by Cate Corvin
But I needed Tascius. We were all here for a reason, and I needed to know he would live after this. Maybe he wouldn’t be entirely unscathed by what he’d done.
“Agreed. Show me where he is.”
I gripped Belial’s hand, squeezing his calloused fingers tightly.
Satan cocked his head towards the hall. “Follow me.”
Lucifer still looked distrustful, but he gave me a small nod. I glanced towards Vyra. I couldn’t ask her to come with me, not if she wanted to avoid Satan…
She was in front of Michael’s cage, picking at the ebonite lock with an intent look on her pretty face. Michael had leaned forward and was murmuring to her as she maneuvered a hairpin in the keyhole, pushing it this way and that.
The hairpin was forged of dark ebonite, a long stick of twisted metal. The one kind of hairpin that would work without breaking on a lock like that.
“I know how to pick a lock, thank you very much,” she snapped at Michael, her voice barely audible.
He just grinned at her as she thrust the hairpin deeper, like it’d personally offended her.
My sweet, crafty friend caught me watching her. She jerked her head towards Satan with a shudder. “Go, Melisande. I’ve got this.”
Determined to get Satan out of her presence, I turned and strode after him, dragging my men behind me.
23
Melisande
Satan led us into the depths.
There were hallways I’d never seen before. Stairs I’d never taken. A twisting corridor with hundreds of skulls hung on the wall, polished orbs of ebonite set in their sockets. It felt like we were being watched all the way down the hall.
My skin was still prickling when we were out of their sight. I had the feeling there was far more to those skulls than mere decoration.
We’d descended so deep I was sure we were only several feet above the river, until we reached a set of iron doors. Two Irkallan guards blocked the way, wearing ebonite visors over their faces.
“Move.” Satan reached for one of the handles, but one of the guards put a hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Queen’s orders,” the guard said, sounding nervous. “No one is to pass. Not even you, Your Majesty.”
Satan drew back his hand, cocking his head to the side. “Is this really how you want to be ended?”
I heard the guard swallow, he was so scared.
“Your Majesty… the Queen was explicit. He is under arrest and is allowed no visitors.”
The other guard shifted. His masked face turned towards his fellow, and his hand moved so fast it was a blur.
The guard who had denied entrance let out a soft sound. A dagger was buried deep in his armpit, the blade angled towards his heart.
He slumped against the wall, then fell to his knees. The guard who’d stabbed him chuckled softly.
“Haru?” I asked, watching the demon clutch at his chest as he died.
“The one and only. Where’s Vyra? Is she okay?” He yanked his dagger out of the demon’s armpit, and as he did so a lock of copper hair slipped out from under his helmet, betraying who he was.
“She’s fine. She’s trying to break an archangel out of his cage.”
Haru looked up at me. Or I thought he did, it was a little hard to tell with the visor in the way. “Michael?”
I nodded and stepped aside so Satan could help Haru drag the dead body out of the way. “She has him locked up. He’s only been free once… I wonder why she seems to consider him more dangerous than the rest of us.”
“She doesn’t.” Lucifer’s voice came from behind me. “She just believes being kept locked up will break him faster. He doesn’t have any strong ties to anyone here. There’s no one to torture that will completely shatter him.”
Haru and Satan left a gleaming streak of blood on the floor, and the kitsune fished a key from the guard’s pocket.
He straightened up and unlocked the dungeon doors, pushing one of them wide open for us.
“Ladies first,” he said, holding out a hand.
I didn’t need to be told twice.
I rushed inside, finding myself in a dungeon-like room. It was completely empty except for the ebonite slab on the floor.
Tascius was laid across it. Two demons had his wings stretched wide and held up with clamps and chains. One was prodding at his back with a scalpel, bent over so close his face was almost touching Tascius’s wings.
They were examining the ebonite bonds that had fused Tascius’s wings to him like living limbs, learning Wayland’s craft for themselves.
Without thinking, I turned to the person closest to me and yanked a dagger out of his belt.
The surgeon studying Tascius only looked up when I was nearly on him.
“What are—” he started to say, and was cut off when I slashed the dagger through his throat.
Hot blood spilled over his chest. He flailed, aiming the scalpel at me in one last desperate motion, and I brought the dagger down on his wrist, cutting through his tendons.
The scalpel fell to the floor, dangerously close to my bare feet. The surgeon tried to speak but just made a gurgling sound as I shoved him away.
“Help me undo these,” I commanded, dropping the dagger on the table and reaching for the clamps supporting Tascius’s wings.
Belial had killed the other surgeon before I’d even spoken, driving a sword right through his chest. He unhooked the clamps, taking care not to break Tascius’s feathers, and we re-folded them neatly against his back.
“Tascius?” I leaned over him. His body seemed to be whole again, with no signs of the Spear’s fire—
Except for his right arm. The marks of flames were permanently scorched on his skin, but the scars looked waxy and old.
I ran my fingers over his scalp and the slowly regrowing pale hair, and down to his back. I rested my palm on the broad expanse, only relaxing when I felt his back rise and fall with a breath.
He was alive, and that was all that mattered.
