by Lucy Auburn
I resisted the urge to pat down the strands tumbling over my shoulder. As I walked into the room, Damen took up his position by the door, turning into the smooth and expressionless man I was more used to. Glancing over at him, I could almost pretend that this morning had never happened.
“Can I ask what this is about?” Cautiously, I approached Persephone, my stomach still uneasy after the torture of the day before. “We usually don’t meet in your rooms except for dinner.”
She flicked a hand out dismissively, sitting up on her couch. Beneath her regal form it was an upholstered throne. “I would have had this meeting in the throne room, but it’s currently undergoing some changes.” Smoothly, she got to her feet and approached me, too-warm hands coming up to cup my cheek. “After the disaster of yesterday, I’ve decided that you need something more than my spare attention in order to turn you into the demigod you must one day become.” She sighed then, all drama and theatrics. “I had hoped we would have some time to ourselves before I had to resort to the inevitable, but you’ve moved my timeline up.”
I frowned at her, puzzled. “Timeline? What are you talking about?”
Gesturing towards the open doors that led to the dining room, she drew my attention to the figure sitting at the end of the table. “Your engagement.”
“You can’t be serious.” My voice came out weak, and I resisted the urge to stare at the man in the other room, knowing it couldn’t be good. “Who could you even marry me off to? There’s no one down here but you, me, and the guards.” And the man I’d seen in the cavern, but I wasn’t supposed to know about him.
“I’ve moved one of my most trusted followers into our little kingdom. Don’t worry—my husband will never notice. He’s busy with other things.” There was bitter jealousy in her voice, and I wondered if, despite everything, Persephone truly did love the King of the Underworld. “Beelzebub will make a good husband for you.”
Eyes wide, I took a closer look at the man and saw that he was far less human than my first glance had revealed. Pale ghost-white skin, a too-tall frame, and leathery wings were the biggest clues. Though his back was to me, I didn’t doubt that his face was inhuman too; I’d heard of Beelzebub from the demon guards, and knew he terrified them most of all for his scythe-like fangs that he often used to kill those who displeased him.
“Beelzebub,” I said weakly, licking my dry lips. “Isn’t he…”
“A half-demon demigod? Yes.” As my horror grew, she added, “His powers will perfectly complement yours, my darling. I knew it as soon as I found out you were able to take on the demonic forms when you feed from them. Imagine how much more powerful those abilities will be when you’ve bound yourself to him sexually.”
Her smile was altogether too pleased. I was glad I didn’t need to eat in the Underworld, because right about now it would be coming up.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say nothing, my dear.” She placed a warm hand on my cheek, that moved down to my elbow to guide me into the other room. Persephone leaned in conspiratorially to whisper to me. “Normally these things are arranged by both parents, but given that your father is… well, not currently able to make these decisions on your behalf, I took it into my own hands. Beelzebub,” the man stood and turned, “meet my daughter, Selena. A common name, but—perhaps one day she’ll choose a better one.”
As I met his dark eyes and shivered all over, I didn’t even have time to ask Persephone any questions about my father, who she never discussed. I was too busy replaying her other words in my mind: “bound yourself to him sexually.” To him. The son of a demon and a god, a man whose chief duty in the Underworld was torture.
The slick smile on his face only compounded my horror. His eyes trawled up and down me like he was seeing me naked. “A pleasurable enough form, even if most of it is hidden.” There was a raspy quality to his voice, like a record skipping. “I will have to ensure that she is fit for me sexually before agreeing to the match, but I see nothing displeasing.” His paper-dry fingers reached out to tip my chin up, and I felt my body buck like a wild horse being roped. “Such unwillingness. It pleases me.”
My mother sighed at this, and I was horrified by the relief I heard in her voice. “Good, I was hoping you would be. Come, let’s discuss matters over dinner.”
