down to where our bodies could join and yet he didn’t move to make it happen. Instead, he lifted me, pulling me towards his massive frame as he traded placed with me. He leaned me against his chest, facing Lucian, who watched me through heavy, lust-filled eyes as he produced a knife and set it on the bed before crawling to join us.

Yet he didn’t; he sat beside me, watching as Spyder tested my breasts before his hand slipped between my legs, finding me wet and aching to be filled. His fingers pushed my sex apart, slipping into the welcoming heat as a moan slipped from my lips. My eyes held Lucian’s, knowing he was doing this because he wanted me to himself, and we both knew Spyder had given enough, and if this freed him, it was worth it.

I knew if we went too far, we’d cross a line and it wasn’t something I’d allow to happen. Neither would they, which was why I knew I was safe with them. They were more than just best friends, whatever the fuck they were, they were ancient. They’d done this with other girls, and yet this was different for them. I was different from them.

Lucian lowered his mouth as if he’d sensed my worry and clamped onto my clitoris, sucking it into his mouth as Spyder pushed his fingers deeper, adding another until I was stretched and he growled against my ear. His cock rubbed my ass as Lucian used my hips to rock my body onto the digits Spyder wielded until I was moaning as the crescendo of release took hold, sending me over the edge as Spyder growled against my ear.

“Gods, kitty, you make the most delicious fucking noises.”

“My turn,” Lucian growled, moving his mouth between my legs to suck the arousal from my flesh before Spyder released his hold, moving his hands to part my legs for Lucian’s kiss as he fucked my flesh with his mouth.

It was erotic, being with them both and yet something inside of me didn’t want this, didn’t want him to be in my naked sense, and as I peered down at Lucian, his eyes watched me even as the orgasm ripped through me, Spyder holding me through it as Lucian continued. He didn’t stop sucking against my flesh until the tremors eased and he rose, rubbing his cock against my belly as he kissed me, erasing Spyder from my mind as he took control, took me back with a subtle reminder of who I belonged to.

I felt him enter me, and I screamed as I slid down his cock, and then my nails dug against his arms as Spyder kissed my back, neck, and shoulders as Lucian kissed the other. I knew it was coming, knew the pain that would only ache until it was replaced by magic, and then pleasure.

Teeth sank into each shoulder, and then the slurping sounded in the room as their heartbeats echoed in my ear. Spyder’s hand drifted around, rubbing my clit as Lucian pounded my flesh until I was screaming and coming as they continued to suck blood from the bites they’d taken in each shoulder.

The room was filled with the intoxicating scent of magic, sex, and blood as Lucian continued to take and give. Spyder’s touch sent me over the edge, careening for the cliff and then they flipped me over without warning. Lucian entered me from behind, and the moment I opened my mouth to scream, I opened my eyes to see what touched my cheek, I found Spyder there, waiting, his eyes begging permission as he watched me.

My hand gripped his cock, unable to wrap around it and then I leaned over, kissing the silken tip before my tongue brushed against it. Lucian’s hands gripped my hair, holding me there as I decided my next step.

Let him go…

Sex, blood magic came at a hefty price, and they were willing to let me escape it even though he had paid it to protect me. I lifted my eyes to his and then took him into my mouth, pushing against him as Lucian held me there, telling me he was okay with it as long as it didn’t happen again. He was willing to let this play out to release Spyder from the weird threesome we had going.

Spyder pushed against my throat, and I opened for him, using Lucian to push me further until the room exploded in magic and the tether of the bond released a tiny bit, and then more… I sucked harder, working his cock as he fucked my mouth even as the orgasm from Lucian worked harder, using me and my mindlessness to force him into the barrel of my throat. I knew what it took to let him go, and for him, for my friend, I’d do this.

I felt him tense, felt the bond clenching and then releasing. I felt him coming apart, as I came apart for Lucian, and then he pulled me up, taking me from Lucian as something ancient peered through Spyder’s darkened gaze.

