Page 5 of Unholy Bond
Then it began to shift.
The image swam, as if the mirror remembered too many faces and couldn’t decide which one to show me. The first overlay landed with a shock, and I recoiled, not recognizing myself at all.
A woman lounged in a bath of blood, red hair fanned like a banner over the edge, one arm draped out and fingers trailing gore. Her lips split in a slow, lazy smile, and she arched her back, exposing breasts half-submerged in the viscous red. Crimson liquid sliding across hard nipples. My mind snapped to Countess Bathory, a monster from children’s history books. I remembered my father warning me not to study such things, how he’d laughed that girls who read about evil would slide down a wicked path. The “bathwater” in the image steamed, but I sensed a coldness in her, like a reptile. She held a rose in one hand, and its petals bled into the water.
The vision fluttered, became a young woman with no flesh at all, only a scorched skeleton visible through strips of translucent skin. She howled as flames licked up her arms. Her mouth yawned wide, teeth white and endless, eyes gone. I watched her burn, and the taste of ash, copper, something spiced washed over my tongue. Bloody Mary, I realized. The icon of martyrdom and rage. I watched her incinerate for a heartbeat and then she vanished.
The third face was Russian. High cheekbones, hair black as pitch, a whip coiled around one gloved hand. Her dress was silk, but stained and torn, exposing the crosshatch of scars on her inner thighs. Her smile was private, almost gentle, but the eyes bored into me, judging. Darya Nikolayevna. I had no memory of her, but I could hear the screams of agony she’d wrought. Her name echoed in my mouth like a spell. The whip in her hand curled and uncurled, alive as a serpent.
The image in the mirror snapped back to me. I stared into my own eyes, looking for a hint of Evelyn behind the Lilith. The calm, obedient, and peaceful woman I’d been before. There was none. Only the faint blue glow around the irises, the newness of me.
I pressed my palm to the mirror’s surface. The glass rippled, cold at first, then warming to match my touch. My fingers tingled, and the lines on my arm lit up faintly, gold threads winding over bone. I traced the outline of the Bathory’s mouth, the hollow of Mary’s eye, the elegant arc of Darya’s cheek. Each touch sent a shock through me, a ping of recognition and longing. These were not strangers. They were me, or I was them, or we were all iterations of the same need. Past lives, old names, and long-gone deeds.
“Evelyn,” I whispered, testing the name, then, “Lilith.” The words fuzzed in the air, as if the stone itself were listening, waiting for me to make up my mind.
The mirror fogged with my breath. The urge to smash it rose and died in a second. I wanted to see, needed to know, but I also hated the proof of what I was becoming. In the convent, we talked a lot about vessels for the divine. I’d believed it, once. Now I understood that a vessel could be a disguise as much as a blessing. Sister Evelyn had been a holding pattern, a way to keep Lilith contained and hidden until she was needed again.
Aziz would have made a joke about my reflection. “So serious. You look like you’re about to order the crucifixion.” Ian would have said I should enjoy every bit of it. Levi would have tried to drag me into bed, saying I looked hot in any incarnation.
I let my fingers linger on the mirror, pressing harder until the pad of my thumb went numb. The glass warped and rippled, and for a moment, I thought I saw all three men behind me, standingshoulder to shoulder in the dark, hooded eyes gazing back at me, waiting for me to make my next move.
I whirled around but my men were not there with me. Were they looking for me? Lucifer wouldn’t make it easy for them. I knew that with the certainty of my own breaths. That meant I needed to embrace Lilith and save myself from Lucifer’s prison.
“Goodbye, Evelyn,” I said, barely a whisper. “You can rest now.”
I turned from the mirror, shivering in the draft from the window, and made my way toward the bath.
The bathroom sat at the far end of the chamber, with a tub sunk into the floor like a mausoleum for drowned queens. Black marble again, but older and veined with something that pulsed faintly whenever I looked at it too long. No pipes, no taps, but the bowl filled itself at intervals, sometimes steaming, sometimes icy, always tinged with that brackish, chemical shine that promised no kind of comfort.
When I stepped close, the air shifted. Ozone, sulfur, and a ripe metallic tang I recognized as blood before I even bent to sniff it. The water was thicker than water had a right to be, more syrup than liquid, and I doubted it would ever rinse clean from hair or skin. The last time I’d bathed, I’d been Evelyn Adams. The bath now waited, already filled to the rim, dark as licorice, vapor curling from its surface in lazy, concentric rings.
