by Ivy Asher
Lucifer is on the other side of the Origin Stone, his legs outstretched the same way his hands are as he plucks demons off in the distance, group by group, just with the curling of his fists. He does dozens of them at a time, but more of Morax’s demons come to fill in the gaps, climbing over the dead bodies like ants.
A stream of power lobs right past my face, jerking my attention away, and I whirl around in the air to see demons have spotted me from below. Another one forms something like liquid lava in his palm and then throws it at me, but my darkness shoots out and incinerates it like a vengeful viper, swallowing it whole.
I grit my teeth when another one of them shoots something like tiny needles straight for me, but I toss my darkness up like a shield, and the sharp little blades bounce right off. “Okay, pricks, now you’re just pissing me off,” I say, and then I bolt toward the ground.
Before I’ve even landed, I’m already swinging.
Monster cuts down everyone in my surrounding circle with wicked glee before the demons can even open their mouths to scream. My dark light shoots out farther like an unforgiving tornado, whirling through more of Morax’s followers and sending pieces of singed demons flying.
But just as I’m settling comfortably into the bloodlust—or maybe the ashlust—of the battle, like I’m sinking into a warm bath, I hear Toreon shout. With knees bent, I push myself into the air, immediately searching him out as my wings pump behind me, lifting me higher off the ground.
There.
My eyes land on Toreon where he’s standing, and I see a familiar massive giant right beside him. Vudu.
My heart soars at the sight of my other mate, but it nearly tumbles right over itself when I see a third demon there beside them. Ire.
Ire’s fighting with them. I don’t know when he got here or how he ended up with Toreon and Vudu, but I’m stunned as I watch Vudu and Ire fight together to defend Toreon. I don’t know why it affects me so much to see all three of my mates working together, but it does.
Ire and Vudu are on either side of Toreon, both of them fighting and protecting him as he works on the portal above. Ire decimates everyone with the same weapons as his Matron used: a double-ended longsword and a horror-inducing chain mace. Meanwhile, Vudu fights with a stolen sword and his power, using the earth as both a barrier and a weapon.
My eyes track Toreon, and instead of threads coming out of his palms this time, he’s grabbed onto the rope of light making up the portal, and he’s pulling it into him.
His entire body strains as he tugs like it’s a two-ton bull he’s trying to pull out of a barn. His feet are braced into the ground, his green muscles straining as he heaves. Every time he gets a little bit of slack on the string of power, he moves his hand up and pulls more, his face already dripping with sweat.
The piece of darkness I left behind to protect him is circling around all three of my mates, batting away demons one at a time as they come up. Whoever the darkness misses, Vudu and Ire cut through, and then kick away the dead bodies that are quickly piling up around them.
It’s brutal. It’s bloody. It’s violent.
This is war. It’s gruesome and noisy, and death clings to the air, mixing with the blood and the ash. I look around at what Morax forced on the inhabitants of Hell when he spread his unrest within the Rings. This is what happens when the balance is threatened.
I need to end this.
In my peripheral, I see the Sins have split up, some of them taking down more of the horde beside Lucifer, while the rest are still fielding hundreds of demons and their powers as they try to block the Sins from Morax. The bastard has inched his way closer to Toreon, and my mate sees it.
There’s a desperation in Toreon’s face as he watches Morax out of the corner of his eye while he tries to unravel the portal faster, but it’s slow going, and he’s the only one who can touch it.
My scythe burns with a comforting heat beneath my palm, pulsing with power of its own that it wants unleashed as we stare at the light within Morax. He’s tainted, his soul muddy and jaundiced. There’s no cure for the wrongness coursing through his veins.
Taz is the closest to the Ophidian, and even though I don’t know my father very well, I can appreciate how effortlessly he moves. He may be Pride, but he fights as well as Wrath does, and the demons coming at him don’t stand a damn chance.
It’s time. I feel it in my bones just as surely as I do the scythe in my hand. It’s time to ensure that balance prevails.