“You’re one in a million, kitty, but you’re not my one in a million. Thank you, thank you for letting me go,” he growled before his mouth crushed against mine and then his forehead rested against mine as he stared into my eyes. “You fucking hurt him, I’ll be the first to find you, and I will kill you. Do you understand? You’re his hard limit, his fucking endgame. You’re not mine. Fuck with him, and you’ll wish he was there to protect you from me, because unlike him, I don’t have mercy. I fuck to destroy.” His hands cradled my face before he lowered his mouth to mine, kissing me. “In the morning, you won’t ever think of this again.”

“Did it work?” I asked, and he smiled sadly as he withdrew from the bed, leaving me on my knees with Lucian holding me up as we watched him.

“We won’t know for a while,” Lucian answered behind me, and I turned, staring at him. The door closed and I swallowed hard. “He couldn’t force it. You doing what you did, it may have lessened it, but what the bond demanded, you couldn’t give him, and that’s okay. It’s enough for us. You did well, but he’d never force you to do something you didn’t want to do. Now get over here, because watching you with him turned me on. It was unexpectedly…erotic.”

“You have never shared?” I asked, leaning back as I spread my legs for his greedy gaze.

“Share women?” he chuckled. “All the time before I met you, but you, you’re not other women, Lena. You’re not something I relish sharing, and he needed it to let you go. Even if the bond remains, it will not hurt him as it had, since you gave him release. If it remains, he’ll feel you, but not on the same level. As the bond grew, it strengthened, demanding he claim you, and you helping him find some semblance of release has loosened that pull.”

“He should be free of me, Lucian. I don’t…I never wanted him like that. I wanted you, only you.”

“And so you shall,” he growled as he lifted my legs, slamming home into my body as with both exploded together. Fire burned through us, and my spine arched as I screamed as pain and anguish ripped me apart. He pulled back, his teeth clenched as he stared down at our bodies where they were joined and then back up into my panic-stricken gaze. “Fucking Furies,” he snarled. “You had no right!”

“What?” I demanded.

“You just fucking claimed me,” he snapped.

“I claimed you a long time ago, Lucian,” I pointed out crossly as I sat up, staring down at the matching glyphs that covered my hip and his. They were strikingly beautiful, curling lines that swirled from our hips to where our bodies were still joined.

“They didn’t claim me, you did. As in, you can never touch another living creature for pleasure, or we both die. We’re now mated in the ways of the Gods.”

“Fuck,” I uttered breathlessly as the pain continued, my body bathed in sweat from earlier and anew as something inside of me reached for him. As if we were fusing into one being, able to sense the other without trying.

“Fuck is right,” he snapped as he started moving. “Scream for me,” he demanded as he leaned down, kissing my neck as he sucked the quick beating pulse between his teeth as I exploded around him, my body clenching against his.

Chapter 37

Fires bathed the mountains as we slowly approached the house, the night a mixture of flames and chaos as demons converged to the location of their dark master. We remained in the shadows, watching, observing as they danced naked, screaming and celebrating the coming arrival of the antichrist as they referred to the innocent life of my niece.

As if the birth of his child would signify the ending of this world, while bringing in a new one, and hell, maybe they were right. Perhaps if we failed, we didn’t deserve to be here. Life was precious, her tiny little life was precious, and yet the archangels who paced alongside the demons seemed to be uncaring that she, a tiny little being, was being celebrated as bringing about the end of days.

“Kendra,” I whispered, sending it through the bond with everything I had in me, all the strength from ignoring it since I’d come back from my death. I felt her stir, her mind grasping onto the fact that I was here, with her. I’d never leave her alone, ever. “Fight him,” I instructed. “I’m coming for you.”

“You won’t make it; you need to stay away from here. It’s a trap.” Her voice was filled with emotion, pain etching and pushing through the bond even though she tried to hide it from me.

Her contractions were fast, violent as her body arched and then sagged as each one hit harder than the last. She was tied to one of the beds from inside the house that they’d brought out for her. Her mouth was filled with cloth, preventing her from screaming too loudly as the demon peered down, dragging the sharp edge of a knife over her cheekbone, yet it didn’t pierce her flesh. 