I picked up the dagger and offered it to everyone, all of whom had surrounded the altar. “Thanks. Who did I steal this from?”
I’d been sure it was Lucifer’s, but it was Satan who reached out and took it from me. A shudder went through me when our fingers brushed.
“You didn’t even clean off the blood, love,” he said, and immediately the entire room was stifling with suppressed aggression.
I bumped Lucifer with my hip and met Belial’s eyes across the altar. Say nothing. Do nothing.
They got the message loud and clear, biting back whatever responses they had for him. If Nergal was still in love with Inanna, and if the bonds binding me to her blurred the lines for him, I needed them to stay intact for as long as it took for him to help us.
“Melisande.”
Tascius’s voice was so quiet, still harsh from the flames, that I almost missed it.
I leaned over him again, my hair falling across his shoulders. “Tascius. Are you still hurting?”
There was no pain coming through the mate bond, but I’d already realized they were perfectly capable of blocking themselves off from me.
“No. Just… tired. So much burning,” he murmured. “Over and over.”
My heart stuttered before resuming its normal pace. I stroked his shoulders in soothing motions. “How did you do it?”
Tascius’s eyelids finally cracked open, revealing a sliver of deep blue. “Azazel told me to speak to it and listen. It took me a whole day to get through and hear what it was saying.”
“Tascius… you could’ve burned completely.”
To my surprise, he huffed out a short laugh. “I did. That’s why it took me so long.”
That made my blood run cold. “What do you mean?”
“It gave me permission to carry it, just this once, but it couldn’t stop what it was meant to do. I carried it until I was nothing but ashes… and when I was whole again, I picked it up and carried it further. It took… so long. So many times.”
; It felt like my veins had become frozen rivers. He’d burned into that charred skeleton of a man… over and over again. As many times as it took to bring the Spear all the way to Kur.
I suddenly understood why his end of the bond had been so silent, completely shut off from me. My pain had been nothing next to that. I’d healed, been fed, allowed to live. I’d had many reprieves, some almost comfortable.
He’d been burning constantly, all for me.
I lowered my head, pressing my face against his back and stroking his hair. “You’re the finest archangel the world has ever seen. They’re lucky to call you one of their own.”
“I don’t give a damn about them,” he whispered. “I only wanted to know you were still alive.”
“I could say the same for you.” I listened to the sound of his easy breathing with a strong sense of relief. He would be okay. The Spear had left its mark, but it’d spared him as much as it could.
“Here and ready to get you out.”
I raised my head when he put his palms on the altar and lifted himself with a groan. Belial and I steadied him as he pulled himself up until he was sitting on the edge.
There were new faint lines on his face that hadn’t been there before. His time with the Spear had been so harrowing he hadn’t come out of it without the pain written on his face permanently.
I touched one of the lines, then cupped his cheek in my hand and leaned my forehead against his. “Tascius, I can’t let her do to you what she’s done to the rest of us.”
“I’m not that fragile.” There was a dry note in his tone.
“That isn’t what I’m saying. What I mean is, you’ve been dealt enough of a burden. When she finds out we killed her guards to get in here, she’s not going to spare you any pain.” I stroked his cheek, looking deep into his eyes. Tascius was no stranger to pain, could probably bear more than most… but I didn’t want him to have to. “You’re not wearing a slave collar yet. You can still go. We’ll be right behind you.”
“Little friend, that is a bold-faced lie.” He pulled me against him in a sudden hug. “But I appreciate the effort, all the same.”
He smelled like the desert, and the glow of an archangel was slowly coming back to him as he fully healed. I closed my eyes and allowed myself a single moment to melt against him and forget where I was.
It felt like being at home. Like if I opened my eyes, I’d see the indigo sky of the Nightside overhead, the familiar obsidian Circles, smell the jasmine of my own garden.
I opened my eyes. Satan was watching us, his lips pulled tight.
His eyes were full of poisonous jealousy. He turned away when I met his gaze.
I felt sick, suddenly.
He held our lives in his hands. I was only with Tascius on his sufferance. I only had Lucifer because we had a shared interest in keeping him alive and whole. If he snapped his fingers, he could demand that Belial be torn apart.
And Vyra… she was still terrified of him, and he knew it. He would use it against me.
The longer I stayed, the deeper into his hands I played.
“Tascius… you might as well come with us.” I reluctantly straightened up. “She’ll punish us anyways, so if you won’t leave, at least you can be with me.”
He pushed himself off the altar, towering over me. Maybe to someone who didn’t know him he would look perfectly fine, but I saw the tiny markers of someone who’d been terribly hurt as clear as day.
There was a slight limp, the tiniest slouch to his shoulders. He was exhausted and probably running on next to nothing. I gazed pleadingly at Belial, trying my best to bear my mate’s weight.
Belial didn’t need me to ask out loud. He came to Tascius’s side and pulled one of the archangel’s arms over his shoulders. “Let’s go, kid.”
Tascius let out another breathless laugh. “You’d think I’d stop being called ‘kid’ after all the things I’ve gone through.”
“Well, you’re technically younger than the shrimpy angel here, and that’s saying something.”
