Page 43 of Unholy Bond
The real focus of the ritual was the three waiting at the foot of the dais. Aziz, Levi, and Ian, the princes of violence, corruption, and seduction. Aziz was first. He moved forward, purple skin lacquered with oil, each muscle outlined in a web of black runes. The loincloth he wore did nothing to hide his body, it merely called attention to how little of him was concealed, and to the delicious bulge. Levi stood at his left, more animal than man, green skin shimmering under the torchlight, his own runes cut deeper, as if someone had tattooed a starfield onto a sheet of emerald glass. His hairless head gleamed. He grinned at the crowd, unbothered by their discomfort. Ian flanked the right, paler than the others, androgynous, sleek, the runes on his body dark blue, almost bruised-looking. Even now, he radiated a bored contempt for the proceedings, but I knew him well enough to see how his eyes darted, cataloging every watcher, every breath.
Each of them had sworn oaths to me, in blood, and in a hundred acts of violence, tenderness, and cruelty. Tonight, those bonds would be formalized before Hell itself.
I descended the steps in a gown sewn from the void. The fabric clung to me, moving in slow waves, sometimes pooling around my feet, sometimes rising up my legs as if eager to climb backinside. It whispered when I walked, a hiss like a thousand angry snakes. The air was so charged I could hear the hairs on my own arms crackle.
Aziz and the others went to one knee as I approached. The submission was for show, but also not. In the new order, there was no room for ambiguity.
“Speak your oaths,” I said, voice a blade.
Aziz went first. “I am yours, Lilith, body and soul. No blade will pass, no hand will touch, unless I am the shield and the wrath. Your will is my hunger. Your pain is my pleasure.”
He meant it. The runes on his chest glowed as he finished.
Levi’s turn. “Queen of monsters, I’ll drown Hell’s armies if you tell me to, and I’ll laugh while they sink. My skin, my cock, my heart, all yours. Feed on me, fuck me, burn me. I’ll always return.”
His runes blazed green, swallowing the candlelight around him.
Ian drew his oath out like silk. “You are my ruin, my creation. I am the whisper that undoes kings, the knife at your table. No secret will escape me. No betrayal will reach you. I’ll poison your enemies and sweeten your tongue when you’re parched for comfort.”
He smiled as the runes on his belly rippled, almost alive.
I cut my palm with a ceremonial razor, the blade black as murder. Blood welled up, too dark, too thick. I touched Aziz’s forehead, then Levi’s, then Ian’s. On each, I left a sigil, my own mark.
The Void liked that. The cracks in the marble at my feet widened, drinking in every drop that hit the floor. The air temperaturedropped, a dry, hollow cold that left breathless mortals gasping, and made the demons hungry for more.
The three stayed kneeling, heads bowed. I circled them, trailing a wet line across their shoulders, letting my blood mix with their sweat, oil, and runes. My mouth moved in the cadence of the oldest tongue. invocation, promise, curse, blessing, threat. Each word twisted the flames on the candles, until they went black, sucking light from the room instead of giving it.
The court, such as it was, shifted uneasily in the shadows. Some muttered, some prayed, a few masturbated quietly—this was Hell, after all—but most simply waited, spellbound by the performance.
The Void pulsed again. This time, tendrils of it seeped up through the cracks, finger-thin at first, then wrist-thick, coiling around my ankles and up my calves, a caress of absolute nothingness. The feeling was impossible to describe, like a hundred thousand ants crawling under the skin, only cold, and every ant with the intention of erasing the flesh it traveled.
Aziz looked up, saw what was happening, and grinned. Levi bared his teeth in anticipation. Ian simply waited.
Time for the finale.
With a gesture, I stripped the loincloths from all three. They stood, bare, their cocks already hard, already oozing in anticipation of either violence or pleasure. With them, it was always a coin toss. The crowd shifted again. Someone sobbed, either in lust or terror.
I faced the court, letting the dress ripple down my body. With a thought, I released it. The gown slithered off me in a sheet, pooling at my feet, then soaking into the cracks in the floor as if thirsty for my own essence. Underneath, I was naked but notexposed. My skin was covered in runes, shifting and alive, black as an event horizon and just as ready to devour.
I let them see me, really see. The new Queen of Hell, more Void than flesh, more promise than threat.
Aziz approached first, his body heat clashing with the cold in the room. He kissed me, deep, devouring. The Void’s tendrils wrapped around him, dragging him closer. He moaned, for me, for himself, for the audience, I didn’t care.
Levi was next, clawing at my hips, biting at my neck. The runes on his skin flashed, then merged with mine, the patterns locking together in a rhythm older than this world. The Void licked at his thighs, stroked his cock, and he howled as it touched him.
Ian lingered, but when I beckoned, he came, hands trembling with the need to either kill me or be devoured. He kissed my hands, then my breasts, then fell to his knees and pressed his mouth between my thighs. The Void let him, but only for a moment; it wanted him above, not below. It lifted him, set him upright, and I took his face in my hands, marked him again, this time on the lips.
Each kiss was a promise. of pain, of eternity, of obliteration. The air was now so dense with power and brimstone that several in the court fainted, dropping to the floor and convulsing as if struck by seizure. Others simply watched, eyes rolling back, unable to process the sensory overload.
The Void was ready. It howled up through the cracks, this time not as tendrils, but as a storm, a column of living darkness that split the dais and sent a shockwave through the room. My children at the gates screeched in unison, wings flared, claws splayed, as the black wind tore at everything not nailed down.
Aziz, Levi, and Ian were swept up with me, bodies pressed together, cocks grinding, hands and teeth and tongue blurring the line between violence and worship. I felt each of them, and they felt me, the feedback loop of power and pleasure so intense it nearly broke the circle of the ritual.
I screamed, and the sound was not a sound, but a command. live, die, serve.
The Void merged, finally, utterly, with me. My skin burned, then froze, then went numb. When sensation returned, it was as if I had grown a thousand new senses, each one more intrusive than the last. I could see the court with all their secrets and stains. I could taste the metal in their blood. I could smell their fear, sweet and sharp, and it made my new heart flutter with delight.
The throne at my back cracked, a fissure racing from its base up the carved spine, splitting the seat in two. Black veins raced out from the dais, slicing through the marble floor, then up the walls, then along the ceiling. The palace groaned, then shifted, as if bowing to a new god.