“You’re going to die, whore,” it crooned gently, pushing a hand against her swollen middle as if it could force the babe from her body. She screeched as pain erupted and I winced as it slithered through the bond, threatening to take me to the ground as I struggled to remain with her.

“Ignore it,” I uttered as sweat beaded against my brow. “It fears hurting you, which means Lucifer is near.”

“He knows I will die when I give birth,” she informed tensely, her tone a mixture of resignation for her situation and pain for what her child would surely endure at the hands of her father. “You need to go, get as far away from here as you can. He doesn’t want her or me, he wants you. He wants to punish you for what you did to him. He showed you his true self, his insecurities, and you hurt him for it.”

“Kendra, we are coming, just hold on. Please? Please hold on for me,” I begged and then she did the last thing I expected; she whispered a goodbye.

“I love you, and I’ll always love you, Lena. I know you were afraid of hurting me, I felt it. I let you have your space, and I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d hugged you one last time, held you and told you how much losing you hurt me. I know what you are about to go through and you need to know that you’re not alone. You’ve never been alone. You’re my sister, my soul. My womb mate and my best friend. Life wasn’t supposed to be like this, but you will survive this. It’s going to hurt, and it’s going to tear you apart for a while, but you will get back up. You were always the strong one. You will raise my daughter, and you’ll tell her about me, won’t you? You will be a good mom, Lena. You can’t let him keep my daughter. She will need help that you can provide. You’ll teach her how to love, how to live. I can go if I know that she will be loved. I’m okay with dying to bring her life, but I need to know you will save her, that you will fight for her. You think you’re darkness, but you’re not. You’re the light that shines in this dark world, a bright star that refuses to dim your light for anyone or anything. Teach Makenna that, teach her how to be good. I love you; I love you both so much that it hurts.”

“Don’t you fucking give up on me.”

I waited, searching the bond and then withdrawing from my mind as I stared into midnight eyes.

“We’re out of time,” I announced as I stepped from the shadows, staring out over the chaos that was ensuing. “She’s giving up.”

“We need more time, Erie is finding us a way into the wards,” Lucian uttered as he watched me. “Tell her to hold on.”

“She pushed me out,” I admitted. I exhaled as I stared at Joshua, knowing he felt it too. Our bloodline was dying out, becoming a thing of the past. I swallowed hard as I turned, searching the faces of those who had come to help, and then sucked my lip between my teeth as I considered our next move.

Lucifer wouldn’t allow anyone else into the warded area, except me. He also had acquired a dagger which could end my life, for real. But if everyone here fought, they could die as well. Wouldn’t it be better to give him what he wanted, what he craved?

“Don’t you even think it,” Spyder snapped, his eyes holding mine as I struggled to figure out how to save everyone. “He will kill you for what you did.”

“And if I die, and she survives, it would be worth it.”

“She doesn’t have to die,” Vlad acknowledged.

“She won’t accept immortality, neither will my grandmother. That’s my people out there! They’re dying, the witches are already feeding off the weaker of the coven they took, and the moment they’re strong enough, my grandmother will become nothing more than a vessel to them! Give me another option, anything,” I growled as the hopelessness swelled through me.

“They can’t,” Hades crooned as he stepped into the shadows, staring at us. “We can’t fight him because we’re bound by rules and laws that prevent us from intervening. Unless Lucifer touches someone who isn’t meant to die, we can’t intervene in his affairs. Not without giving something in return for meddling.”

“What the hell does that mean? You’re a God?” I asked, directing my question to Lucian who shook his head, his eyes watching mine before he replied.

“No, I’m not. Neither are my men, but we are bound by similar laws to not intervene in the affairs of mortals.”

“So then we go in, and we save our family alone,” I argued as I stared at Joshua who nodded.

“I’m okay with that,” he acknowledged.

“I’m not bound by their laws, no Fae is,” Zahruk announced softly, his lip twisting into a dark smile.

“So who do we have then?” I asked.

“I can help, but I cannot intervene against mortals,” Synthia said, and Ryder shook his head. “I can help her, and I will without being the one to end a life or change the outcome to one. Those are the rules I have to abide by.”