Medley and Delta rise up into the air, heading for Morax like I am. They must have felt what I did in our bond, felt the call for retribution.
We meet in the air, silent determination coursing through our veins, and drop down behind the Ophidian. Like we’re operating as one, each of us calls to our power and uses the dark essence to cut Morax off from the portal. He stops short as a wall of menacing black light shoots up around him, and then it spreads, encasing us in a dome quicker than he can blink.
He whirls, looking wildly around him, and as soon as he notes that he’s completely cut off, that he’s stuck in here with the three of us, rage fills his slitted eyes. His snakes go insane and start snapping and hissing and trying to lunge for us, as if they can rip themselves right off his skull and sink their fangs into us.
“Drop this barrier now,” Morax demands, his voice laced with so much power that it hits me in the chest and makes me stumble back. But our darkness is too strong. Too evolved. The claws of his words can’t gain purchase, and his compulsion sparks and fizzles out like a fly against a bug zapper.
“That ain’t gonna work this time,” Medley tells him, my sisters on either side of me.
Morax’s fists ball at his sides, an order tearing through his throat as he looks beyond the barrier to his followers. “Get in here!”
My eyes flicker past him to the demons who try to follow his command, but every single one of them who attempts to break through the black dome instantly burns like charcoal, their body nothing but a burnt husk as it lands on the ground.
Delta smirks. “It’s just you and us now, Ophidian.”
Fear. Real fear flickers over Morax’s face for the first time ever.
I revel in it. The power inside of me watches like a predator waiting to spring. All the torture, the violations against my free will, and the choices he robbed from countless others. The attacks, the taking of what doesn’t belong to him, the destruction in his wake. Every sin against him runs through my mind like a rap sheet that’s being read before judgment and sentencing.
“You’re being shortsighted,” Morax tells us. “Look at the three of you. Look how powerful you are. Strong. Beautiful. You can rule Heaven at my side. We can have every single angel and demon kneeling at our feet. We can be so much more than what they want us to be. We can rule. Together. Not be stuck under the thumb of Lucifer. Don’t lose your chance.”
His silver-tongued words seep into the air, the power of his Impel bloodline trying to make it all sound so enviously sweet. I can even picture it—me and my sisters ruling. Never being subjected to another’s will ever again. Safe. Free from being hunted and used. It’s a powerful picture.
Morax takes a step forward. “Just think of it. You’re light and dark Annuli. You’re half angel and half demon. You are so much more than everyone else out there. Why let that go to waste? Come with me into the portal, and we can rule. We can build a realm for ourselves.”
His snake eyes swing around us, his face desperate, his brow dripping sweat, his clawed fingers desperately holding onto the last chance he thinks he has.
I look him steadily in the eye, and then I speak a single word that shatters his hope and centuries’ worth of plans. “No.”
As one, my sisters and I leap, our hair skimming against the top of the dark dome as we close the distance and land all around him with a thud. In an instant, he’s surrounded from all three sides, and his face is panicked and feral. Good.
Before we can so much as lift our scythes, a fourth bo
dy plummets impossibly through our dome, landing directly behind Morax between Delta and Medley.
I know who it is the moment my wide eyes land on her.
Long purple hair and eyes the color of grapes glare at Morax. Her body is encased in shining armor, a sword in one hand and a familiar scythe in the other, and massive purple wings glow ethereally behind her.
My mother.
The Ophidian’s eyes flare with horror as all four of us hold our scythes sideways, caging him in. The top of my scythe kisses the bottom of Delta’s scythe, and her scythe overlaps with our mother’s, and so it goes until Medley’s scythe touches mine. We form a circle around Morax with our weapons, the tip of each arched blade pointing in.
We move in perfect synchronicity, as though our bones themselves know this ritual in and out. Without knowing how, my mouth opens up and an ancient language pours out of it, perfectly in time with my sisters and mother. The words rumble out of my throat and drift off my tongue, the entire circle saying the exact same thing at the exact same time.
