Page 22 of Unholy Bond
He laughed, a sound halfway between a sob and a growl, and pressed his mouth to mine. The kiss was brutal, teeth scraping, tongues fighting, a memory of every time we’d loved and hated and killed together. I tasted blood—his and mine, indistinguishable now—and let it pool on my tongue before swallowing it.
Aziz’s hand went to his pocket. He held up a thin black ring.
“We go as one,” he said, the words roughened at the edges.
I took it. We went to war, not wedding. I slid it onto my middle finger. “We come back the same way.”
Ian’s turn was less dramatic, but no less final. He stood, the old pain gone from his eyes, and kissed me once on each cheek, then on the mouth. His hands shook, but when he pulled back, his gaze was steady. “Let’s fuck him up,” he said. “Let’s take this place for ourselves.”
Levi wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me down onto the bed in a tangle of arms and legs. His mouth found the soft part of my shoulder, and he bit down, hard enough to mark but not enough to hurt. “No speeches,” he said. “Just action.”
The three of them held me there, limbs woven together, bodies sticky with blood and sweat and a need that made the Void inside me sing. I let it out, just a little, and the air thickened. The cracks in the walls began to weep black, the edges smoking with shadow. I could hear Lucifer’s rage from a thousand miles away, could feel his claws trying to breach the barrier around the room, but the Void held strong.
I pressed my lips to each of theirs in turn, sealing the pact with the only magic I trusted. “You’re mine,” I said. “Forever. No more running. No more dying for someone else’s plan.”
They nodded, all three, and for a moment, the bedchamber was silent except for the low, greedy hum of the Void.
I stood, untangling myself from their arms, and faced the ruined door. The runes flashed, then died. I pressed my hand to the marble, and the black veins snaked out from my skin, crawling up the walls and across the shattered threshold. They sealed the cracks, fused the door back into place, then spread out in a web that shimmered with a light I’d never seen before, a darkness so pure it glowed.
Lucifer would never see what happened here, not unless I wanted him to. For the first time in my afterlife, I had privacy. I had allies. I had a plan.
I turned to face my men. “We have work to do,” I said, and the words came out expectant.
They smiled, and the Void inside me purred, content.
I sat up, dragging the sheet around myself more out of habit than shame. The Void buzzed beneath my skin. The three men watched me as if expecting a benediction.
“Lucifer thinks he can break me,” I said. The words surprised me with their steadiness. “That’s why he dragged me here. He wanted to peel apart the layers, strip out the human, and use what’s left to plug a hole in the dam.”
Aziz grunted, rolling to his feet. “He’s done it before. He’ll keep doing it.”
Ian’s lip curled in contempt. “You think you’re the first. You’re just the latest.”
“He thinks I’m just a vessel,” I said. “He knows the Void is inside me. He thinks if he controls me, he can control it.”
Levi snickered. “He never learned the difference between a parasite and a partner.” He rolled onto his stomach, chin propped on his fists, and looked up at me with mischievous eyes. “So what’s the plan, O Great Vessel?”
I smiled. “I’m going to seduce him,” I said. “I’m going to let him think he’s winning, until the Void and I are strong enough to take him out.”
Aziz’s tail twitched, a little too hard. “Seduce?” The single word came out as a growl.
I met his glare. “I don’t mean in the cute way. I mean I’ll get him alone, get close enough to tear out his heart and eat it in front of the entire palace. But until then, I need to grow stronger. Merge with the Void completely. Become something he can’t predict.”
They stared at me. For a heartbeat, I thought they might laugh. Instead, Ian nodded, slow, grave, as if I’d just told him the secret to immortality.
“You’ll need help,” Ian said. “He’s got the entire bureaucracy watching. Every corridor, every gate.”
Levi piped up, “The guards are loyal to their last paycheck, which is usually paid in flayed skin or a new round of privileges.”
Aziz ran a hand along my spine, kneading the flesh as if to reassure himself I was real. “You want us to infiltrate.”
“Yes,” I said. “But not just you. My children are already here. The ones I made before…” I trailed off, not sure which ending was true: before death, before Earth, before the latest round of heartbreak. “They’re everywhere. Waiting for a word.”
Ian whistled, impressed. “You always were good at leaving little presents in your wake.”
I summoned the Void, just a taste, and let it ripple up my arm. Black veins snaked over my skin, not just beneath it, and the sensation was a sweet ache. “If we can turn the right demons, we can break him. If we can sow enough doubt, the rest will follow.”
Levi flopped onto his side. “You’ve got three of the baddest men in Hell at your disposal. I mean, after the top guy.”