“Synthia, the laws aren’t swayed, and by going in with Lena, you will be changing the outcome.”

“No, no she won’t be. Kendra will die, that much we know. How she dies is different,” I mused as I stared at her. “It’s not changing the outcome of a life if we are taking one away from the father. I’m going in there to save my niece, not from death, but from becoming evil.”

“And you’re so sure she isn’t evil?” Hades questioned.

“Children are not born evil or wrong, they’re turned into that somewhere in life. If we can get her out, protect her from him, we can sway which side she chooses to be on.” Joshua nodded, his matching blue eyes sharp as grief filtered through.

I wasn’t an idiot; I knew Kendra was dying. I could feel her slipping further away from the bond as time moved, passing as the demons continued their endless chanting. I didn’t need these creatures or Gods to fight Lucifer for me; I just needed them to get me close enough so I could fight him.

“You mentioned glamour; can you make yourself look like me?” I asked and watched her platinum head move up and down before a smile played across her lips. As I watched, she changed, becoming the mirror image of my reflection. “Good, now give me your face.”

Once we’d switched looks, I stepped next to Lucian and touched him, leaning in close enough that he inhaled and then frowned.

“You smell like a Goddess,” he mused as his brow line creased and he lifted his eyes to Ryder’s, who smirked. “It’s almost foolproof, and yet he may note the way you talk or walk. It’s not worth the fucking chance.”

“It’s not your choice to make,” I pointed out. “It’s mine, and that’s my family in there, Lucian. I won’t let them die for nothing. You can’t ask me to stand here and watch it play out. Not after everything I’ve been through.”

“That doesn’t mean I have to fucking like it.”

“No, but it means you will help me. You can’t fuck with what is happening, but you can kill demons that had their time here. You can take them out because, in the grand scheme of things, they don’t belong here. Correct?”

“And Synthia, what is she supposed to do?” he asked as he watched me with worry in his inky depths, something I’d never seen in his eyes before.

“She’s going to make sure that when that dagger is used, it isn’t used on me. Lucifer can attack her, and she’ll be immune to it. Get it from him, and then destroy it.”

“You make it sound so simple,” he growled as he pulled me in close and kissed me until my world teetered around me and I hung onto him as worry flooded my senses. This had to work because there was no backup plan. This was it, this Hail Mary we were throwing up as we went in to save my niece and maybe my grandmother, and then, then I’d hold my sister until she took her last breath on this earth and left me to pass onto the next.

Chapter 38

I stepped up to Synthia as we pushed through the horde of demons, the men fighting their way through them until we toed the wards that separated us from my family. Erie continued working, her hair slick with sweat as she followed us as the men protected her.

Kendra’s pain-filled scream tore through the night, shaking the confidence I held as I stared at her, tied to a bed with her legs apart as her body jackknifed. Blood covered the sheets she had been laid upon, and Lucifer stood beside the bed, watching us as we ripped the demons around the warded circle apart.

The barrier itself was shaped in a circle, and on the ground was painted the symbol of the pentagram. Added protection against us getting inside? Probably. I turned my head, taking in the coven members who had been tied to chairs, some staring at the ground with vacant eyes as the death haze coated them, and others seemed mindless as they waited for death.

Four of the highest ranking coven members had been stood up, their hands tied to an ancient tree that sat in the middle of the yard, strung up with tiny slits cut into their flesh, draining pools of their blood into the earth they stood on.

Power erupted, and I turned my head, watching as Spyder’s body disappeared, becoming a shadow as he moved around it, pushing through the demons which seemed to drop their human host suit the moment his darkness touched them. Lucian watched us, his eyes blue liquid as souls slithered around his armor.

I didn’t dare reach for the bond to my sister, not when I felt her slipping further and further away. She alone could give away that I wasn’t Synthia. I watched Lucifer as he moved towards Synthia, who tilted her head and spoke with my voice.

“Let her go, you don’t need her,” she urged, and he snorted.

“You had a chance to join me,” he rebuked.