The words spill out of us and seem to sink into our linked scythes, making the weapons glow and vibrate with anticipation. Even though my mind doesn’t know what we’re saying, my soul and my blood knows exactly what we’re doing.
We aren’t scything Morax. We aren’t resetting him so that he can start again.
We are annihilating him. We’re wiping him off the face of every realm for all of eternity. His soul will never be reborn. He will never come back.
This is his end. We are his undoing.
He tries to raise his hands over his head as if that will protect him, but wide, terrified, furious eyes are locked onto mine.
“Balance always wins,” I hear myself say, repeating Lucifer’s words like a judge slamming down a gavel.
“NO!” Morax screams, his horror bouncing around the protective darkness all around us. I close my eyes and breathe it in. It’s his turn to scream and beg. His desperate cries blare all around me, his deafening pleas ringing in my ears.
But it’s not enough to save him. It was never enough to save me.
Our words reach a crescendo, and I can feel what’s next in every fiber of my being. The last ancient phrase tips off my tongue, and the four of us push our glowing scythes in on him at the same exact time, righteous retribution lighting our faces.
As soon as our curved blades puncture him, there’s a flare of purple light that rips through the Ophidian. Morax doesn’t turn to ash on contact. He doesn’t bleed as the sharp edges cut into his body. Instead, he screams in all-consuming pain as his soul is shredded, and then...our Annuli powers decimate him.
His body, his spirit, even his scream gets sucked out of existence. One second he’s there, and in the next, the Ophidian is completely and utterly gone.
An aftershock of power ripples out of our circle, our dome disappearing as the power goes shooting out, and every single demon that Morax has ever controlled collapses to the ground, the stain of his compulsion completely obliterated.
Gasping, heart pounding, sweat dripping down my back, I blink and take in the four scythes touching in the middle of our circle. We’re standing in the middle of a singed crater of our own making, our scythes’ power slowly dimming until the blades no longer glow.
Four gazes come up to share a look, and then my mother’s eyes land on me. I see so much in her purple gaze, a hundred silent things are spoken as the battle rages beyond, the Sins and Lucifer finishing what Morax began, as demons fall to their knees in surrender.
A tear falls from Nefta’s eye, her gaze swimming with love and sorrow and apology. Her pride beams through her as she lets out a sigh. “You did it,” she tells us, those three words carrying so much weight and emotion.
“We did it,” I correct, and then I let my scythe disappear so that I can grab my sisters’ hands and squeeze, the realization flowing over me and singing to my soul as my heart leaps in victory.
We did it.
37
I thought the actual battle was bloody and ugly, but the aftermath is much, much worse. Death is bleak and heavy, and it’s all around us in shades of gray and red.
Once my sisters and I toss down our cuffs in grim satisfaction and fly out of the small crater we created, we get a look at the tail end of the fight of restoring balance.
We watch in grim awe as most of Morax’s followers—the ones under compulsion—kneel and tremble in pleading subjugation to the Seven Sins and Lucifer. They beg for mercy, and surprisingly, Lucifer grants it.
But the others, the ones who followed the Ophidian willingly, they don’t stop. They continue to fight, but it’s a desperate, nothing-to-lose fight, all snarling screams and resigned swings of power and weapons.
Wrath and Lucifer easily cut them down, and within minutes, the world around us becomes eerily quiet. Deathly quiet. I thought that this place resembled a graveyard before, but now that it’s littered with ash and bodies, it’s more like an open tomb.
My eyes quickly find the glowing portal, but instead of my mates, I find a large group of angels, easily discernible by their glowing white souls and wings. I’m completely surprised by their presence here in Hell. Their armor matches Nefta’s, and even though they don’t mix with Lucifer’s demons to celebrate the victory, they came to help, proving to me that they all really do believe in their mission to defend the balance.
I take one last look at the still open gateway between Heaven and Hell, and it’s comforting to know that the portal that Toreon made, the one that almost killed him, was used against Morax in the end. It seems even if Morax had made it to the portal, the Legion was right there waiting for him. For once, we were a step ahead of Morax.
