by Cate Corvin
Hell to Pay
RAZING HELL BOOK 2
Cate Corvin
Hell to Pay
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. Melisande
3. Melisande
4. Melisande
5. Melisande
6. Melisande
7. Melisande
8. Melisande
9. Melisande
10. Melisande
11. Melisande
12. Azazel
13. Melisande
14. Melisande
15. Melisande
16. Melisande
17. Melisande
18. Tascius
19. Melisande
20. Melisande
21. Melisande
22. Melisande
23. Melisande
24. Lucifer
25. Melisande
26. Melisande
27. Belial
28. Melisande
29. Melisande
30. Melisande
About the Author
1
Melisande
“Are you happy, Lady Wrath?”
His hiss carried just far enough to reach my ears. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could get out a single word, Belial strode down the bone steps of his dais and held out a hand, like a gentleman offering to escort me.
His smile was so hard, with all the brittleness of a diamond. “Your freedom. It’s yours. Here, let me show you out. I wouldn’t want you to waste another moment of your life in my presence.”
The backs of my eyes burned with unshed tears. “Belial…”
“Come now,” he said, crooking his fingers. “You wanted it so badly, let’s see what you make of it.”
I felt like I was floating outside my body as I rose to my feet, sending several dark feathers spiraling into the stands below. Like a dream, I descended the steps and took his hand, instinctively memorizing the warmth of his skin and the rough calluses like I would never feel them again.
I shoved that thought away forcibly. I would have him once I’d said my piece. Once I made it clear that this wasn’t to get away from him, but to finally stand as a free equal next to him.
He pulled me across the arena into the hall leading to his quarters. For a brief second, I choked on a sigh of relief- we would be somewhere private, where I could explain.
I hadn’t stolen to hurt him, I wasn’t rejecting him- I just couldn’t live my life under a yoke not of my own choosing.
“Belial, I didn’t do this to get away from you-”
He held a finger to his lips, that cruel smile still pasted on them. The rage glittering in his eyes would’ve shut me up if that single terse gesture hadn’t.
The doors opened, but not on his chambers. The Prince of Wrath pulled me into the twilight gloaming of his stable yard, where Capheira’s bright flickers filled the air like summer lightning.
Realization hit hard, with all the finesse of a freight train.
He really did mean to kick me out.
I’d won my freedom, but unlike his other warriors, my conniving and thieving had made me persona non grata in his half of the Seventh Circle.
“Please, Belial, I don’t… I didn’t do this with the intention of leaving,” I said, unable to keep the strain of desperation from my voice as I tugged against him. He kept my wrist firmly clasped in his powerful grip.
Belial gestured to the imps as Azazel materialized in the courtyard in a flurry of smoke. “Belial, think of what you’re doing,” he warned, his violet gaze glacially cold.
“This is no business of yours.”
Belial’s voice was rough and strained, his free hand clenched so hard his knuckles were white.
To my surprise, Azazel just shook his head, casting me an unreadable look. “We’ll be waiting for you, Melisande. Lucifer will… he intends to ensure your path home is clear.”
Everything felt like it was happening from a thousand miles away and I was a ghostly observer.
This couldn’t be real. The Brightside of the Seventh Circle was my home.
He couldn’t make me go.
Azazel’s lips tightened as he looked me over, but he gave one last warning look at Belial and vanished.
My chained followers were streaming into the stable yard as well, silently flowing from around the side of the arena.
“You’ll be safe enough,” Belial said, unable to sound careless through gritted teeth. “You’ve got the Watcher-prick and the Morningstar.”
“That’s unfair,” I whispered around a tongue that felt thick. Pain radiated from my newly-empty palm, up through my arm and shoulder, nestling in my chest like a nest of writhing snakes. It was hard to breathe around the ache. “I don’t want to leave.”
“No?” Belial’s lips were white at the edges. “You bet on half of my Circle for the fucking fun of it, is that it?”
The imps led Capheira into the twilight, saddled with the custom tack. He picked me up and put me on her back but jerked away the moment I was settled, like his hands had been burned by the mere contact.
I stared down at him, my vision finally blurring with the tears I’d been unable to hold back, and he briefly touched his chest with a grimace.
In the same place where I felt an aching void.
When he saw me looking, he pulled his hand away, his face taking on a hard cast.
“Is wanting to keep me in a cage any better than what I did?” I asked, a thin sliver of anger cutting through the pain and exhaustion. I couldn’t help but rub my own hand, my breath shortening with every spike of pain. “I can remain here as a free angel!”
Belial’s nostrils flared and he leaned in close. It was so tempting to reach out and touch him, but his rage was shimmering off him like a heatwave. “Did I ever keep you in a cage?”
His voice was almost unintelligible, thick with pure fury.
