Page 2 of Unholy Bond
The windows filtered in a red light that shifted and flickered from the flames in the fields and pits of Hell beyond the castle walls. Heavy, thick chains hung from the stone walls at regular intervals. Their purpose was both obvious and unnecessary. Manacles to chain up the tortured souls who were unfortunate enough to be victims of Satan’s own spiteful molestations. Along with those there were several braided chain nooses hanging along the wall. Made for those poor souls who wanted the suffering to end only to find they couldn’t die, that the misery was eternal.
The temptation was there to give it a shot, perhaps escape whatever Lucifer had planned for me, but I’d never give Lucifer the satisfaction of my death. Not again.
Memories of my past lives came back, peeling open in layers like an onion. The first was a flash of the penthouse, huge glass windows looking out upon the city, Lucifer latching onto me, stealing me away. Ian’s muscular arms wrapping around mybody pulling me against his lean physique, Aziz’s laughter, those perfect white teeth and that gorgeous face. I ached with longing for both of them. Another burst of memory brought the image of Levi’s sharp grin to mind, bright and effortless, a glitter of hot mischief in his eyes. I lingered those memories the longest. The men I had started to fall in love with. Though I’d never let myself admit it. Their absence pressed in on me harder than any chain or barred window here.
Then, like a photograph slowly developing, the older memories surfaced, slithering up from beneath the floorboards of my mind, seeking any crevice through which to enter. They struck with the violence of a storm, crashing into me with vicious force, recollections dragged up from the darkest most hidden recesses of my mind. The first time I’d stood outside of time and looked at the world from above, everything webbed in hunger, need, and want. The shock of hearing my own name on ancient tongues, a name I’d never learned but always known. The thrill and near sexual satisfaction of rebellion. Standing before a power that had formed the universe from nothing, that called itself Father. The first time I smiled knowing I could undo him, even if it cost me everything.
I am Lilith.
I nearly choked on the sound of it in my mind, like a bone caught in my throat. Not Evelyn, not the meek, sunlit girl from rural Wisconsin with hands made for typing or cradling the sick. I looked down at those hands now. The surface of my left hand shimmered, inked with spider-thin lines, scars or perhaps something else. Something newer. I watched the marks and knew they were not wounds, but words. The language beneath language, thrumming beneath the skin. I flexed my fingers, and the marks rippled, hungry for action.
The bed’s velvet coverlet twisted between my fingers as I clutched it. Something was building within me. Something that had the expectant surging sensation of an orgasm ready to crash around me. I gasped, my body shivering. I arched my back, pushing off the weight of sleep or memory. A slithery pulse of…somethingslipped from deep in my mind into the rest of me, like a thick cock gliding in, entering me to show a new world. Then, like a lightning bolt, I understood. The first taste of power hit with a dizzy, strobe-bright rush. I sucked in another breath, hissing it across clenched teeth. All the rules of the universe laid bare and ready to be snapped. Sky, clouds, stars, the abyss, the gates of Heaven, the walls of Hell, all of it at my fingertips, ready to be cradled and cared for or shattered like glass. My mouth went dry.
Lurching from the bed, I swung my feet around to the floor, lifting myself up, and as soon as I stood, the stone floor leached heat from my soles. It was like walking on solid ice. Suppressing a shiver, I padded across the room toward the door. It was made of the same black marble as the walls but layered with twisting sigils. Lucifer’s warding glittered just beneath the surface, shimmering faintly as though lit from behind by flames. Impossible to see for anyone else, perhaps, but I could sense every flaw, every hairline fracture. His power reeked of old gold, cigarette smoke, the taste of iron on a bitten tongue. It was layered, arrogant, filled with his own hubris. But it was not perfect, and I couldsenseit.
I ran my palm along the seam where the edge met the frame, and the magic prickled. It repelled me with an almost loving push, the way a predator nuzzles its prey before the bite, nudged away like magnets of opposite polarities pushing each other away. I smiled despite myself, rolled my shoulder, gritted my teeth, and leaned harder, just to see how much it would hurt. The magicpushed back, again. Harder this time, sending a jolt through my arm, but the pain tasted sweet.
“You always were predictable,” I said aloud, surprised at the gravel in my voice. It didn’t sound like me. It didn’t sound like anyone I’d ever been.
I tested the windows next. They were wide but cross-barred, latticed with iron that gleamed dull red in the eternal twilight. Through them, the pits of Hell yawned, tier after tier of flame and torment, punctuated by the occasional rising tower or citadel. Distantly, like spring birds singing, the shouts, shrieks, and cries of the damned. Their sound washed across me like soothing lotion on dry, cracked skin. The air that drifted through was hot. The bitter tang of dust, burnt flesh, and ashes, slipped into my nose, forcing a cough from my lungs. The hellscape extended on, an unknowable distance toward the black horizon.
As I explored my prison, the strangeness of my body became impossible to ignore. The limbs were mine, but lighter, more precise. My center of gravity had shifted. My hair was still long, but finer, floating as if underwater. Every movement sparked some new awareness: muscle moving under skin, bone shifting, the way the room’s energy crawled up my legs with each step. I stopped before one of the chains and wrapped my fingers around a single link. It was cool and inert, but a tingle ran up my wrist just the same.