The Sins and Lucifer are busy ridding Hell of dead bodies. It’s all very efficient as they guide demons who somewhat resemble Delta’s mate Jerif to burn the bodies and clear away the ash. It’s obvious that Hell has fought many wars and battles since they’re so good at cleaning up the aftermath. It makes me wonder what else has transpired on this land.
That’s all my eyes can take in though, because three groups converge on my sisters and me all at once, and I find myself suddenly surrounded by nine demons.
Medley’s mates get to her, squeezing her between them, like they have no intention of letting her out of their sight ever again. Delta’s mates also cocoon her between them. They take their turns talking, kissing, and touching, and it warms me to see my sisters so thoroughly loved and cherished.
I’m a little surprised when I’m immediately enveloped by strong arms and worried gazes. Maybe I shouldn’t be, I know there are intense feelings on both sides with all my new guys, but I’m not prepared for the shower of affection and the desperate need each of them has to know and feel that I’m okay. By the time I’m set back down on my feet, still reassuring them that I’m fine, I’m crying.
Everything that’s happened, everything I’ve survived, sort of just hits me like a ton of bricks. The last of my adrenaline drains away, and relief floods me, spilling out in a deluge of tears. I’m free. Not just from Morax, but from the life I lived and the loneliness that haunted my every step. It’s done, and as I blink through the steady stream of tears and look around, I know I’ll never feel like that again. I’m no longer alone.
Toreon cups my face in his strong green palms. He silently kisses my tears away with a gentle skim of his lips, his mere presence soothing all that I’ve lost and reassuring me of all that I’ve gained. Vudu is at my back, one large arm banded around my waist. He supports my exhausted body against his, wordlessly taking the weight from my shoulders as he lets me lean against him, his strength holding me up.
Ire glances between the two of them before his blue gaze falls to mine, his temper showing through in the frown marring his plush lips. I can tell he’s frustrated because he’s not sure where he fits in this dynamic. He wants to help things feel better too, but he’s not sure how. For some reason, that makes me smile.
His little pout is adorable,
although I’m sure if I told him that he’d puff up and deny that any part of him could ever be adorable, but it lightens the heaviness I’m feeling all the same.
“Come here,” I tell Ire, and he immediately steps into me, like he was just waiting for the invitation. With this move, I’m showing all three of them that it’s okay to touch me at the same time.
I brush a lock of shiny black hair out of Toreon’s face, gratitude blazing in my eyes for him and all that he does for me, and then I turn and wrap my arms around Ire’s neck and squeeze. “Thank you for coming,” I whisper against his neck, and he crushes me against him, his hand shaking where he rubs up and down between my wings, even as Vudu keeps his hand on my hip.
I step away just to place a kiss on his lips before I turn in Vudu’s hold. I hug my arms around my giant mate, nuzzling against his chest for a moment before I stand on my tiptoes to brush my lips over his.
With a small smile as I pull away, I reach down to thread my fingers through Toreon’s hand. I turn to look at all three of them, willing my eyes to dry up so that I can see them and shove away all the worry and tension and fear that I’ve been holding onto for so long.
“You’re all okay,” I whisper, like I need to say it—I need to keep saying it until it sinks in that it’s really true.
“We’re all okay,” Toreon repeats, giving my hand a squeeze.
It’s odd how natural this all feels, and I can’t help the wide happy smile that crawls across my face. I look past the guys and find Medley and Sable watching me between their demons. Their eyes are filled with tears, the same happy smiles on their faces. Only, their joy is all for me. Like seeing me being cared for and cherished warms them just the same.
Like the triplets we are, we all laugh at the same time, and then that cracks us up even more as we wipe happy tears from our eyes and revel in our connection, one we can finally nurture after being denied our whole lives.
“Well, if that’s not just adorable and creepy all at the same time,” Crux muses, and all of our mates snort, grunt, or bark out a laugh of agreement.