“Did I ever treat you poorly? Did I chain you? Shackle you? Starve you?”
I said nothing, every defense I could’ve thought of completely deserting me. My throat tightened around a knot, swelling painfully as I shook my head.
“Maybe you should’ve had a little more faith in me,” Belial said. His hair was becoming gold, his form trembling. “Now go.”
“And if I won’t?” My tears broke free, sliding down my cheeks.
“GO!”
His roar crashed us over like thunder. I cringed, my eardrums aching, and Capheira broke into a gallop, fleeing the bone-trembling force of Belial’s wrath. The ground beneath us was trembling like an earthquake, growing worse by the second.
I gripped her reins for dear life as lightning sparked under her hooves, looking back over my shoulder to see the flaming tail of a lion whip around the side of the arena and vanish.
“Stop,” I gasped, but Capheira kept running, and another earth-shattering roar rumbled down the tiers of the Circles.
A dark shape lunged in from the str
eets, grabbing Capheira’s reins and pulling her to a halt. I gripped the saddle as she reared, kicking out with sharp hooves, but the cloaked demon held her fast until she hit the ground on all fours again.
I swiped my sleeves across my eyes, wiping away tears. The dim fires in the abyss of Dis were growing brighter, throwing off flares like a storm-
A dark shape swooped overhead, plunging past the Circles into the Pit.
Lucifer.
He rocketed downwards, vanishing into that cold fire as my followers surrounded me.
“My Lady.” One of them touched my leg, the barest sensation that called my attention. I looked down, blinking gritty eyes, but it was impossible to see past the dark depths of that hood. “The Dragon stirs. We must leave and find shelter.”
I nodded, but I had no idea where to go.
Belial was home.
The demon didn’t wait for orders, though. He held Capheira’s reins and led her down the street, the demons forming a neat phalanx around us.
I almost choked on hysterical laughter, swallowing it down past the painful lump in my throat.
I didn’t have my prince, but I did have demons who looked ready to murder any living thing that stood in my way. I supposed that was one small comfort.
I lost track of time completely until we reached the demarcation of the Brightside into the Nightside, and Capheira tossed her head in pleasure as we entered perma-twilight. I stroked her mane as the demons led us on the route Belial had once taken me. At least one of us was happy.
To my surprise, they didn’t slow until we reached the broken-down arena of the Nightside.
The ivy had been cleared off the doors, and the demons unlocked the wrought-iron gates, pushing them open. The rusty hinges shrieked, but they opened wide enough to admit Capheira.
I slid from her back in front of the massive ebony doors and a demon led her away.
It was like a mirror-image, but not. Belial’s arena was warmth, his spires protection and comfort.
This place felt like a graveyard.
“Inside, my Lady,” one of the demons muttered, nudging me forward to the crack in the door.
I ground my heels in the dirt, refusing to budge an inch. “I can’t go. I need to find Belial.”
Somewhere above us, there was a lion stalking the wastelands of Hell as the Dragon woke, but if I flew above the city I’d find him for sure. I’d just follow the path of destruction and flames.
“We cannot.” One of the demons stepped forward and took my hands, their eyes glinting in the darkness of the hood. Their tone brooked absolutely no argument. “The breaking of a bond has far-reaching consequences, my Lady. The Dragon almost certainly felt it and knew who it belonged to.”
“But Belial-”
“The Prince of Wrath will be fine, but you must be off the street. He will catch your scent and hunt you.”
I didn’t need the demon to clarify who he was.
Satan knew I was free, no longer under Belial’s protection. The quaking earth, the lightning reaching towards the sky- that wasn’t just Belial’s rage, but Satan’s awakening.
He knew fresh prey, prey given the invitation of a black rose, was wandering his city.
I glanced over my shoulder with a shudder, half expecting to see a scarecrow with goat hooves and a cape of insects to be jerking his way up the street like a puppet.
But the roads and alleys of the Nightside were empty. All the demons had taken shelter as the Dragon rustled in the abyss far below.
“Who are you?” I rasped, allowing the demons to herd me into the darkness of the arena. No, not the arena- my arena.
My ill-won property.
Several lamps flared to life, but the pools of light they cast didn’t touch even a fraction of the darkness around us.
“We serve the Divine Chain, my Lady. We are the Chainlings, the sect devoted to its most unholy mysteries.” A wrinkled hand reached out to stroke my cheek, wiping away the remains of half-dried tears. “You are one of the links in the Chain. We serve.”
Their words barely penetrated the numb haze in my brain. My body still felt eerily disconnected from the rest of me as several of the Chainlings pushed the massive doors shut, blocking off the outside world.
The light became a tiny sliver, then died completely as the doors shut and locked.