The wards slithered as he pulled her into them, his magic blasting her to the ground as she sagged, and I winced. If she could disturb the ground, we could get inside. I could get to my sister. Her hand dragged over it, and I pushed into them, forcing my magic to meet his head-on until I felt my wings starting to uncoil from my spine.

Not yet. I pushed them back, using every lesson Lucian had taught as I struggled to remain under the glamour Synthia continued to throw over me. He pulled out a dagger, tossing it into the air as he stared down at her, uncaring that I was trying to push through the wards because he didn’t think she could intervene. Only it wasn’t her who was about to burst through them. I added more power as he watched her.

“You should have taken me up on my offer, Lena. You could have been in her life; all you had to do was give in to what you wanted, what you craved when I touched you. Yet you played me. Now you’ve lost your chance to be in her life, to watch as she brings down the gates of heaven to Hell, and unseats the old God to become the new one.”

“And let me guess, you’ll rule this world with her? Through her? Didn’t you try this before?” Synthia scoffed as she eyed me, taking in the progress I made as I fought the magic to reach Kendra, who was screaming as she cradled her stomach.

“She can’t help you,” he chuckled. “She can’t even intervene to save you. Gods are fickle fuckers, and yet they stick to the rules because they tend to attach themselves to creatures, and if they break them, they lose what they love most. So no, she won’t help you.”

I burst through the wards and sagged as the magic hit me, hard. It was spelled inside the circle? I coughed up bile, and blood exploded from my lungs as I threw it up. Lucifer tilted his head as if it was wrong, and then stared down at Synthia who still wore my face.

“Interesting, since it isn’t spelled against Gods, only…”

Synthia lunged, ripping the knife from his hands before she spun, throwing it to Lucian, who caught it and the moment he did, it vanished from his hands, and only a thick cloud of dust remained. I was up, moving towards Lucifer, who smiled.

“You didn’t think I wouldn’t plan to lose, did you, Lena?” he smirked as I lunged, catching nothing but air. I looked around at the demon’s that covered the ground, finding no sign of Lucifer as I turned in a full circle. “I knew you’d come, and I knew you wouldn’t be stupid enough to rush right in. Though, I did leave you a parting gift.”

I stared at him as his body misted and then reappeared across the grass, next to Lucian who reached out, his hand going through the image Lucifer projected. I swallowed hard as I moved to the bed, finding Kendra watching me with a sadness that wrecked me.

Her hair was slick with sweat, her body lying in a pool of blood that seemed to continue flowing from her. I sat beside her, cutting her free as I shook my head.

“Stay with me, please, please stay with me,” I begged as I pulled her to me. Her hands clung to me, her body shivering as it went into shock. I felt the wards being lowered as Erie cried out, even as demons tried to attack her, only for a large male to step out at the last minute, sending power rippling through the area. “Stay with me, stay with me,” I chanted as I rocked her in my arms as she held onto me.

“You have to find him, you have to save her,” she pleaded as I shook my head. “He has my daughter, Lena. Promise me, promise me you’ll find her and keep her safe.”

“We will find her, you and I will find her,” I promised.

“Not us, you. I’m dying,” she cried as her strength flowed from her as surely as the blood that left her system.

I watched Vlad as he sat beside her, slowly opening his wrist and then before she could protest, he pushed her mouth against it. I watched, knowing she’d hate me for forcing this choice, for forcing her to stay with me and yet she shook her head as she smiled.

“My soul is leaving,” she uttered. “It’s protected. You have to let me go.”

“Bullshit, you need to stay with me and fight,” I pleaded softly as black tears trailed from my eyes. “I need you. I need you to fight this.”

“I can’t, he promised to make the pain end if I agreed to his terms. He warned me that you would fight him.”

“Who?” I demanded.

“Death, he told me you’d find her, but that I had to go. He told me my time is finished, and I would know peace. I’m okay with dying, Lena. Because I know you will continue living, you’ll protect my daughter for the monster who sired her.”

“But you’re a momma,” I argued. “Kendra, let us save you so you can be her mother!”