I shot Belial a glare. Shrimpy? It wasn’t my fault Gabriel had made me so short.
Haru jerked the door open for us and we carefully made our way into the hall, stepping over the dead bodies on the way.
“Watch yourself, old man.” Tascius leaned to the side. I could tell he was trying to keep most of his weight off my shoulders.
I’d missed having them all. Only they could joke in such a dark place, when I’d been so sure that everything was hopeless.
Having them reminded me that there was hope. This wouldn’t be the end of us, not by a long shot.
Lucifer led the way back up, not bothering to joke with them, likely lost in his own thoughts of how his best friend was faring in the void. When we were alone, I’d reassure him that Azazel was still fighting.
But it was Satan that I worried about.
On my heels, like a silent shadow. Seething with jealousy that was waiting to spill over.
And I wasn’t sure I could shield my mates from it.
24
Belial
Tascius was almost total deadweight on my shoulders.
He would never admit to our angel how much his ordeal had taken out of him. I knew, from all-too-personal experience, that it was something that could take years to recover from.
We could be cut to pieces, hacked to bits, and still come back, but it took a little more effort from the soul every single time.
He was lucky he’d made it at all.
“How are you still so heavy when you’ve lost your bodyweight several times over in the last two weeks?” I grumbled, poking at him a little.
“Belial.” I heard Melisande’s hiss of reproach from under Tascius’s other arm.
Luckily, Tascius grinned. It was something all immortals came to terms with; you made jokes about all the times you nearly died, or you slowly lost your mind from the effort of living that way.
“All I’m saying is that the incineration diet works wonders for everyone else.”
Despite the jokes, my senses were on high alert.
There were no guards in the halls, and the omnipresent tension that had been building in Kur for days was an uncomfortable, nearly tangible hum in the air.
If it weren’t for the ebonite band around my ankle that shifted size with my mass and kept me from attacking the Queen directly, I would’ve gone sniffing around for the cause.
But we reached Melisande’s small cell without running into anyone who might’ve stopped us. It was one of those times where I could say in all seriousness that it was too easy.
There had to be something waiting around the corner for us.
Melisande shoved her door open and I dragged Tascius inside. Lucifer followed, and together we heaved him onto her bed without crushing the wings that probably still ached down to his bones.
Melisande stood in the door, looking smaller but undiminished without her wings. “Haru, do you want to come in? We should probably assess where to go from here.”
The fox demon clearly didn’t feel a need to hide.
“I’m going to take a look around in case we need a quick escape,” he said. I supposed he would be able to escape; as a guard, he wasn’t required to wear the slave collar that kept him within the boundaries of Kur.
“And what if someone notices you being where you shouldn’t?” Melisande asked, clearly skeptical.
“That’s easy.” Haru had removed the visor hiding his face and flashed her a sharp-toothed grin. Tiny bits of foxfire, invisible on the mortal plane, floated around his head. “As long as you look like you belong somewhere, no one questions it.”
With that, he slid the visor back into place and tucked his loose hair beneath his helmet, before vanishing with a fox’s sly quickness.
“He means he’s going to harass Vyra,” I clarified.
Melisande shot me another look. “Good. She needs someone to watch her back.”
There was one person remaining in the hall. Satan hung ba
ck, an odd expression on his face.
I knew that feeling too well. Longing. A deep craving he might not even know he had.
But it was impossible to tell if it was Satan or the deposed King of Kur, pining for the woman who’d tied herself to my mate.
Melisande licked her lips, looked around nervously, and finally over her shoulder at us. “Give me a minute.”
She stepped into the hall and closed the door behind her.
“Are you going to eavesdrop?” Lucifer asked, raising a brow.
I shrugged and crept to the door on silent feet. “Obviously.” I pressed my ear to the smooth wood.
Their voices sounded muffled, but fortunately, I was a being with superior hearing.
“I hope it was enlightening enough for you,” Melisande said, her voice sharp.
Satan’s deep voice sounded intense, just as pointed as hers. “Not quite what I was hoping for, but I’m pleased you finally seem to trust me. I’ve told you from the beginning: I mean you no harm.”
I held back a snort that would’ve been audible through the door. No harm, my ass.
I could practically hear the too-sweet smile in Melisande’s voice. It was that sugary tone she took when she was obviously lying. “And every day, you give me more reason to believe that.”
My mouth felt like it was full of hot coals; I wanted to breathe them in his face, watch him burn from the inside.
But my twisted little angel was right. He was a potential way out.
And if the worst came to pass… I would encourage her to go with him, to lie through her teeth as long as it took to get her and Sarai out of Kur and away from the Queen.
“Do I? When will you remember that I can smell a lie?”
There was a soft scuff of a shoe on stone. I wondered if he’d taken a step closer, intent on intimidating her.
“I’m well aware of that.” Melisande’s voice dripped ice. “I think it’s time we lay all our cards on the table.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing from the beginning,” Satan hissed.
“Bullshit.” There was a long pause. “If you’ve been honest, why won’t you give me a straight answer on anything? If Inanna has tied herself to me, how do I complete the bond? You won’t tell me, and I think I know why— you’re afraid of what will happen.”