I took the moment to step away from Beezelbub, shudders crawling up and down my skin. Glancing into the other room, I saw Damen standing by the door, still unmoving and expressionless. The other guard was walking over to the doors of the dining room, reaching out to close them. He was a simple lower level demon guard; I’d fought many of them after my mother first caged me in my rooms, when I was still openly defiant of her.
Openly defiant. Looking back at the demigod and my mother as they took up spots at the head of the table, her at his right side, I realized that I’d thought of those moments as being in the past. I’d spent so much time recently going along with Persephone’s whims just to avoid being locked away forever, but maybe it was pointless.
If I couldn’t find a way out, why would it matter if my gilded cage was locked tightly or loosely? It all resulted in the same end. Damen didn’t care about me, and if Persephone told him to truss me up and deliver me to Beelzebub naked, he would gladly do it.
Before the doors had swung closed, I’d made a decision. Turning on my heel, I looked into my mother’s eyes and said, “No.”
She stopped in the middle of her conversation with Beelzebub, eyes snapping to my face. “No?”
“You don’t get to marry me off. It’s not happening.” My eyes flitted to the demigod, and my hands clenched by my side. “I’m not chattel. I won’t be sold.”
Beelzebub chuckled, a low and throaty sound that echoed around the hollow room. “I will enjoy breaking her.”
“I won’t have this.” A look of annoyance flashed across Persephone’s face. “Do you know what you’re even suggesting? Beelzebub is a powerful, loyal follower of mine. You don’t get to refuse him.”
Anger boiled over in my chest, and I felt the thing inside me, the part of me that took what it wanted and fought with rage, claw to the surface. I stared daggers at Persephone, at that face that so closely resembled mine. “Who do you think you are? You’re not my mother. You’re just some woman who donated DNA. I won’t do what you want.”
She snarled, her hands beginning to glow as she gathered hellfire to them. “Insolent brat.”
Beelzebub put out a hand towards her, like he was gentling a wild horse. “I’ll take care of this, my Queen. Don’t lift a finger.”
Those eyes flitted towards me. As he stood, Beelzebub used every inch of his inhuman height to tower over me. Even his wings added to his frame, making him seem intimidating.
All it served to do was feed my rage.
“You’ll take care of dealing with me, will you?” My voice trembled with fury, unfamiliar even to me. “I’ll show you what I really am.”
Every moment of indignity, every locked door and bit of buried anger, seemed to ignite within me at once. As I raised my hands and launched myself at the demigod, I felt something at the base of my spine, a crackle of white-hot energy and rage. It exploded and traveled up my arms, lighting up my fingertips. My hair stood on end.
The demigod smirked at me.
I bellowed with rage and power shot out of me. It was white-blue and snapping with heat and light. Shooting from my fingertips, it curled around the demigod’s frame and sizzled along his skin.
Electricity. From Damen. All the times Persephone made me play with him for her amusement—they’d settled in me just as surely as Elah’s shadow form, at least for now. I blinked as the bolt of lightning was followed by a too-loud boom, filling the room with its sound. The scent of ozone wafted in the air, but Beelzebub didn’t even stumble back, though his white hair looked frazzled.
“Is that all you have?” he asked, voice smug. “Because I can more than handle that.”
There was power swirling around
him now. It seemed to weigh down the air, like a physical presence.
But I wasn’t done. “That was nothing.” I could feel the energy from Damen still crackling next to my skin, but I let it go. “When I’m done with you, you’ll regret all of this.”
“Selena.” My mother slammed her hands on the table and stood up. “My darling, please don’t—”
I ignored her. Throwing myself towards Beelzebub, I put my hands on the flat of his chest and looked up into his eyes. The physical contact wasn’t necessary—I’d learned a few tricks since being dragged down to Hell—but it helped ground me when I was dealing with someone as powerful as a demigod. Grabbing onto the thing inside me, I parted my lips and let it loose.
For a moment, there was only this: the heavy air dragging against my clothes, my mother’s flashing eyes and shout of warning, the smell of ozone still crackling in the air. Then I looked up into the demigod’s eyes, and devoured his spirit.