“She has a mother,” she said gently as she touched my cheek. “You will be her mother. You’ll teach her everything. You have a second chance to be a mom, Lena. I’d have died, either way, even if I’d chosen to stay with her, he’d have figured out a way to have taken me. So I made a deal, my soul is safe from anything trying to turn me. My daughter is immortal, she’s like you. Like you and Joshua, which means you can find her and save her, and you can tell her about me. Tell her how much I loved her, how much I gave to be sure she could live.”

“Dammit, Kendra, you can’t do this to me!” I snapped as I watched her flesh grow pale, the blood continually flowing from her.

“I love you, Lena. You’re going to get through this. You’re the strongest person I know. Find her, find them and make him pay for what he has done to us.”

“That’s sweet,” Lucifer’s voice sounded from beside me. I turned, staring up at where he watched with a squirming baby in his arms.

“Give her back before you ruin her!” I demanded, unwilling to let Kendra go from where I held her, cradled in my arms.

“Lena, she isn’t healing.” Vlad’s words forced my eyes to his silver ones and then down at Kendra, who stared up at Lucifer.

“I’m going to find you, and I’m going to destroy you. I don’t care if it ends the fucking world, so long as you can never hurt another living soul!” I snapped, and the squirming baby began to mewl.

“She looks like you, you know,” he said, ignoring my words. “She has her mother’s eyes, and nose. She’s beautiful.”

“And yet you will ruin her?” I uttered hoarsely. “Bring her to me, and walk away. Let me love her.”

“You’d love something that has a piece of me in it?” he asked, lifting his electric gaze to mine.

“I could,” I nodded. “I do, I do love her already, Lucifer. Bring her to me.”

“No, no, she’s mine. You want her? Come to me. Come to me, and we will raise her together, and eventually, I’ll forgive your betrayal.”

“I’m coming for you,” I snapped, and then he smiled sadly.

“I’m counting on it, but then the witches are aware of you and are connected now. You lost, Lena. I told you that I’d win, that I’d rule the world and all you had to do was be at my side. You chose badly, she is mine,” he said as he cradled the babe as if she was the most precious thing in the world. “I’m sorry about your sister; it was never my intent to end her life.”

“You will pay for this!”

“No, he won’t,” my grandmother’s voice sent my hair rising against mine my spine as I ripped my eyes from Lucifer to where she stood, her eyes glowing red as she watched me.

“Do it,” I said to Lucian who stood behind her. I watched in silence as his blade came crashing down, severing her head from her shoulders where she’d stood. A scream bubbled up in my chest as Lucifer clucked his tongue.

“One down, only three more to go,” his eyes roamed over my face before a coldness entered his stare. “I’ll see you soon, my queen.”

He disappeared, and with him, my sister’s child.

“She isn’t coming back,” Vlad said, his arm still wide open as Kendra’s head rolled in my arms, pressing against my chest as I held onto her.

“Lucian,” Adam’s voice pulled my eyes to his as he watched me. “I’m calling in my debt.”

“Now?” Lucian growled.

“She’s spelled to release her soul, and yet she’s a vessel. A perfect vessel,” he stated carefully as he watched me. “She’ll be able to track her daughter, even if it isn’t her soul in the body. I did what you asked of me to save the woman you loved, now save mine.”

“Lena, they’re…dead. Our bloodline is dead,” Joshua stated, and I lifted my eyes to his as something snapped inside my head. “There are no more Fitzgerald witches, the entire line is gone.”

“We have to remove it from the world,” I uttered as I stared into my sister’s unseeing gaze as Adam stepped closer as if he intended to take her. I growled at him, but I’d heard him. If I wanted to track my niece, I needed my sister’s blood. I needed it alive.

“I’ll make sure she remains safe until we need it,” he offered, and I watched Lucian as he reached for her.

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

“Upholding my end of a bargain I made to save your life.”

Chapter 39

Life wasn’t easy; it wasn’t something you could win. You went through the motions, the wins, the losses, the hardships, and the difficulties that forged you into what you would become. You would get knocked down, and I had. It wasn’t about getting knocked down; it was about getting back up and being stronger, smarter than I had been when the world shifted from beneath me. You could either stay down, or you got back up. You could either let it forge you into something colder, smaller, or you grew from what you endured. I had endured, I’d sacrificed, and I’d gotten back up because, for me, it was the only option I could see.

