Hell to Pay: A Paranormal Reverse Harem Romance (Razing Hell Book 2)

by Cate Corvin

I was close enough that I didn’t have to mouth my words. “Someone might think you had this made just for them,” I said, unable to hold back a smile.

  “Someone might be right.”

  He sat on his throne, but every muscle in his body was clenched in anticipation. I twirled the spear and turned to face the Iron Knight.

  The monstrous demon held a two-handed broadsword and came in hard, swinging it in a massive loop.

  I took to the air, leaving several feathers behind. The Iron Knight crashed into the base of Belial’s dais, his sword burying itself in a thigh bone.

  While he strained to pull it back out, I dropped behind him and jabbed the spear at his back, aiming for the weak point between his plate armor.

  The Knight jerked to the side and the tip of my spear skittered off, leaving a dent in the metal.

  I growled, kicking my gauzy skirt out of the way and taking several fluttering leaps backwards as the Knight tore his sword free. He was big and strong, but there was no art to his style. Like a bull, he charged directly at me, screaming behind his helmet.

  I whirled aside, planting the butt of my spear on the floor right in front of his feet.

  The Knight hit it and went flying into the wall, his helmet clanging off the obsidian. While he was clambering to his feet, I jabbed again, this time finding skin beneath.

  My spear point came away bloody.

  “First blood to Lady Wrath!” Belial shouted.

  The Iron Knight glared at me between the slits in his helmet, breathing heavily. His eyes were red as wine.

  I jumped into the air as he charged forward, but this time he expected it. The sharp tips of his gauntlet grazed my calf, ripping away a scrap of cloth along with my skin. Blood spattered on the arena floor.

  “First blood to the Iron Knight.” This time Belial didn’t sound joyous at all, fury roiling under his tone.

  Even a blind, angry bull was nothing to be fucked with. I let a vine of dark fire spill from my hand as I touched down on the opposite side of the arena, favoring my injured leg. His claws had gone deeper than I’d expected.

  The thorns on my vine grew long and sharp, feeding on my pain.

  Oh, but I’d make him feel it, too.

  The Iron Knight didn’t see what hit him. I whipped the vines out, trapping his arms at his sides, and flew into the air to land behind him.

  I jabbed twice more, drawing enough blood to paint half of my spear’s shaft, and had to resist the urge to drive the last strike home to his heart, holding back everything I’d been trained to do.

  “Second and third blood to Lady Wrath,” Belial announced. “My Lady is the champion.”

  I couldn’t be imagining the relief in his voice.

  The Iron Knight broke free of my vines and spun around, howling incoherently.

  He charged at me, ignoring the rules of the fight, and with no time to fly, I raised my spear to either impale him or be crushed by his bulk.

  The Knight stopped dead and was yanked backwards, dangling from a fist.

  Belial glared at him.

  “My Lady won the round,” he said, his voice soft and dangerous. “You disrespect the rules of my arena.”

  Instead of listening, the Knight struggled against his grip, his bloody gaze still focused on me.

  Belial clicked his tongue, and plunged his fist into the Knight’s back, punching right through the steel plate and cage of the demon’s ribs. The Knight shrieked, his body tensing, and he went still as Belial crushed his heart in his fist.

  The Prince of Wrath dropped the Knight’s corpse on the floor. He was breathing hard, but not from exertion.

  It was from sheer anger.

  “No disrespect meant to my Lady,” he said, his teeth a touch too long, and I shook my head.

  “None taken,” I breathed, my heart thumping unevenly at his rage on my behalf.

  Tascius leaned halfway over the spectator box, clearly holding back the urge to come to me.

  Belial held out his unbloodied hand and I took it, relishing the feel of his calloused palm against mine as he raised my fist in the air.

  “No Saint, your Lady of Wrath, wins us all over again!”

  I held up my bloody spear, drinking in the screams of delight.

  God, but it felt good to be home. At Belial’s side, glorying in the violence.