Was it only yesterday that I’d believed in hope? That I’d tried to pray for my own soul? The name “Evelyn” hovered in my mind, foreign as a word in a dead language, strangely uncomfortable, like a shirt put on backward. I mouthed it, then “Lilith,” and knew the latter was the truer fit. The divide was stark and clean. If this was a test, I had already failed, or passed, depending on which side you watched from.
Something shifted outside the door. A shiver of air, the faintest click. I listened, hoping for more, but heard only silence. Paranoia, or maybe expectation. If Lucifer wanted to see me break, he’d have to do better than pretty marble, satin sheets, and seclusion. I grinned, lips stretching over my teeth. There was power within me. Power I’d neverdreamedof when Evelyn was the only name I knew.
I retreated to the bed, perching at the edge. The fabric of the sheets stuck to my thighs, static rising, building. My chest tightened, not with fear, but with anticipation. Across from the bed an ornate mirror sat bolted to the onyx-colored marble wall. I peered into it, inspecting myself. My eyes were wrong: too pale, nearly colorless, rimmed in some faint, inhuman glow. The eyes of an angel…or a devil?
I bunched my fists in the bedding, gathered every ounce of memory, rage, and longing. For Aziz, for Ian, for Levi. Their names still a soft ache in my belly. I wished them here, wished them beside me, wished them anything but gone. I loved them so much,neededthem so much, that it hurt me physically. Never before hadanyman, much lessthree menmade me feel so wanted, so desired, or craved. I yearned for the feel of their fingers on my skin, the scent of their hair, the taste of their cocks as they slid over my tongue. For a moment, I considered praying. Old habits dying a slow death, but the words burned to ash before they ever reached my tongue. Anger and irritation. I was no one’s supplicant now.
The rage crested, sudden as a storm. It was the old hunger, the one that had toppled gods and made mortals into saints. I pulled the fury up from my gut and out through my arms, aiming it at the far corner of the room. Power built behind my teeth and eyes, and when I released it, the sound cracked like a rifle shot.Marble splintered, a vein of black running jagged up the wall. The impact left me lightheaded, ears ringing, hands tingling.
Through the fissure, I glimpsed something moving. It was darker than a shadow. It slithered closer, pressing against the breach like a tongue through broken teeth. I recognized it, though it had been lifetimes since last we’d met. The Void. My old companion, my punishment, my birthright. It was eager. It remembered.
“Hello, beautiful,” I whispered, and the darkness shivered in delight. But before I could do more, the wards shone bright, Lucifer’s magic closing the wound in the stone. The fissure vanished, but not before a thin tendril of the Void seeped through, curling around my wrist like a promise.
The effort left me shaking. I collapsed backward onto the bed, letting the velvet swallow me. Every nerve vibrated with aftershock of a hundred volts of memory and self-disgust. For a moment, I thought of Aziz and his strength, his certainty, the way he’d held me up even when he wanted to destroy me. I thought of Levi, effortless and bright as a new penny, and Ian, who’d loved darkness almost as much as I did. The names ached, but less than the knowledge that none of them could save me from myself.
I stood again. My hands fumbled at the knot of my robe, slow and deliberate. I pulled the cloth away, letting it slide to the floor in a soft puddle. The air hit my skin like a challenge. I stretched out on the bed, arms spread, hair fanned against the pillow. I closed my eyes and whispered into the emptiness, “Come and get me, then.”
My name was Lilith, and I would see this prison burn.
Chapter 2: Aziz
The penthouse belonged to a hedge-fund couple who’d spent a decade filling it with white leather, polished stone, and art that cost more than the gross domestic product of small countries. Ian had glamoured the couple to take a trip to Monaco for the month when we decided to bring Evelyn here.
It was after midnight, and the place was still. The only sound was the rain hitting the glass walls, dragging the night down in thick silver sheets. All the city’s light leaked through the cloud cover and pooled at the base of the towers, miles below, so the suite floated in a cold bruise of sky. The only illumination inside was a small lamp on the bar, a sodium lowlight that made the bottles sweat and turned the edges of the room feral.
I sat in the dark, hunched on the sofa, every muscle wrapped tight as baling wire. My hands, so steady in the violence of centuries, shook now. I pressed them to my face and inhaled, hoping to catch her scent on my skin, anything to prove she hadn’t been a hallucination.
I tried every trick I’d learned during my long existence to track Evelyn. Focus on the void at the core of your own chest. Listen for her heartbeat in the warp of the world. Sift the air for a single molecule of her sweat, her hair, the residue of her spit or her sex or her terror. Nothing. Not even a ghost of a taste.
I gripped the edge of the coffee table so hard my fingernails scored the marble, anger boiling within me.
“Evelyn,” I said, as quiet as I could. Not a prayer. I’m not built for those. But the name always produced a response, a tug at thebase of my tongue, a hum behind my eyes. This time, it bounced off the walls and died in the carpet.
I tried again. “Lilith.”
