by Cate Corvin
“I’d rather be dead,” I snarled, but his smile was undimmed.
“You’ll get your chance for that soon enough.” Belial prodded the warhorse along the cusp of the Seventh Circle, following the iron-inlaid stones of the road. Warriors, infernal demons and human shades, watched their Master pass. Every single eye focused on me as soon as they realized he carried a burden, and they began following in a stream to wherever we were going.
My heart thudded when the spires of a massive black building loomed ahead of us. A gate large enough to admit a leviathan stood open, and the denizens of the Circle were spilling inside, filling a massive amphitheater.
I instinctively knew this was where I was going to make my last stand.
“I’m offering you a chance, angel.” The other arm Belial had wrapped around my waist tightened. “You’re going to fight in my arena. If you lose, you’ll be bait for my hellhounds. It’s been a long while since we’ve had a good dogfight.”
My lips curled back again. Hellhounds were the epitome of vicious, all hunger and no conscious thought.
Being their bait would be an agonizing death.
“If you win, you live to fight another day. You will belong to me, body and soul, but you’ll have a chance to earn your freedom.”
I wanted to shove him off this damn horse over the side of the Circle and see how long it took him to splatter on Satan’s throne, so far below it was invisible. “Doesn’t sound like much of a deal.”
“I’m not giving you a choice. You win and live, or you lose and die. Those are the terms.” I shivered when he ducked his head again, speaking into my ear. His lips stirred my hair. “I hope you choose to live, angel. It’s been so long since someone’s had a strong enough death wish to tell me to fuck myself.”
No matter how young or beautiful he looked, I couldn’t forget that he was ancient. A demon didn’t rise to become the Prince of a Circle unless they were able to prove it in blood.
I was only alive now because he thought I was amusing. If he’d wanted to, he could’ve trampled me into the sand out in the wasteland until my remains were indistinguishable from any other dead thing out there.
Fortunately- or maybe unfortunately- I was full of the fires of vengeance and determined to live, so his amusement wasn’t likely to stop any time soon.
“Don’t worry, my Prince,” I growled mockingly, gritting my teeth as we passed under the gates. Tiny red-skinned demons with prehensile tails held several dangling flags, declaring their master was back in the house. “If I live, I’ll make sure I tell you every day. Possibly every five minutes, just to be sure you don’t forget.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Anything else I wanted to say was drowned out by the roar that rose up from the spectators. The warhorse trotted across the floor of an obsidian arena, hooves striking sparks as it passed. I couldn’t help but gaze up at the thousands of people with wide eyes, awed by the sheer numbers and their frenzied screams.
Several daises were raised above the arena floor, giving an up-close view of the bloodshed, but only one was draped with bones, tusks, and horns like the throne of a pagan god-king.
A thin, scarlet-haired woman was chained at the base. She sat on the thigh bone of a creature that had never walked the earth, a moon-pale porcelain mask covering her face. Iron manacles hung from her neck and wrists, the chains disappearing under the mess of bones.
I felt her eyes on me, even though I couldn’t see them.
Belial stopped the horse in front of the dais and dismounted. I licked my dry lips as he pulled me down. The obsidian floor was warm under my bare feet, and I almost cringed when I took the first step up the bone stairs alongside him, with Belial’s gauntlet wrapped around my elbow.
Even if I broke away now, there was nowhere to run.
The bones flexed and creaked under our steps, and the masked woman’s gaze followed me as I passed. I half-expected her to lunge at me, with the way her nails were curled in her lap like she was waiting for her moment to strike.
We reached the top, and she turned her head away. Belial faced the arena, gazing out at his people with a flare of pure happiness in his eyes.
“Did I promise you fresh meat?”
His voice rang through the arena, magically amplified so the bass rumble of it echoed in my bones. My toes curled against the floor when the vibrations rippled through me.
The crowd screamed back in the affirmative. Nice to know that I was just meat now.
Belial held his arms out wide like a showman. He was in his element, basking in the screams and bloodlust of the crowd.
