by Ivy Asher
13
I wince as my loud voice bounces off the walls back to me. I quickly check over my shoulder, but Medley is still out, despite my loud voice. I think she might even be drooling a little. I sure hope that’s not a family trait.
Turning back around, I walk over to the corner of my cage, trying to get as close to where Toreon and Vudu are sitting as I can before dropping down so I can join in on the conversation.
Vudu is staring at me like he’s just now noticing me for the first time, still in only my plain bra and underwear—not in any way cute, since they’re from the asylum—and yeah, I’m filthy.
I’ve gotten used to being in nothing but my underwear and looking like a hobo, but I was too worried about life or death scenarios to really care. Now, I suddenly feel vulnerable. As if my wings can sense this, they bend around me, trying to tuck against my body like a blanket.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that,” Toreon mutters as he slips the tool back into his pocket.
“Well, I did, and considering you’re talking about me, I think we can skip the clandestine efforts,” I tell him. “Now go on,” I encourage, gesturing for them to keep going as if I’m not here. They of course just stare at me. “Don’t mind me, you two keep talking away so I can figure out what this means.”
Vudu shoots Toreon a look, but the green-skinned demon just shrugs. “It means exactly what I said. Your blood soaked into me and made me stronger.”
“But Medley’s blood soaked into me…” I say, not understanding how it’s the equivalent of me getting down on one knee with a ring in my hand.
“Yes, because you and Medley share an Annuli bond. But this is different.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m a—” He stops himself and then restarts. “The kind of demon I am means that the way we find mates is slightly different. We only take mates who have strong, compatible power. Power that, if necessary, can be transferred back and forth.”
I look at him steadily as I weigh his words. “Transfer by blood?”
He tips his head forward. “Yes. There are other ways, but blood is one of them.”
“So because my blood soaked into you and made you feel stronger, you think I’d be a good mate?”
“That’s the gist of it, yes.”
“Do I get any say in this, or is it a done deal?”
He stares at me incredulously for a beat. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what if I’m not into it?” I ask, genuinely curious.
I don’t exactly know how I feel either way. Yeah, I was just perving out a little, but this is a whole different animal. Plus, it’s not like we’re at a bar chatting things up either.
He rolls his eyes. “Just because I said you would be the perfect mate doesn’t mean you will be. I’m not exactly in a position to take a mate right now.”
“Because you’re in a dungeon, or are you one of those commitment-phobes?”
He gives me a droll look. “Yes, Sable. Because I’m in a dungeon.”
I look around. “Yeah, me too,” I point out with a sigh that morphs into a smirk.
I get a rare smile from him, but it’s gone too quickly, like he hasn’t smiled in such a long time that it felt foreign on his face. “I’ve noticed.”
“What are the other ways?” I ask, suddenly wondering if we can use this whole power exchange thing to our advantage.
Toreon’s brow furrows for a second in question.
“Other ways mates exchange power,” I clarify, and understanding lights his golden eyes before they turn wary.
He looks to Vudu for a second, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where this is going.
“Ah. So, sex then?” I ask, bluntly.
Vudu chuckles, and Toreon looks a little shocked by my hold nothing back delivery. I can’t help it, though. There’s so much to learn, and so little time.
“Not just sex. Some mates can transfer through simple touch or other intimate contact,” Toreon corrects, his golden eyes watching me with curiosity brimming in the gilded flecks.
“Could you power me up enough for me to break through the bars?” I ask, staring at one just to my left as though I expect the metal, or whatever it is, to cower at my suggestion.
“I’m not bedding my mate for the first time in a dungeon,” Toreon counters on a growl, and my attention shoots back to him, my face stunned.
“Who said anything about sex? Didn’t you just say that holding hands could do it?” I declare, taken aback, by his reaction.
Geez, that escalated quickly.
My gray gaze takes Toreon in cautiously. “Like you said, just because we could be a match doesn’t mean we will be, right?” I inquire, but there’s a teasing lilt to my tone that not even I can ignore.