It felt more like being buried alive than coming home.
The Chainlings herded me down dark hallways that still smelled musty with disuse, beneath draping cobwebs as thick as bridal veils, until we reached an ebony door.
“We’ve prepared quarters, Lady Wrath,” their leader said, opening the door. Instead of more must, a breath of fresh, lily-scented air washed over us and down the hall. “There are windows, but they are not street-facing. Even so, you must remain inside.”
I nodded, but now that I had something that resembled actual privacy, Satan himself could’ve offered me Heaven on a platter and I would’ve turned it down in favor of locking myself in here alone.
The Chainling bowed her head as I passed and shut the door behind me. I looked around numbly, taking in the freshly-swept floors, the wide bed dressed with pale linen, the large windows opening on a garden. Luminescent moths drifted past the open windows, alighting on glowing flowers.
I crossed slowly to a window, bracing my hand on the frame, but the Chainlings were right. The garden was enclosed in a courtyard within the arena. A massive tree with drooping branches blocked out most of the sight, but from the small slivers I could see, the blood-red tone of the Brightside had crept in to stain the indigo darkness of the Nightside like spilled watercolors.
I was too tired and numb to be alarmed, and left the window, sinking onto the bed.
Everything felt so cold and dark. The pain radiating from my palm was no longer sharp, but had become a dull burn that ate at my veins like fire.
“Belial.” I whispered his name past dry lips. If we were still bound, even the tiniest fraction… he would hear me. I thought his name as hard as I could, every cell in me calling for him.
If he heard, he gave no response.
I curled up on the bed, surrounded by the emptiness I’d won, and stared out the window until the burning in my veins had died away completely.
Once the pain was gone, there was only an emptiness that swallowed everything in me.
2
Melisande
“You’re avoiding him, aren’t you?”
My fingers tightened on the balustrade of the balcony overlooking my new arena even as I forced a smile for Vyra.
“I’m not avoiding anyone,” I said archly. “I’ll go over to the Brightside whenever I damn well please.”
My succubus friend joined me at the balcony, her pale hair glimmering like diamonds in the ghostly light that filled my Nightside arena. Since I’d taken up residence here, she’d hardly left my side.
Below us, my Chainlings toiled over the arena floor and stands, sanding the obsidian until it shone with a polished gleam and sweeping dust down the tiered stairs.
Even with their relentless work, it paled in comparison to the life and vigor flowing through Belial’s arena.
My lips tightened at the memory of his shadowed eyes. He’d barely spoken to me that night, handing me the reins without a backwards glance.
It’d felt like my heart was being shredded. I still felt that way, every empty day without him like a fist squeezing my chest.
I had no choice but to make the Nightside my new home. I’d spilled my own blood on the walls, keying them to my essence. The Cult of the Divine Chain had immediately gone to work after settling themselves in, and it was nearly impossible to walk down a hall without running into one of them.
I still wasn’t used to the way they sometimes reached out to me with almost reverential hands.
Vyra called me out of my memories with a touch on my shoulder, making me jump. “Your lover is fighting tonight.”
I tore my eyes away from the working Chainlings and glance
d at her. Her rose-pink eyes were full of hope.
“Then I’ll go see him.” As the other half of the Seventh Circle, Belial had given me an open invitation to visit his arena whenever I pleased, only days after I’d left like nothing had happened between us. It was the only way I was able to see Tascius. I still wasn’t sure if it was a kindness on Belial’s part, or if he just enjoyed watching me silently yearn for my Nephilim. “Why are you so invested in whether I see Belial or not, anyways?”
Vyra gave me a secretive smile. “I’m a sucker for a happy ending?”
“Mmhmm. I’m sure that’s why.”
She blew out a breath, her glossy lips pursed. “You haven’t been yourself since you left.”
“It’s been one week. How am I supposed to be acting?” I left the balustrade, heading through the dark halls back to my new chamber with Vyra at my side. The Nightside arena was so like the Brightside’s, but so… empty. The halls lacked the same warmth, and it wasn’t due to the constant lack of sun.
It was because it wasn’t Belial’s. It wasn’t the place I’d begun to think of as home.
“You’ve been crankier, for one thing,” she said, pushing my ebony door open. “Crankier than you were when you first fell, and that’s saying something.”
So I might’ve refused to let her paint my chipped nails. In Vyra’s eyes, that was a grave offense.
“Is this because of the nail polish?”
“No,” she snapped, pushing me into the chair. After the Chainlings had cleared out the vast room with the windows overlooking a luminescent garden, she’d had them move in furniture. Most of it seemed designed to please her aesthetic sensibilities rather than be functional, like the little velvet-covered purple pouf she sat me on. “Look, Melisande. I’ve been friends with Belial for many years.”