Page 136 of Hell Bound

“Now, bow to me. Show your lord and master the proper obeisance.”

Now that the chains had tasted obedience, they wouldn’t brook any insolence from me.

My muscles locked up against me as I tried to fight it, but inch by inch, I leaned forward until my forehead touched the floor, my hands braced on the cold stone.

It was exactly like a night, twenty years before, when I hadn’t understood what that sudden terrible weight pulling at my flesh and bones was.

When he had sprung the curse that had enveloped me and my two bodyguards, sending us into paroxysms of rage and terror as we shed our demonic skins and took on the form of wolves, hellfire eating away at our insides.

When he’d forced us to bow to him, his queen at his side, her own fear nearly palpable as she shivered in his shadow.

That was the night I had truly lost everything.

No Lilith. No princedom. No free will.

“You and Lilith share a certain disturbing quality.” Asmodeus walked around me, sipping his drink. He paused in front of me, then deliberately placed his foot over one of my hands, lowering it until the bones creaked. “You believe that there is always hope, that it is some light shining in the darkness for you to follow… but you fail to realize that without power, you can do nothing at all.”

Harder still. I gritted my teeth against the pain, feeling the first fissures form in one of my fingers.

“And this foolish hope of yours, it leads you to do such terribly stupid things.”

His foot pressed down a tiny bit more, threatening to snap the bone entirely… then released, moving away.

“It seems that twenty years was not enough to teach you that lesson. It does astonish me at times how you can cling to it, despite the pain you cause for yourself and everyone around you… but there are others who can teach you that lesson far better than I.”

That icy fist that had squeezed me became a thin chill down my spine.

I smelled her before I saw her.

The cold scent of winter, and beneath it, the sharp tang of blood.

Her steps were a softshushin the hall, and the chains of Asmodeus’s command loosened just enough to allow me to raise my head.

I saw her feet first, then the glittering white skirts that clung to her legs, dripping diamonds like frost.

The long white hair spilling over her shoulders, and the blood-red lips and eyes, swept upwards at the corners and gleaming with cruelty.

“Princess Sameera.” Asmodeus held out a hand, and she extended hers, allowing him to take it and brush a kiss across her knuckles. “Your presence brings me endless pleasure.”

That blood-on-ice scent threatened to make me gag.

Sameera’s husky voice didn’t possess the same warmth as Pypentha’s. “I always look forward to your parties, Asmodeus. And to the delightful gifts you so generously give.”

Something unfurled from her hands, gleaming like fire, and fell to the floor.

I looked at the circular loop hanging before my head, my mind refusing to make immediate sense of it.

The thick band of leather, the interior studded with small, hooked barbs. The heavy golden buckle, the leash trailing upwards into her hands…

She swung the loop playfully, letting out a raspy chuckle. “And is this another gift?”

“Of course. Do whatever you like with him. Play with him, break him… breed him. Anything you desire, it’s yours.”

It was a collar.

“Sit up, Lucifer.”

It was Sameera’s voice, but… the chains around me tightened, jerking my body upright.

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