Toreon releases a sigh, and I don’t miss the amused look on Vudu’s face.
“Right,” Toreon agrees, rubbing his bicep and making his chains rattle slightly.
“Could be worse,” I announce, trying to lighten the heavy intensity that’s settled all around us.
Vudu snorts. “How?” he asks, his deep voice a perfect match for his large frame.
“It could be a long-distance relationship,” I point out. “Those are way more doomed than a dungeon relationship,” I joke.
This time, Toreon’s mouth stretches into a full, bona fide grin, and Vudu’s chuckle turns into a rumbling laugh. Both of them flash straight white teeth, lips curving up and smile lines creasing their cheeks, the sight making my chest tighten with how much younger and relaxed they look. Okay, and hot. Smiling also makes them look ridiculously hot.
“Why would you get the power boost?” Toreon suddenly asks, like the thought just sunk in and he can’t wrap his mind around it.
“Because between the two of us, I’m clearly more badass. All you do is rattle your chains occasionally and whine,” I tease, and his mouth parts in shock.
“I do not whine,” he protests, but I pull my gaze from him and settle it on Vudu’s red eyes.
“He totally whines,” I repeat, gesturing with my thumb at Toreon.
“He always did during training too,” Vudu offers conspiratorially, and I snicker.
“Doesn’t surprise me at all. He seems like a delicate man,” I add, and Vudu puts a hand over his mouth to hold in the sound of his mirth.
“I’m not a man,” Toreon retorts, pulling my eyes back to him. He looks me up and down as if he can see through the wings tucked around me, and it sucks out some of the silliness and replaces it with heat and intrigue.
“I’m a demon,” he adds. “And so are you.” His voice is like velvet that slithers over my skin, that one statement sounding sensual somehow.
“I know that,” I say, my voice matching his.
Toreon leans forward, bracing his elbows on his bent knees. “Do you? Do you really have any idea what being a demon means yet, Sable? Because you just learned about what you are. About all of this.”
“Half demon,” I correct, “...and I’m quick on the uptake. Thanks to my unique upbringing, I’ve learned how to adapt.”
A flash of sadness crosses his eyes, like just the thought of how I grew up pains him. “You shouldn’t have had to live like that,” he states, his golden eyes filled with that same intensity I saw earlier.
“Yeah, well, what can any of us do about it now?” I say, because I’m not going to waste any more time going over it. My past took enough from me. I won’t let it take my future too. “So...you said something about the kind of demon you are…” I fish.
He just stares blankly back at me. Ooookay, I guess he’s not going to make this easy on me.
“Is it like that for a lot of demons? The blood of your mate making you stronger thing?”
“No.”
Great, we’re down to one-word answers. “Alright...so I can make you stronger. My blood, I mean.”
He nods.
“And you’re not an Annulus?” I ask, already knowing but figuring asking again just to be su
re doesn’t hurt anything.
“No.”
Geez, he sure is dodgy when it comes to what kind of demon he is and the implications of it.
My eyes shift curiously over to Vudu, who I notice is still looking at me like he’s fascinated. And...is that a little bit of desire I see in his intent red eyes? No. No way. I look like something a feral cat dragged into its cardboard box.
“Do you have a mate?” I question, since we’re already on the topic.
His eyes widen, and he makes a strange choking noise, his eyes darting through the bars to look at Toreon. I crinkle my brows in confusion when Toreon curses under his breath. “What?” I ask.
Vudu shifts where he’s sitting, and I swear, the hulking demon blushes. Twin spots of charcoal darken over his gray cheeks as he looks at me uneasily.
“What?” I repeat.
When Toreon does nothing to explain, Vudu clears his throat. “Well...I am bound to Toreon.”
I wait for him to go on, and when he doesn’t, I still feel at a loss, like they threw me a rope but didn’t hold onto the other end. “Okay…is that like you hinting that you’re his mate or something?”
Toreon narrows his eyes on me. “Why do you keep assuming that Vudu and I are fucking?”