Distantly, I heard my mother’s shouted voice. And I didn’t care at all. Let her see how strong I had become beneath her vindictive heel.
The demigod’s energy tasted like leather and spice. I pulled it into my mouth and relished the way his powers sapped from the air as I took from him. He struggled at first, a flash in his eyes, a snarl twisting his lips. His wings twitched, one of them swooping forward to cling to my shoulder, the claw at the tip of it scratching my arm.
But I didn’t back off even as the blood trickled down my silks. Pressing myself forward, I drank and fed it back to him, until I saw the hint of relaxation at the corners of his eyes. In a moment I would have him.
That was when I felt the strong arms wrap around me and pull me back. I snarled and shouted as the connection was lost, energy instinctively coming to my hands again. The arms were snug and strong, one around my waist and the other pinning my left arm to my side, so I put my right hand on the thick forearm holding me back and let a crackle of energy pulse through me. When it just sank beneath the skin of my captor and did nothing at all, I knew who held me, and my senses came back to me all at once.
Though the rage remained. “Damen, let me go!” In front of us, Beelzebub was recovering quickly, and if the look on his face was any indication he was even more excited at the thought of “breaking” me now. I snarled at him and he only smirked. “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you both!”
“Enough.” The word was spoken low in my ear, hot breath brushing against my cheek. I burned angrily at the feeling of it, fingernails digging into his skin. He held on tighter. “Enough, damn you. Look at her.”
My eyes flicked to Persephone, who was coming around the table from the other side. Her hair swirled around her as if it was alive. The glow from her hands was white-hot now, heat sizzling up off her into the air and rising to the ceiling above us.
But more than that, what was most worrying was the look in her eyes. I’d seen it before: the mad look, the one that came over her when she had her fits, which she tried to hide from me.
I hadn’t been afraid of the demigod, not really. My mother was another thing. Realizing with a lurch what I’d done, I relaxed in Damen’s arms and opened my mouth to apologize, scrambling for the words that would calm her down and set her right again.
Persephone spoke before I could. “You’ve disobeyed me for the last time.” Reaching out, she trailed a fingertip across my arm, the heat of it enough to make me wince from pain. No doubt she’d send the guards with salve to heal it—but only so it wouldn’t scar and ruin my skin. “Take her to her room,” she said to Damen. “She won’t be coming out until her wedding night. Maybe that will teach her.”
Damen’s breath was warm against the side of my face when he spoke. “Yes, Your Highness.”
She walked around to where Beelzebub stood, his eyes still staring at me with some kind of sick expectation… of what, I didn’t want to imagine. Heart in my throat, I told Damen, “You can let go of me now. I know what happens next.”
He did, all at once. If I expected something from him, though, I didn’t get it; as soon as his warmth had left me he was walking towards the still-open doors, clearly expecting me to follow.
Knowing I had no other choice, I did exactly that.
6
Selena
Damen must have thought I would fight him, because he brought three other demon guards to escort me back to my rooms. The whole way he was stiff-backed and silent, except for one tiny moment. “Back there…” He didn’t look at me as he spoke. “Were those my powers?”
“Yes,” I said simply.
His boots rang out on the tile floor. “I didn’t think you could do that. It’s been a while.”
Since we kissed, his unspoken words implied, but calling them kisses felt… wrong. We didn’t really kiss; there was never any passion or feeling behind it. I just put my mouth on his to feed off him, so Persephone could see my powers in action.
I tried to ignore the fact that I knew, without thinking about it very long, that we’d kissed six times since I entered the Underworld. It was a useless thing to know; none of it mattered. I was about to be locked in my room, then dragged to a wedding altar and forcibly… I didn’t want to think about it. Dying while fighting would be a better fate, and I’d choose it if I had to.