I would rise, and I would take down the things that had knocked the world out from beneath my feet. I’d carve my name into this world, and I’d find my place among the immortals who had become friends and family.

You couldn’t win every fight you entered, which was a lesson I’d learned the hard way. I’d lost my family, all in a very short time and yet I had managed to remain on my feet. I mourned, I ached for them, and yet I wouldn’t bow to the pain. I wouldn’t forget who had caused the pain, either.

I watched Joshua exit the manor house, tossing an empty can of gasoline into it as he walked towards me. I didn’t flinch when he withdrew his lighter and set the house ablaze as we stood together, shoulder to shoulder watching the last remnants of our bloodline vanish into the blaze he’d set.

Life was tricky. Grandpa once said that you couldn’t dwell on the past, because you lived in the future. It was the past for a reason: you were already in the future. I’d done what the darkness had whispered to me: I’d eradicated myself, finding a new creature that had lived inside of me. One who welcomed both the light and the darkness, and was stronger for housing both of them.

“Who will bless it?” Joshua asked, and I shrugged as I continued to watch the house we’d shared and lived in as it crumbled against the night as flames licked the wood. Windows shattered, and I smiled as memories of another lifetime played in my mind.

“I will if you’ll allow me to,” Alden said, and I turned, eyeing the man who had fought to protect my coven. He was covered in bruises, battered from being fed off of by monsters the archangels had allowed into the Guild, and yet he stood beside us as we said our final goodbye to our bloodline.

“Thank you, Alden. Please, you loved her as we had, maybe even more at the end.”

“Just because you didn’t feel it, doesn’t mean you didn’t love her. She loved you both, but she was terrified of admitting it, afraid that if she dared to love you, she’d lose herself and you in the end. So she gave you space to come to her, to choose your path.”

“Honestly, it doesn’t matter now. She’s gone; they’re all gone because we failed them.”

“Not all of them; Kendra’s daughter is out there, and she needs you to save her, to find her and protect her. She left you a note, Kendra did. I saved it for you in case she didn’t survive this. She wrote it a week ago, knowing she’d never survive the labor.”

I took the note and stepped back from him, watching as he used holy water to bless the house, to release the souls that it contained if any had been trapped, and then it began to burn. Long into the night after the others had left and only a few of the flames remained did I exhale the pain that threatened to consume me.

The Furies held it locked into a part of me that I didn’t want to touch, didn’t want to open. Not yet, not until I could actually face what had happened, and grieve my losses properly.

I opened the letter and stared at the words, my throat tightening as I read her last wishes.

Lena, I know it’s you reading this. Who else would receive my last wishes? Funny how life works, how everything turned out, isn’t it? If you’re reading this, then I’m gone. We knew one of us would eventually die, but I kinda figured it would be much later.

So here’s the thing. If she survived this, if she’s out there and you’re holding her, kiss her and tell her she was worth it. Tell her I loved her; that I tried to stay with her but that life isn’t about choices, it’s about living in the now, living the best life possible. I lived, and while there’s a ton of shit I’d have done differently, or went back and changed, I lived.

You’re a mom now, her mom. Raise her as we were raised, to love and to fight for what we believe is right. Don’t fuck her up because I’ll haunt your ass, and shit. Raise her to be like you, not like me. She needs to be stronger, smarter, prepared for what will come after her. She will never be safe with him hunting for her, so protect her as I know you will.

I love you, Lena, I hated you for leaving me, and now here I am, leaving you. Life’s about losses, about moving forward, and you taught me that. Keep me alive with you, hold me and carry me in your heart as this world continues to burn around us, and keep Mom and Grandma safe, they need you. This world needs you because, in the darkness, you are the light that fights for us. Even though you think you’re dark and scary, you’re you. You can’t eradicate yourself, it cannot be done, not even if you were technically remade. I saw you watching me, the way your eyes followed me around the Guild. That was you, you wanted me to see you, and yet it terrified you to let us in. Don’t do that shit, Lena. Let them in.