I throw up my hands, unintentionally tossing my wings away from me and revealing my uncovered body. “I don’t know!” I whisper-yell. “I’m just trying to get answers, and you guys are being cagey about the whole thing. We’re all adults trapped in a dungeon. Well, two of us are, anyway,” I correct, pointing to me and Toreon. “Just tell me what the heck is going on.”
Vudu sighs and runs a hand over his short black hair. “I’m not fucking Toreon. I’m his sworn protector. I’m eternally bound to him through oaths that go back spans of lifetimes through our bloodlines. Which means that I’m tied to him in order to watch out for him. If he dies, I die. If I die, he dies. We’re bound forever…which means that if he ever takes a mate and forms that bond, it will also form with me.”
My mouth forms an O as I blink at him. “So you’re saying…”
“That if you become Toreon’s mate, you’ll become mine as well.”
Well, okay then. That certainly ups the ante.
A jumble of emotions rush up to rattle around inside me like someone shaking a jar full of pennies. The sound of a gasp behind me makes all of us jerk, and I turn around to see Medley sitting up, grinning from ear to ear. “Well, doesn’t this just dill your pickle?” she says with a giggle as her sparkling eyes land on me. “Looks like you just got yourself a two-for-one deal, sister.”
I roll my eyes and then throw a plate at her when she starts singing, “We found love in a hopeless place…”
She plucks the metal dish out of the air with a chuckle, never missing a beat of her rendition of Rihanna’s song.
And that’s when it hits me.
Mate.
My jangling emotion pennies really get going in the jar as realization dawns on me. Toreon is not the first person to say that. There was a lot going on when it happened, which is probably why I’m just now connecting the dots. But...
“What happened?” Medley asks, her smile melting off her face faster than an ice cream cone on the sidewalk in the middle of a heat wave.
“The demon in my head,” I answer, just above a whisper. “He said I was his mate too.”
14
“What demon in your head?” Medley and Toreon both demand at the same time.
Medley’s question is filled with concern, whereas Toreon’s question is filled with a note of accusation, like I’ve been doing something wrong or hiding something.
I try not to wince at their demand for information. I feel stupid and awkward as I try to figure out how to explain this to them. Will they believe me? Will they think that maybe I’m crazy after all?
Insecurity bubbles up in my stomach like frothy milk, and I try to swallow down the doubt and worry that courses through me.
“I don’t know who he is exactly, or at least, I didn’t until my dream earlier,” I start.
Dammit, that’s not helping me sound less delusional.
I take a deep breath and ready myself for the onslaught of judgment I’m sure will be coming my way after I confess what’s been going on in my mind. I’m used to that.
“It’s this voice that pops up in my head when I’m feeling emotional. I’ve never heard him before. It started not long after I’d been brought here. I sort of just blew it off at first, you know, because I thought I was crazy. It didn’t seem out of the realm of possibility that I went from seeing things to hearing things,” I explain, trying not to fidget or think too hard about how vulnerable I’m making myself by telling them this.
“I guess by the time I realized that I wasn’t crazy, I was sort of used to him popping in and out, so I didn’t think too much of it, but then earlier, I was having a bad dream, and when it stopped he was just...there.”
“How?” Vudu asks, hopping on the curious train too.
I shrug, because how the hell would I know? “He just was. He keeps saying that I call to him. My anger maybe? Like when I’m upset, it pulls him to me somehow. I don’t know. But he’s a bit of a prick and has a cosmic-sized ego. I think he finally figured out in the dream that I’m not playing some game with him, though, that I’m actually in trouble. He said his Matron would help me, but I don’t know what any of that means.”
“What does he look like?” Toreon presses, his entire countenance very intense.
“He has reddish-orange wings, dark brown hair, but it’s streaked with a similar color as his wings. Blue eyes, small spiky horns just outside his hairline.”
“You beaconed a mate,” Toreon states, his voice filled with surprise and a good dose of irritation. He runs his fingers through his hair, and his chains clink in protest of the movement.