“I have something special for you.” The calmness in his voice was more terrifying than if he’d growled. “The likes of which you’ve never seen on this floor, and might never see again.”
A small demon girl was sitting on her father’s shoulders, only fifteen feet below me. Her vivid yellow eyes goggled at me curiously, and she held a tiny bone sword that she shook overhead.
I tore my gaze away, shivering.
Belial’s voice grew louder, a touch of mania growing into a full-blown explosion. “Shut the doors and raise your swords! Let’s see how easily holy blood spills!”
The leviathan doors of the arena creaked, swinging inwards until they gained speed and slammed shut with a rattling boom. The bone dais trembled, both from the reverberation and from the crowd’s fervor.
I gazed out at the lights of the arena glinting off ten thousand swords, raised overhead in a wave. The little girl was shaking hers in a frenzy, mouth open in a scream that was lost in the noise.
I was numb as Belial pushed me in front of him. It was like walking through a terrible fever dream I’d wake up from at any moment.
“Here’s your fresh meat! She fell from Heaven, but I promise you she’s no saint!”
Belial ripped away the cloak he’d given me, exposing my black wings, the tattered remains of my shift.
A surreal moment of silence fell over the arena, screams dying in their throats. After the incessant roar, it felt like my ears were popping from the sheer lack of sound.
When I’d died, I’d thought there was no sensation in living memory that could be more penetrating than the holy light of Heaven piercing through a soul and washing away all their sins.
I’d been wrong. The demons’ eyes burned my skin, set me aflame with hate and rage. They stared at me with greed, lust, anger. There were so many of them.
Belial pressed something into my hand and pushed me. I staggered down the stairs into the now-empty arena floor. It was just me in what seemed like an endless circle of darkness.
I raised my hand, which felt like a brick of lead attached to my wrist, and saw that he’d given me a sword. It was old, rusted metal, but the point was still sharp.
The rattle of chains warned me that the chained woman had moved. I lunged forward into the center of the arena, spinning around to see her iron-tipped nails retracting into her lap.
But she wasn’t the one I was fighting tonight.
The dais to my left was dark, the chair at the top enshrouded in living shadows. I barely made out the movement of figures inside it, but it wasn’t the observers I should’ve been worried about.
A metal gate opened at the base of the arena, hidden in the shadows of the dais. A woman crawled out on all fours, skittering like a lizard across the arena floor.
She reached the center, only feet away from me, and rose to her feet, raising her own sword overhead. A spike-studded braid hung to the backs of her knees, whipping around as she soaked up the chanting crowd.
I realized they were shouting a name. Her name, from the way she beamed at them. “SNAKE BITE! SNAKE BITE!”
I snorted. Snake Bite, really?
I rolled my shoulders and shook out my arms, suddenly renewed with a surge of purpose.
There was no fucking way I was going to die in the Seventh Circle to an idiot named Snake Bite. Winning this match was now a matter of principle.
At the sound of my snort, Snake Bite spun on her heel. Her name made sense when she opened her mouth in a wordless shout.
The insides that should’ve been pink were grayish-white, and her long, translucent teeth leaked fluid from their hollow tips. Slit pupils flared and retracted as she studied me.
I hefted my sword, feeling the agony and exhaustion of my fall, but I pictured the archangels to stoke my internal furnace of rage. If I killed Snake Bite, there was a tiny sliver of a chance I’d live long enough to fight my way out of here and utterly annihilate their world.
That sounded way better than just laying down and dying the way Gabriel expected me to.
“I’ll keep your wings on my wall as a reminder,” Snake Bite hissed. “That even an angel is no match for the Serpentine Sisters.”
I managed a tight smile, not bothering to knock a stray strand of hair out of my eyes even though there was something wrong with the color. I was already this close to collapse. Any jerky movement would be my undoing if I wasn’t careful.