I let the sheet fall, pooling at my feet. My new body surprised me. It was so pale I could map the blue of every vein, curves I never knew I had, nipples, a ridiculous candy-pink that made me want to laugh and bite myself at the same time. I ran a hand from collarbone to hip, marveling at how soft and supple the skin was. I looked like a Greek beauty cast in white marble.
I dipped a toe in the bath. Heat slicked up my calf, hugging it. As I lowered my body inch by inch, the water clung to me like oil. I braced my palms on the marble edge and eased all the way down. I tried to relax, but every muscle stayed tensed. No matter how much I forced myself to sink, a part of me stayed ready to leap from the tub. I hated that. I wanted to melt. I wanted to dissolve the borders between myself and whatever this place was trying to make of me.
I watched the waterline crawl up my chest, saw how it refracted my breasts into funhouse distortions, then settled in to watch the way the black liquid beaded on my skin, never quite soaking in. When I lifted a hand, the water clung in long, shivering drips before falling back, leaving a faint shadow, a stain that faded only as I wiped it away.
It didn’t take long before the novelty wore off and the old restlessness came back. I drew my knees up, hugging them against my breasts, and stared down at dark liquid. The water was opaque after the first inch. I couldn’t see my toes. I closed my eyes, trying to imagine what this would be like if Levi were here. He’d cannonball in and splash me until I screamed, then cradle me after with arms so big I could lose myself. Or Aziz, who’d tease me for being shy and then drag me under until we both choked on each other. Or Ian, who’d tell me I was wasting time, that pleasure was a weapon, and I should wield it with intent.
I spread my legs and slid a hand down between my thighs. The sensation was muted at first, more pressure than pleasure, but I persisted, searching for the right rhythm. I thought of Aziz, the heat of his mouth, the roughness of his hands, and I moved faster. A slow burn crept up from my belly, warming places the bath had left cold.
Then, out of nowhere, I sensed movement beneath the water. Not mine. Something brushed the inside of my thigh, cool and electric, and I froze.
I looked down, expecting to see some kind of parasite or snake. Nothing. The water rippled, but there was no sign of anything living in it. I waited. Another brush, firmer, gliding up my leg, then curling back down and around the calf. My heart jerked, and I half-stood, ready to leap out, but the sensation just as quickly disappeared.
My body shuddered. It was not fear. Not exactly. My curiosity and desire to know pushed aside every other worry. I slid down again, this time bracing my feet against the marble and holding myself still. I cupped my breasts, pinched my nipples, and the feeling returned: a pressure, not quite touch, but definitely not nothing. The sensation wound up my thigh, then between them, then pressed hard against the lips of my sex. I gasped, hips rolling upward in reflex.
A tendril. That was the word my mind supplied. Not a finger, not a tongue, but a tendril of something thicker and smarter than water. I reached down, searching for it, but my own hand only found slick skin. The invisible pressure pulsed again, stroking up my slit, then pushing in, slowly at first, then deeper, coiling as it went. I bit my lower lip, fighting the urge to moan, but the sound came anyway, uncoiling from deep in my gut.
The Void.
It whispered. Not in English or any language I remembered from life, but I understood. It wanted me to let go. To surrender. To open up. My mind tried to catalogue the sensation. I spread my legs wider, inviting the next wave, and the tendril obliged, splitting into two, then three, all of them wriggling and insistent, finding every hidden ache and making it scream.
I arched back, clutching the sides of the tub, legs shaking as the tendrils fucked me open. They moved with purpose, not random but orchestrated, drawing circles around my clit, pressing inside, stroking my walls with a slow, exquisite violence. The pleasure built fast, too fast, and I clawed at the marble to anchor myself. The surface gave, leaving long, white scratch marks in the black.
When I finally let my head drop back, I saw the ceiling swirl, fractal and infinite, full of nothing but shadow. I saw my reflection in the water, but it was not just me. The face shifted, shifting between Bathory and Mary and Darya, then overlaying the men I’d loved, the men I’d wanted. Aziz, his teeth bared and eyes wild, Levi, hair slicked back and grinning, Ian, smirking with one finger hooked under his lower lip. All of them staring, all of them watching me give in.
“Fuck,” I breathed, and the water vibrated with the word, carrying it to every nerve ending.
