by Cate Corvin
Hell Bent
Razing Hell 5
Cate Corvin
Hell Bent
CATE CORVIN
All Rights Reserved © 2020 Cate Corvin. First Printing: 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means with the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Author's Note: All characters in this story are 18 years of age and older, and all sexual acts are consensual. This book is a work of fiction and liberties may be taken with people, places, and historical events.
Cover by Luminescence Cover Design
Contents
1. Melisande
2. Tascius
3. Melisande
4. Melisande
5. Melisande
6. Melisande
7. Melisande
8. Azazel
9. Melisande
10. Melisande
11. Melisande
12. Melisande
13. Melisande
14. Melisande
15. Melisande
16. Lucifer
17. Melisande
18. Melisande
19. Melisande
20. Melisande
21. Melisande
22. Melisande
23. Melisande
24. Belial
25. Melisande
26. Melisande
27. Melisande
28. Melisande
29. Melisande
30. Melisande
31. Melisande
32. Melisande
33. Melisande
Epilogue
About the Author
1
Melisande
The collar bit into my throat with every move I made.
I grimaced, pausing halfway towards reaching for a bottle of dark wine.
The skin around my neck felt like it’d been rubbed raw, but after three days of getting used to the weight of it, I knew that was only an illusion. In the few glimpses I’d caught of myself in a mirror, there was no redness, no scratches besides the ones my own nails left behind.
Nothing to show that it might be anything more than a decorative ornament.
That was the most galling thing about the slave collar Queen Ereshkigal had fitted to me when I woke up from a dream of agony and torment.
That it was beautiful.
Not that it always hurt, not that the spell she’d placed on it kept me bound in Kur for as long as she desired, nor even the fact that it couldn’t be cut away or removed by any hands other than her own.
It was the fact that she had me in a pretty necklace, a band of gold-plated ebonite the width of my forefinger, set with diamonds and amethysts that sparkled when they caught the light.
Like I was a cosseted pet instead of a captive. Her slave.
Her silent handmaidens, ranging from winged and clawed Gallu demons to pretty girls who looked barely more than human, had brushed my hair until it shone as smooth as glass. I’d been given a shift of black silk to wear that was identical to theirs. It was simple but elegant, and spilled like water around my knees when I knelt before the Queen.
I stared at the bottle of wine I was supposed to be fetching for her, gritting my teeth with impotent rage.
The Queen loved beauty. Or rather, she loved breaking it. She took more joy in destroying something pretty and whole than in kicking someone already down.
So instead of being left to wallow in my own filth, coated in blood and sand, she’d had my unconscious body removed from the birdcage and washed.
I’d woken on a stone floor, clean and dressed in new clothes, and the collar tight around my throat. The night before seemed like nothing but a confused fever-dream: hadn’t she ripped open my wounds again with her darkness? Why would I be in silk and jewels?
But the moment I’d been forced to my knees before her, the flash of vicious satisfaction in her eyes was all I needed to tell me why she’d done this.
It wasn’t for my benefit. The comfort I seemingly enjoyed was an illusion, much like her slave collar.
It was to keep me on my toes, always jumping at shadows and wondering when the next cruel strike would come.
I hadn’t bowed properly that first day. Her guardian’s whip had come down across my back in lines of white-hot fire, splitting the silk dress and soaking it with blood.
It had forced me face down to the ground in front of her feet, gasping out all my breath in shock at the sudden pain. He’d hit me over and over until the darkness mercifully swallowed me again.
The next time I woke up, I was clean again, and my wounds tended.
After that, I bowed properly. I pressed my face to the floor with my arms outstretched, in total obeisance to the Queen. There was a time to fight, and a time to bow. This wasn’t going to be the hill I died on just to make a point.
Distantly, I knew that she was just breaking me down. Every time I gave in to her games and control, she won a little more of the high ground.
Her handmaidens had already been broken. Their eyes were empty, and they moved like automatons: living and breathing, but totally empty shells. They, too, were clean and pampered, ornaments for Ereshkigal to move around like pretty, dead-eyed dolls.
As long as I held on to my rage, Ereshkigal would never make a doll out of me.
Lucifer made sure of that.
I ran a finger along the edge of my collar again, barely stopping myself from scratching at my skin until it bled, and grabbed the wine bottle.
Irkallan guardians lined the corridors, their pale limbs painted with dark stripes. They were silent as I slipped out of the wine room and passed them, but I felt their suspicious gazes on me.
It took a great effort to slow my steps towards the throne room and drift along like the other handmaidens, gazing at nothing in particular, but taking in all I could. Memorizing it as I had memorized the succubus temple’s map.
The palace of Kur was labyrinthine, with passages branching off into darkness and going God knew where, but I committed everything to memory. In some alcoves, more black sphinx statues stood, staring down with snarling faces that seemed alive under the flickering torchlight.