“That’s precious.” I held back a hiss of pain as I gripped my sword tighter. My burned palm felt like it’d been jabbed full of needles. “Maybe I’ll keep your fangs as a reminder that I was lucky enough not to end up with a name like Snake Bite.”
We circled each other carefully. I caught a glimpse of Belial sitting on his throne of bones, elbows braced on his thighs and watching with intense interest. He’d dropped all the showmanship to see how his latest acquisition performed.
There’d be time for Belial later. Right now, every muscle in my body was quivering in anticipation of a strike from Snake Bite.
She tossed her braid again, showing off for the crowd, and lunged in with the speed of her namesake.
The blade kissed my bare thigh, opening a line of white fire on my skin. A hot trickle of blood poured over my leg, pooling on the obsidian floor. I almost slipped in the wetness as I backed away, cursing my slow reflexes.
“Any other clever insults, angel?” She smirked at me, which looked grotesque around the teeth in her mouth, and angled her sword to catch the light. A bead of my blood rolled down the blade.
I didn’t bother to shake my head. She wasn’t worth the energy.
She struck again, and I blocked mechanically, every blow jarring me to the bone. Snake Bite was thin as a whip, but she was stronger than she looked, and twice as fast as I’d given her credit for.
All I had on my side was desperation.
I was panting ten minutes later, my wings drooping with weariness. The roar of the crowd had faded to the background, a sound like ocean surf while my heartbeat hammered in my ears. Blood dripped in my eye from the slash she’d opened on my forehead.
They were chanting her name, begging for the kill. Telling her to slash my wings from my corpse.
Over my dead body.
Snake Bite looked more irritated than anything. She finally hissed, her pupils dilating again. “Let’s end this. You bore me.”
From the corner of my eye, Belial leaned forward, his long dark hair framing his intent face.
“End it, then. I’ve been waiting for you to take this seriously.” My thighs trembled with exertion as we circled again, tightening the loop until she was within striking distance.
She hit first, but instead of a blade, her fist smashed forward into my face. I ducked my head the last moment and her fist grazed my cheek, but it was hard enough to rattle me. My blade thrust up, intending to gut her, but Snake Bite was quick as ever and dodged it.
Her knee blasted into my stomach. I choked as pain radiated outwards, my worn-out limbs trying to curl around the point of impact. Snake Bite raised her blade, intending to bring it down on my head.
All I saw was Gabriel laughing. Knowing I was a dead woman as soon as I hit Hell.
I couldn’t let him be right.
I swung hard, knocked her sword aside, and barreled into her. Snake Bite went skidding across the floor, dropping her blade, and I summoned every last drop of energy I had to flap my wings and burst into the air. It felt so good, being airborne once more, but the strain was too much. I dropped on her, plunging my sword down into her-
She slithered aside and my rusted blade shattered on impact with the obsidian, the hilt skidding across the smooth arena floor.
Sharp talons dug into my sides, breaking skin and finding my ribs. I screamed, the fresh agony blotting out all rational thought in a white-hot blur.
I didn’t come back to myself until it was over. I panted, blood dripping from my open mouth and spattering across Snake Bite’s lifeless face and glazed-over eyes.
Her throat was an open ruin of red. I gagged, spitting her blood on her body and crawling away.
I’d done that. I’d ripped out her throat with my teeth.
The roar of the spectators was so loud it broke through the hammering pulse in my ears. I didn’t have the energy to fight off the strong hands that lifted me up. All I could do was collapse against the warm body holding me upright, feeling like a puppet as someone raised my fist in the air for me.
Belial’s booming voice filled my head like a gong. “Raise your swords for Heaven’s renegade!” The answering cheer was deafening.
I looked up at him, catching those gleaming aqua eyes. He’d dropped the smirks, the flirtation, as he looked back down at me.
He just looked hungry deep down in his soul. Carnal interest battled the fires of wrath, like he couldn’t decide which he wanted more: to fuck me or fight me.
I was beyond caring.
“You’re mine now, angel,” he whispered.