The hallways twisted and turned. I hadn’t yet memorized the new path between my room and Persephone’s rooms; it seemed moot now that I knew her plans for me. My mind wandered as I let the guards lead me in the right direction. One of the demons escorting me had cracked blood-red skin and leathery wings. I glanced at his rigid, demented face, wondering how any of them could be attractive enough for a god to sleep with one and make a demon-god hybrid.
My eyes were drawn away from the leathery wings and sunken-in face when I saw a new and curious hallway. Glancing at Damen, who was walking ahead of me, I faked a stumble and bent down to fiddle with my shoe.
“Sorry,” I said, letting my hair fall in front of my face so I could look to the left. “You know how these slippers are. Useless things.”
Damen grunted. I spent my sweet time untying and tying the laces, observing the new dark hallway the whole time.
It was foolish to hope this one would be the way out. But I was happier playing the fool than I cared to admit.
And for once I seemed to be onto something. I could see torches in this hallway, unlike the other empty ones. There were guards here too—so maybe this was another “guest” or captive. But maybe it was the way out.
Everything here moved. It never truly disappeared. I had to believe that was true of the way out as well.
Damen’s toe was tapping against the floor. My shoe-tying ruse was stretching the limits of believability. Straightening up, I brushed myself off and tried to look disinterested in what was going on around me.
But as we moved through the maze of hallways, back to the throne room and then my own room, I memorized every twist and turn.
As soon as I had a spare moment, I would slip out again and find my way back.
Lying in my bed, I listened to the sounds going on just outside my room. Like clockwork, there was a guard shift.
One of the demons—one who I thought was maybe in charge, though I tried not to learn their names—would show up with a piece of clay in his hand. Damen would take it, electrify it, then say his own name three times. When he dropped the clay it would take the form of a simulacrum; a kind of temporary golem somewhere between a clone and an enchanted, life-sized doll.
It was creepy as fuck; way creepier than Leon’s double Leo, who actually had a personality and acted alive. The simulacrum of Damen would just stand there, staring at me blankly. And of course it would attack me with its powers if I tried to escape. Powers that came from Damen, so were strong enough to stop me in my tracks.
For all that Damen acted stoic, I’d quickly discovered when they assigned him as my full-time guard that his powers were nothing to be trifled. Out of all the beings who served my mother down here, he was the only one capa
ble of putting me out with a single shock from his powerful lightning. When he made his simulacrums so that he had a chance to do whatever demigods do, they had some of his same power.
Some. But not all. Which was why I was mostly guarded by Damen, and the golems very rarely.
The demons had stopped guarding my door very quickly after I discovered how easy it was to take their energy and turn them into dust. I tried not to think too often about how it felt to do that.
If Naomi could see me now, she would be horrified. No doubt they all would be. The only one who might understand was Vincent, which said something. Only a dark fae could understand me now.
As I put together the plan for my final and most important escape attempt, one question plagued me: did I even have a home to go back to?
“Time to trade off.” The voice was of the demon guard leader, who had come to replace Damen with his simulacrum. “Tired of watching over the Princess yet?”
“There’s not much watching to speak of,” Damen said, in a far more pleasant voice than the one he usually used with me. “I mostly just stand here near her door.”
“Easy job. The one we’ve got is trouble. You should’ve seen when—”
In a sharp voice Damen said, “Keep it down.”
I stiffened in bed, wondering if he knew how well I could hear them talking. The moment passed, and their voices turned into murmurs. I waited until I heard the telltale sound of pottery creaking to life, followed by Damen’s footsteps as he walked away.
The coast was clear.
Licking my lips, I prayed to every god there might be out there listening—except, of course, my mother. And I gathered Elah’s shadow form to me, then slowly eased the door open. It swung in, not out.
The golem looked over at the crack, its face expressionless. “Do not attempt to escape.”
It was creepy to have Damen’s eyes stare right through me in a lifeless, soulless face. Gathering my courage, I leapt out of the room before the simulacrum could do anything and put my hands on him. Using all of the power I’d discovered while surviving in the Underworld, I drained his powers from him.