Ereshkigal’s throne had been spun on its axis and now sat on the broad balcony, her back facing the roomful of corpses and despair. I felt a pulse of sadness from Inanna’s body as I walked beneath her, but I had no time to spare for the semi-dead goddess.
Lucifer was fighting, and all of Kur was watching.
The balcony looked out over the arena grounds. An enormous ebonite pillar had been raised from the river souls and stood in the broad gap in the center of the city, its sides a stark drop-off of over a hundred feet. This was where Lucifer fought, amusing the Queen at her leisure.
Ereshkigal lounged in her throne, her claws tapping out an offbeat cadence as she watched the fight on the arena floor below.
Beside her, in a smaller throne of ebony, Satan sat with one leg flung over the arm of his chair and his thick black hair pushed back.
He’d adapted to King Nergal’s body as swiftly as I’d adapted to my role of handmaiden, luxuriating in the power and beauty of it. Even now he shunned shirts, preferring to expose the dense slabs of muscle under his bronze skin. Every once in a while, Ereshkigal would reach over and run her claws over his bare torso, opening thin red lines that healed as quickly as they appeared.
When she licked his blood off her talons, I had to look away.
Fortunately, she’d left off on the bloodplay while I fetched her wine. I carefully unstoppered the bottle and poured the ruby liquid in her cup, and put the bottle down to offer her the cup with bot
h hands, kneeling at her feet.
“Your wine, my Queen,” I murmured, disguising the sheer hatred in my voice under a flimsy veneer of deference. It was easier if I kept my head bowed and face down, the way she preferred.
Her claws traced over the back of my hands before she took the cup. “Sit beside me, pretty songbird.”
If I didn’t know what she was truly like, her voice would be my undoing. She always sounded so sweet and caring, almost motherly.
I obediently knelt between the thrones, taking a deep breath before I faced the arena.
A young manticore the size of an elephant circled Lucifer, who was hobbled with chains around his wrists and wings. He’d been given a flimsy spear, the wood warped and spearhead rusted, but at least his feet were unbound.
The worst of his bindings was the plain ebonite collar he wore. His was under a different enchantment, one designed to drive a wedge between us: Lucifer was able to leave Kur whenever he liked. The enchantment didn’t bind him here.
The only magic imbued in the collar prevented him from raising his hand against Ereshkigal herself.
But he wouldn’t leave without me. Ereshkigal’s gamble that Lucifer would take his chance at freedom without me had failed.
He danced away before the manticore struck out with its scorpion tail, ducking under the lethal stinger. In the flickering light of Kur, his black wings gleamed with the rainbow colors of an oil spill, his hair a rich gold.
He was as well cared for as I was, one of Ereshkigal’s most precious pets. The whirling lines of his dark tattoos almost looked like the war-paint the Irkallans wore, but the white gash of the scar over his chest filled me with relief and glee every time I saw it.
As long as that scar remained whole, cutting through the lines of his soul-bond tattoos, Satan would never have him back.
A hand descended on my head, interrupting my reverie of watching Lucifer fight.
“Isn’t he a beauty?” Ereshkigal stroked my hair, running her claws through the newly silky strands.
I remained silent. She wasn’t waiting for an answer from me.
“The light of the dawn shines from him.” She gave a small, wistful sigh. I heard her drink from the goblet, and as she shifted in her chair, a lock of her pitch-black hair fell into my lap.
The touch of it made my skin crawl, but I made no move to push it off me. Not while her hand was resting on top of my hand, the tips of her claws pressed gently against my scalp.
I glanced down as the luxurious black hair became white and dull, yellowed at the ends.
To my left, Satan made a disgruntled noise. “I never took you for one who loved the day.”
I focused on the arena, feeling for the chain between myself and Lucifer. It was there, glowing brightly in my sight, invisible to everyone but me. Every time I saw it, I was filled with renewed hope and purpose. For the sake of that bond, I’d get us out of here.
It had been worth coming here to free Lucifer.
He spun on the arena floor below, striking out with the rusty spear. A gash opened wide on the manticore’s leg and hot blood burst out, painting the ebonite floor, but Lucifer was just toying with it.
Like me, he knew his role. Give Ereshkigal the show she desired. Let her think us obedient to her.
Still, manticores were dangerous even without having your limbs bound, and even a young one had a sting toxic enough to kill.
I resisted the urge to gnaw my lower lip and give away my anxiety to the Queen. If she saw it on my face, she would slap it away with her claws. And then probably slap me some more for having the audacity to bleed on her, even though she loved the smell of fresh blood.
“Many eons have passed, love.” A sharp note had come into Ereshkigal’s voice as she addressed Satan over my head. “In my age and wisdom, I’ve learned to appreciate even the beauty of the daylight. But, oh, I wish I could taste him.” She took another deep draught of her wine.
I practically felt the tension humming between them, so tight a knife could cut it.
“Not my son. He’s not for you to consume.” Satan looked at her with Nergal’s eyes, the muscles in his stolen body gone tight.