  “I offer a token of penance for my champion’s misbehavior. You’ve earned two warriors of your choice,” he said. He looked down at me, then up at the crowd. “Who will she steal from me?”

  The demons shouted a multitude of names, all of them blending together, but one name stood out above the rest.

  Exile.

  I thought about choosing Belial, too, warping the rules of his own game, but I could repair the rift between us without being coy. I’d already separated two lovers who needed to be back together.

  I spoke loudly enough to let my voice carry over the arena, playing along. “Exile and Blind Luck are mine now. Your loss, my Prince.”

  Belial’s hand tightened around mine. Before Tascius could jump over the arena wall, he leaned in close, almost pulling me into an embrace without caring who saw it. “I wish you every happiness,” he said quietly, completely genuine.

  I looked up at him, my eyes prickling. “Never happy without you,” I whispered back.

  Before Tascius picked me up and planted a deep, slow, and long-overdue kiss on my lips to the demons’ roars of delight, hope flared in Belial’s eyes.

  It was only a small amount of mending, but my heart felt lighter than it’d been in weeks.

  12

  Azazel

  The taste of change was on the air tonight. I felt the glimmer of Belial’s power, the breaking of bonds.

  And the taste of an angel’s happiness.

  My young Nephilim came striding out of the Brightside arena, cradling Melisande against his chest like a prize. He was limping.

  I reached out, examining his inner workings. His leg had been broken in his last fight.

  With a sigh, I pulled my shadows back inside myself, revealing my true face to the light again. Melisande looked up, her eyes brightening even more, if that was possible.

  “You came!” She patted the Nephilim’s chest with her mysteriously-scarred hand, the one she thought she kept hidden from me.

  I’d thought I’d seen true joy on Tascius’s face when I’d first brought him to Belial’s arena and he’d found where he belonged.

  His true home was clearly elsewhere now. He was lit up with happiness, making his angelic heritage even more obvious.

  “Of course I did.” I reached out and touched her, unable to stop myself, like always.

  It was an impossible compulsion to resist. She had no idea how close she’d come to me putting my mark on her permanently, ensuring we were linked forever.

  But I needed to be sure she wanted it. Once it was done, I would die before it would be undone… and maybe not even then.

  Tascius lowered Melisande to the ground, his face tight despite his happiness.

  “Your bones are broken,” I told him. Upon further examination, there was more than one fracture. The bones in his foot had been crushed. It was amazing he was walking at all.

  “I’m fine,” Tascius said stubbornly, but Melisande looked up at him with her brow furrowed.

  She gripped his hand tightly, refusing to let him go. “You’re not fine if your bones are broken, friend. Azazel, does my healing only work on… on injuries caused by the Dragon, or-?”

  “You can heal him.” I ground my teeth with the effort of not snatching her away from him. He was my student for a time, too. He deserved forbearance, even if he’d found a more likely mentor in Belial. “We should go to Blackchapel. I can help you if your magic breaks away from you.”

  Melisande nodded fervently, and gestured to the Chainlings, who’d brought Capheira out. A blind fighter stood next to them, almost humming with tension. “Bring Blind Luck back to my arena, please,” she said, slipping a sug
ar lump to the ghostly horse. “Someone is waiting for him.”

  The Chainlings set off, but Blind Luck held back for a moment. “I can’t take back what I’ve done,” he said slowly. “But I can make up for it.”

  “As long as you two don’t try to cut my throat in my sleep, I think we’ll get on just fine,” she said with a smile, waving him on. His apologies made, Blind Luck hurried after the Chainlings, desperate to get back to the person who’d bound his heart. The cords of it were invisible, but they shone around him with scarlet light.

  Melisande let out a sigh. “I’m glad that’s taken care of. I felt guilty for separating them.”

  “Come, let’s get to Blackchapel.” I extended a hand to Tascius, who raised an eyebrow. “You’re not walking.”

  “Friend, please,” Melisande said softly, tugging him towards me. “Let me do this for you.”

  He looked like he was about to resist, but Melisande’s pleas softened him. I knew that feeling all too well.