“How did I do that?” I demand, feeling a little defensive and realizing that Ire used the word beacon as well.
“Could it have been a Nihil?” Vudu asks with concern.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Toreon confirms.
“But which one?”
Toreon shakes his head, his eyes fixed on his protector. I don’t know what they silently say to each other, but I don’t miss the exchange of something between them.
“Gear down there, big shifter,” Medley calls out from her cell. “Mind fillin’ the rest of us in on what y’all are talkin’ about?”
Vudu turns to her. “Sable’s emotions initiated a call to a mate. It’s how some of the Abdicated find a true match,” he explains.
“Not just any Abdicated,” Toreon interjects. “It’s how the Seven Deadly Sins and their progeny find a match. It’s how Lucifer’s inner circle claim their mates.”
“Well, damn,” Medley states simply, but the words represent my reaction perfectly.
“His name was Ire,” I confess, letting the last of what I know out into the room like I’m releasing a wounded animal to the wild. I don’t know if it will run, stay, or turn around and bite me.
“Fuck,” Vudu exclaims, but a loud noise outside the door to our room sounds off, and we all jump from the sudden noise.
Vudu shoots to his feet, worry and anger etched in his features as his muscles bulge beneath his uniform. “I’ll check it out. Keep working on your chains. We’ll be getting out of here. Just hang on,” he orders, his red eyes demanding as they fix on Toreon.
A deep sigh slips out of Toreon’s lips, but he nods instead of arguing. Vudu turns and stalks toward the door. He stops and listens for a beat and then opens it before slipping out. We all watch the door shut behind him and listen for signs that something has gone wrong. Not that we’d be able to do anything about it even if we did hear a fight or something break out.
Tension radiates off of Toreon, and I can only imagine how hard it is to watch someone you love and share such a deep bond with walk out into a situation that could kill them at any second. The stakes are so high for what Vudu is
trying to do, and it has to be maddening to be stuck in a cage with no choice but to simply watch and wait.
I really do understand Toreon’s pessimistic ways. If I’d have been down here as long as I suspect he has, I could see why there’d be hesitation in getting any hopes up. Better to think the worst than to hope for the best, just to watch it all crumble around you. In a lot of ways, that’s how I lived in the asylum.
Our group goes quiet for a while, listening carefully, lost to thoughts and worry. After what feels like forever, Medley scoots closer to the bars between us, and I mirror her actions, scooting back from the front of my cell, needing her presence to help calm my frayed nerves.
“We need to get out of here,” she whispers, and I nod at the obvious statement as I look around the dreary space and the shadows of flames that dance all over the weapons on the walls like they’re eagerly anticipating the next time they’ll be used to torture one of us.
“We need to make ourselves Morax-proof, and then we need to figure out how to kill him.”
“Well, if you can help me with the Morax-proofin’ part, I think I just might know how we can go about doin’ the killin’ part,” Medley says, her sweet twang making her murderous confession amusing.
We both turn to face each other, crisscrossing our legs in front of us like we’re going to meditate our way through figuring out how to control our Annulus abilities. We both take a deep breath, and then I offer my sister a confident smile. “Let’s get to work then.”
I stand in an endless space filled with blackness. I don’t know how I can see, since there’s no detectable light source, and yet I can take in everything as the darkness that resides in me moves around my soul like I’m floating in a smack of jellyfish.
Unlike the gelatinous sea-beings they resemble, I’m not afraid to reach out and play with the darkness. I know there won’t be any stinging or pain. It’ll be the opposite, and I’ll feel protected and powerful as I guide the black blobs where I need them.
This mind-space is just the same as when I saw Ire, and I’ve learned how to get to it with concentration. Medley and I have been working for a couple of days on accessing this part of ourselves and figuring out how to use it. There’ve been a lot of oopsie moments where we go too far and freeze up, stuck in paralysis until the darkness wears off, but we’ve been figuring out how to come out of pause mode faster too, so there’s that.