“I didn’t ask for your son’s life,” Ereshkigal said. If she wasn’t a Prime power, a goddess in her own right, I would’ve said she sounded peevish. “Only my little songbird.”
“Mmm. My spoils of war. Your little songbird cost me my throne,” Satan hissed.
Ah, back to the crux of the matter.
In the last several days of serving Ereshkigal, I’d discovered several curious things about the eons-crossed lovers.
First, she did love beauty, almost as much as she loved others’ pain, and she was deeply jealous.
And second, Satan was beginning to take on some unusual qualities.
In Dis, when he’d possessed a body made of straw and insects, he’d been chilling to be near. I’d felt the sickening power that came from him, the endless hunger and need for destruction.
I still felt the hunger that rolled off him in waves, but now there was a strange new undertone to his possessiveness. If I was a broken doll, I felt like a doll that was being pulled between the two of them, like two overgrown children fighting over a toy until they ripped it in half.
Satan had been very clear in his displeasure in gifting me to Ereshkigal, no matter how much he claimed to still love her.
I thought he only loved what she could give him, but if Ereshkigal couldn’t see that, it was a secret I would keep to myself.
“Thrones come and go.” Ereshkigal waved her hand carelessly and spilled wine on my lap. It soaked through the silk shift I wore, plastering it against my thighs. “Now you have all of Kur beneath you.”
“No.” Satan sat up in his throne, as tightly coiled as a snake, but when Ereshkigal looked at him sharply, his expression shifted like he’d put on a mask, nothing but adoration written there. “My love. You rule Kur, and you did promise to bring Dis to its knees.”
I held my breath as he held out a hand, and Ereshkigal placed hers in his after a petulant moment of silence. She shifted from maiden to crone, her slim hand wrinkling in his powerful one.
There was a curl of disgust to Satan’s lip, but Ereshkigal was blind to it.
“We will. I promised you then, and I promise you now: Dis and Kur will be united again. I’ve always loved you; I would do anything for you.”
Satan smiled at her as she became a beautiful woman again. My stomach lurched at the thought that they might start kissing right over my head, like I wasn’t even there.
Beneath their clasped hands, I had a good view of the arena floor. The chain connecting me to Lucifer seemed to pulse in my chest, reacting to his presence and my complete joy that he was still alive despite the situation we were in.
He’d smashed the chains around his wrists against the floor until they broke. There was still dried blood on his forearms, but he’d healed, and he didn’t even need his wings.
Lucifer circled the manticore, the chain looped around his left arm and the spear in his right.
His eyes gleamed quicksilver as he moved, fast as lightning, and buried the spear in the manticore’s ribs with a burst of light.
The demons of Kur cried out, a collective noise that sounded like screeches and wails at the sudden influx of brightness in their dark city.
I blinked away lingering black spots in my vision, and when I could see clearly again, Lucifer had managed to sling the chain around the manticore’s neck.
He viciously booted the creature in the side, digging the spear in deeper. It roared as its paws slipped across the bloody floor, and the muscles in Lucifer’s arms stood out like cords as he gripped both ends of the chain.
The manticore went over the side of the pillar, paws flailing. One of its claws caught Lucifer’s leg and a freshet of blood spilled down his calf. I was sitting ramrod straight, every muscle tense as I took in the grim set of Lucifer’s jaw and his furrowed brows.
Both Satan and Eres
hkigal had gone silent, their hands breaking away from each other as the manticore screamed.
The sounds grew quieter as Lucifer hung the creature over the side of the pillar, balanced precariously on the edge with his wings bound and useless. When the manticore exhaled its last, its eyes bulging and tongue lolling out, he released the chain.
The limp body plunged downwards. After what seemed like an eternity, the splash of the manticore hitting the river below rippled up to us.
Ereshkigal stood up, her movements graceful despite her clawed feet scratching the floor as she moved forward.
“Dawn wins again,” she said, smiling indulgently at Lucifer.
My mate looked up at her silently, his expression dark. His chest was still heaving, the blood painted across him glistening in the light.
His eyes dropped to me, and the burning hate in his face vanished. I didn’t realize I was about to move until I found myself dragging a foot out from under myself and made myself stop, even though every cell in my body was screaming to go to him.
Ereshkigal turned and saw me half-poised to rise. Her smile became as thin and sharp as cut glass.
“He must love you so much to keep fighting against hope.” She strode towards me, scraping her fingers through my hair and opening thin scratches in my scalp. “Aren’t you a fortunate little bird.”
I forced myself back to my knees. “Yes, my Queen.” A trickle of hot blood ran down over my forehead, threatening to drip into my eyes.
She gripped my chin and forced my face upwards to hers. Her sparkling ebony eyes abruptly became white and clouded, her breath rancid. “No matter how hard he fights, you are mine. You will never leave here. Abandon your hopes, little one.”