There was nothing I could do as he dragged me to the dark, mysterious dais, where two figures waited in their shroud of shadows. The shadows parted like a veil of mist, and Belial dropped me at the feet of a towering figure in a throne of black glass.
I looked up at him, through blood and exhaustion, and realized just how bad my life in Hell could get.
3
Melisande
Dark tattoos swirled over the titan’s golden skin from his throat to the ridges of his knuckles, disappearing below the waistband of his pants. Dark blonde hair was brushed back from his cruel, sculpted face.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the enormous black wings framing his broad shoulders. Colors like an oil slick- purple, blue, yellow- slid across each feather in a dark rainbow.
“Lucifer Morningstar,” I tried to whisper, but all I did was mouth the words. My voice had shriveled up and died as soon as I saw him.
His silver eyes flashed as he looked me over. That quicksilver gaze was penetrating, a blade gliding over my skin.
The last thing I wanted to show in front of him was weakness, but I’d used up my last reserves, and then some. There was no way to stand up and face him in this condition.
I twitched when a smoky form appeared from the shadows at his shoulder, like a ghost spangled with stardust. I had the fleeting impression of violet eyes and a hard face, and then he was gone again. Whoever he was.
“She refuses to speak.” Belial didn’t sound put out at all; more like I was an unusual puzzle he was trying to figure out. “Well, except for the word fuck. That’s most of what I’ve gotten so far. I’m calling in one my favors, Lucifer. Get what you can out of her.”
“Your charm wasn’t enough, Belial?”
The glittering ghost was the one who spoke, a vague impression of him materializing from the shadows again. For all his ethereal nonexistence, his baritone voice was solid and precise, as cold as Lucifer’s gaze.
Belial just smiled, an expression that sent a chill down my spine. “I don’t think she’s quite ready for my charm yet.”
If his idea of giving me a chance to live was tossing me in an arena against a woman with a snake’s mouth, I sincerely doubted I wanted to experience his ‘charms’ anytime soon. He could keep them to himself.
Despite the ache in my bones, I tried to get to my feet. I wanted to face Lucifer Morningstar, the worst of my kind, standing tall like a war
rior.
Belial’s hand descended on my shoulder and gently squeezed, forcing me back down on my knees.
Lucifer leaned forward, bracing his forearms on his knees. Even with the iciness in his eyes and the black ink staining his skin, it was still possible to make out the heavenly beauty that God had blessed him with before Lucifer threw it all away.
Gabriel had warned my choir about him. If you ever come face to face with Lucifer, forget your pride and run.
“Little angel,” Lucifer murmured. I closed my eyes, but something touched me under my chin, forcing my face up. I caught the faintly spicy scent of him. “Open your eyes.”
I shook my head, but his hand didn’t move. His gentle touch was incongruous with the horror I had of him.
“Open. Your. Eyes.”
This time there was power in the command. I fought his magic, but the order was impossible to resist. My eyelids flicked open, and everything around me went blurry as I stared back into pools of mercury.
“What is your name?”
My lips drew back over my teeth in a snarl, but I answered him. “Melisande.”
Belial let out a soft noise behind me as he repeated my name, like he was burning it into his mind.
Lucifer said nothing, studying my soul. Peering right through me like a glass. Everything that made me me was laid bare before that gaze.
“Which choir did you belong to, Melisande?”
Tears welled and spilled over my cheeks. His gaze burned, touching something inside me. I let out a strangled noise before his power forced me to answer. “The Choir of Righteous Fury.”
I jerked when Belial laughed, another open-throated roar. From the corner of my eye I saw him throw back his head, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. “Righteous Fury? How adorable. Your desperation is showing, Gabriel.”
If Gabriel heard, he gave no sign.
Lucifer’s thumb stroked my chin, a master reassuring a nervous dog. I drew a shuddering breath, the strain of fighting him a knife in my brain.
“Melisande of Righteous Fury. Why did you fall? Did you choose this?” A hidden emotion flickered in his gaze, stealing my breath- was that hope?