You are my moon to my sun, and I your stars in the darkness, but really, it was always you who shined the brightest. You are good. You are everything this world needs, and now more than ever, we need you to fight them when we cannot. So fight, and protect Makenna. Makenna Sarah Fitzgerald needs you. I love you, I love you so much, and Joshua too. Fight for us, fight for this world, it’s worth it.

I folded the letter and pushed it into my pocket as I turned to stare at Lucian, who moved closer to where I stood.

“I have to get her daughter back,” I uttered thickly as I stared at Lucian.

“We will,” he replied, his eyes moving to the immobile form that slumbered beside the Fae. Her body was vacant of a soul, lifeless. Kendra’s soul had passed on to be reborn, leaving the horrors of this world. I didn’t feel her, couldn’t touch the shell that she’d become even though her heartbeat continued, she had died. “We have her DNA, her scent to track her daughter. We will find her, Lena.”

“And you’re so sure of that, how?” I demanded, sensing the others as they began sifting out, heading back to the Guild to protect it. Lucian pulled me into his arms, his mouth hovering against my ear as he whispered into it. My eyes widened, my body trembled at the impossibility of his words as I shook my head. “That’s impossible!”

“Scared?” he chuckled as he watched me process what he’d just said, what he was…

“That’s not possible! That would mean you…you’re… No.”

“Eternal? Endless? The things that Gods fear? What, Lena?” he uttered thickly as he watched me pulling away from his embrace. “You won’t leave me. I told you before, you’re mine. I am a monster, one even the Gods fear, especially the ones who know what I am. Scared now, little one?”

“That can’t be, you can’t be!” I whispered, horrified as the world shifted out from beneath me.

~Lucian~

Three days later.

“It’s done,” Death stated firmly.

“It is, the Fitzgerald line is ended, they’re no more.”

“You really think she will forgive what you have done?” he asked.

“I think when she figures it out, it won’t matter. She will know what and why I have done this. Her line was marked for death the moment she escaped death. I merely sped the process for you, for him.”

“And all this for him?” he countered. His greenish blue eyes scanned my face as I smirked, watching him for any fucking weakness. “You told her you couldn’t fight Death, and yet you are the only one who could.”

“He is everything. And we had a deal, and going back on it wasn’t an option. I wouldn’t fight you for her because I had already sacrificed them to bring him back,” I uttered as I stared down into matching midnight eyes that stared back with no fear. My hand moved, touching the baby-soft hand as fingers curled around my finger. “Your mother misses you, little one,” I murmured, watching ancient eyes as they smiled up at me. “She is good, too good for us. You will love her; she is so easy to love.”

“He doesn’t understand what you’re saying. And really, Lucian, do you think she’ll love you once she figures out that his life cost her the lives of her family?”

“He is everything to her, and I was the only one who could save him from you and those vile bitches you sent to rip him from her womb.”

“They meant her no harm, and she made the deal. She sacrificed him to save you.”

“And you knew she would end her life and yet you forgot to mention it to me. You should go before I decide to give you a final ending, Death.”

He swallowed hard as his gaze dropped to my son. “He will end this world. He was born of what you are, and what she was. He is the Harbinger of Doom, Lucian. The Gods will seek to destroy him.”

“Then I’ll kill them all.” I lifted my son, his new body feeble and yet the strength in his eyes was akin to his mother’s, a force of nature that could indeed wreck and destroy this world. “A wise woman once told me that evil is created, forged in the fires of what life forces them to endure. He will be raised by that woman, and she won’t allow him to become a monster. She’s pure of heart, and beautiful fucking chaos, and she’s his mother.”

“And Lucifer’s daughter?” he returned, his chaotic eyes watching as I cradled my son.

“Lucifer has no daughter, she will be mine. Lena will destroy him, and then we will raise them together. I will give Lena the world; she’s earned it. I have played the games with the Gods long enough. If they want to continue existing, they’ll leave us alone. Or…they will go to war, and I will win. I will bring this world to its knees for her, and further if I am pushed. Makenna is her blood, so we will get her back, even at the cost of destroying this world.”

~The End For Now~