  Tascius put his hand in mine and allowed me to dissolve him into stardust, making him weightless.

  Melisande took his other side, linking her hands with what she could of him and spreading her wings.

  Not for the first time, I tried and failed to fathom what the Nephilim must feel like with such a vital part of himself missing. When I’d sacrificed my wings, the pain had driven me to madness, but the gift of the shadows had slowly brought me back.

  He’d had no such mercy, but he hadn’t been broken by it.

  We rose into the air and flew over the Circles, crossing from Brightside to Nightside in silence. Melisande’s wings beat the air rhythmically, and sometimes she glided along, carried on the wind like she was no more than a feather herself.

  Some of the tension emanating from her eased when we passed over Limbo and Blackchapel rose out of the mist.

  She shot upwards to the balcony, beating us by only seconds. I released Tascius as soon as we landed, not wanting to bruise his pride any further.

  The angel looped her arm around his waist and pulled him inside. I paused, looking up at the roof for a familiar figure. Lucifer Morningstar was perched on the rim of a large, round stained-glass window instead of his usual rooftop haunt, gliding down to meet me in the courtyard.

  “I’m glad you’re here. We’ve been putting off this talk for far too long.”

  Lucifer crossed his arms over his chest. “Has anyone ever told you ‘we need to talk’ is the worst way to say hello to someone?”

  I shot him a look.

  The Morningstar wasn’t put off. He knew me too well. “So she has her Nephilim back. Perhaps we can make plans that are a little more concrete, now.”

  “And that’s exactly why we need to talk.”

  We strode into Blackchapel, following Melisande’s perfume to the parlor. She had the big Nephilim stretched out on a velveteen couch, and was already crouched next to him, her hands on his leg and glowing with white fire.

  I jerked my head at the balcony. “Give them space. She has it under control.”

  Lucifer sat on the balustrade, watching Melisande heal Tascius. If he was jealous, he didn’t show it, but his face was hard. “Her magic recognizes us.”

  “Yes.” I leaned back, trying to seem at ease even if every cell in my body was drawn to the pulsing power in her hands. I felt it even from across the room, a steady, pulsing drumming like a heartbeat. “She feels at ease with us all. If any one of us became her enemy, she’d be fucked.”

  “I don’t want to teach her to fear me,” Lucifer said softly. “She has nothing to fear from me. I would never be her enemy.”

  I glanced at him. “You can’t be sure.”

  “I can, and I am.” He glared back, a warning in his silver eyes. “I intend to mark her as mine.”

  My mouth watered at the thought of putting my own mark on her. She had no idea how close she’d come to me losing all control and burning a brand into her.

  It was the little bit of me that cared for free will that had held me back. She would do it consciously and in good faith of what it meant, or not at all.

  “Do you really trust her?” I asked.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” But Lucifer had gone still, his eyes still fixed on the angel healing the Nephilim.

  “You’ve seen the marks on her palm. They were there the night Belial brought her in and bonded to her, which means they were there when she fell.”

  His jaw tightened. “You think they’re why she fell.”

  “I do.”

  Lucifer blew out a sigh. “And what’s your theory? You always have a damn pet theory, Azazel.”

  “Where else have you seen that pattern, Morningstar? Think back a few millennia.” I knew he had the same suspicions I did. She was one of Gabriel’s, and if there was one thing I knew Gabriel was capable of, it was sacrificing one of his own to get closer to the heart of Hell.

  Another thing I knew: Melisande wasn’t capable of pretending her attachment. Her magic responded to us. Whatever she’d been sent for, her feelings for us were real.

  No matter why she’d fallen, Gabriel had made a mistake in giving her up. He would never have her back.

  “On the Sword of Light.” His words were so quiet, I almost didn’t catch them.

  “Yes. She touched it, but she didn’t die. Touching the Sword alone isn’t enough of a sin to break her halo. I believe she was telling the truth: Gabriel cast her out for it.”

  Lucifer looked at me, tearing his eyes away from her reluctantly. “So what’s the problem? She wants the same thing we want. If she survived touching the Sword, all the better, because we need it if we’re going to kill my father.”

  “My problem is how hard she fell.” I felt like snapping, but managed to keep my calm. “She’s only been here for months, and she’s made Hell her home completely.”

  “She’s had us to ease the transition.”

  She had. Without us, she might’ve survived by sheer force of will alone, but she wouldn’t have been happy about it.

  “So she has. But she’s proven to be as cunning as a demon when she has a goal in mind.”

  For once, I found myself at a loss of words, unable to articulate what I really thought. She was cunning and dangerous. Both of these qualities made me like her more, not less.

  I trusted Melisande enough to mark her, and for the first time in millennia, I felt something I’d thought I was immune to: vulnerability.

  I’d never marked someone before. When I finally did, I intended it to last as long as I lived.

  If Melisande kept falling, weaving herself into the tapestry of Hell, she might not feel the same way.

  Lucifer pushed himself off the balustrade, his eyes peering right through me. “Ah, I see now.”

  “Don’t teach your teacher, Morningstar.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve closed yourself off to relationships for so long you no longer see what’s right in front of you. You think they’re something to be held at arm’s length, and now you’re coming up with excuses for why you should push her back.”

  I just stared at him stonily.

  Lucifer and his fucking intuition. He’d been a pain in the ass when he was still my student, too.

  “Well, you can come up with excuses all night and all day for why you should push her away. ‘She touched the Sword’, ‘she was Gabriel’s student’, ‘she’s adjusted to Hell too quickly’,” Lucifer said. He advanced on me, lowering his voice. “Excuses are all they are. How can we expect her to trust in us if we don’t trust in her? If she wants to know that I’m the only thing standing between her and Satan, she gets to know. If she wants to tell me why Gabriel pushed her, she’ll tell us. Trust is a two-way street, Azazel.”

  He strode back towards the parlor, but paused and turned back.

  “I don’t care what she did to fall. I’ll ally with anyone to keep her safe. My only advice to you is to let yourself out of the tomb you’ve locked yourself in. No one blames you for what yo
u are now. Anyone who loves Vyra would get down and thank you for your sacrifice.” Lucifer’s lips tightened. “You’re only punishing yourself now, and you’ll end up alone for all the millennia after this if you find reasons to be suspicious of anyone you might possibly care for.”

  He turned on his heel and drifted closer to Melisande, who was sitting up. The color had come back to my adopted Nephilim’s face, and he pulled the angel onto his lap, burying his face in her hair.

  She laughed and held out a hand to Lucifer, saying something I couldn’t quite hear.

  It was like watching a family, and I was on the other side of a glass wall, seeing everything but separate from it all.

  The void in my chest ached, pulsing for her. It wanted to taste her, touch her… mark her, and never share her.

  If I let that jealous, hungry creature inside take over, I would destroy her happiness.

  But if she was right, if my demon-cunning angel’s soul mended mine…

  I could be happy, too.

  Melisande looked up and saw me watching. She beckoned, a wide smile on her face, inviting me into her happy bubble.

  My fingers tightened. I felt the tomb Lucifer had spoken of, all my iron self-control wrapped around me in layers, holding me back from everything but duty and responsibility. The tomb was necessary. It kept the hunger in check.

  It was a weight on my chest, a vise around my soul. It dragged me into the deepest trenches of darkness, where love was treated as a suspicion and a crime.

  Deep down, I knew I trusted her. She trusted us, her magic linking her to us more deeply every day. If Lucifer and I wanted to accomplish our plans, she was now an irrevocable part of it.

  She’d made Hell her home because of us.

  I exhaled, forced my muscles to loosen. Let the vise break apart. I knew where I stood, where I wanted to belong.

  Then I left my tomb and walked inside.

  13

  Melisande

  It felt like being home, being surrounded by the ones I loved.

  There was just one gap, a hole where another belonged, waiting for him to fill it with his presence.