Page 6 of Unholy Bond
The tendrils thickened, more and more of them now, wrapping my thighs, my waist, even my breasts. They squeezed just shy of pain, holding me open for their work. The one inside me twisted, curling upward to hit that impossible place I’d only read about, and I cried out, knees slamming against the sides of the tub. The sound echoed, bouncing off stone and glass, vibrating up my spine.
The Void was greedy. It pressed deeper, then pulled back, then thrust again, building a rhythm that left no room for thought. The pleasure blurred, every sense distilling down to the pressure of being filled, split, rewired. My eyes rolled back. My teeth clamped down so hard I tasted copper. The tendrils throbbed in time with my pulse, or maybe they’d replaced my pulse entirely.I lost count of how many times I came. The line between one orgasm and the next had long since evaporated.
At the peak, the tendrils inside me expanded, multiplying, forcing my body to accept more and more until the boundaries stretched, threatened to split, then reformed around the new fullness. The sensation was so intense I thought I might pass out. I didn’t want to. I wanted to ride it, drown in it.
The world outside the bath began to crack. The marble walls splintered, fissures running up and out like lightning veins. Each time I shrieked, a new fracture opened, leaking shadow into the room. The air vibrated with the hum of the Void’s hunger, and the black water in the tub boiled, not with heat but with need. I saw myself reflected in a thousand shards—one screaming, one laughing, one utterly blank with bliss.
The whispers crescendoed, no longer in any language at all. They called me, over and over, but never as Evelyn. Only Lilith. Over and over: Lilith. Lilith. Lilith.
The last orgasm hit like a bomb. My body seized, then went liquid. The tendrils withdrew, but not all the way; they left something inside me, a residue, a memory, a promise that I’d never be empty again. I sagged in the water, head lolling, every muscle turned to jelly. My hands drifted to my belly, and I half expected to feel movement there, the way pregnant women do in dreams.
The bathwater went still. The tendrils faded into it, leaving only a faint shimmer in the air above the tub, as if they were still watching, waiting for my next move.
I thought of Aziz again, then Levi, then Ian. The ache was still there, but no longer desperate, no longer an infection. I had beenfilled, and emptied, and filled again. I belonged, not to them, but to this.
Inhaling a breath, their names burned on my tongue, then I let it loose unvoiced.
Dripping black, I climbed out of the bath and walked naked across the room. The marble cracked under my feet. The lines on my arms glowed with a new, steady light. The Void had marked me, claimed me, made me its queen.
I looked once more into the mirror, and this time, I liked what I saw. I smiled the way Lucifer liked and started the clock.
Chapter 4: Ian
The blade in my hand was an old favorite. Silver, etched with runes that pulsed red when it sensed a chance to eat life and blood. The kind of tool that made your job easier and your inner demon proud.
The case I carried with other supplies was equally elegant.
The demon bled through his shirt, his jeans, even his cheap knockoff sneakers, soaking the slush-gray warehouse floor in a puddle that steamed where it met the cold concrete. His wrists were chained above his head to a steel support beam and had swelled to twice their natural size. The links cut deep, biting through the thin membrane of glamour he’d wrapped around himself. His true shape showed in patches now: scales under the jaw, black talons where human nails should be, eyes gold and vertical-pupiled like a cat’s. The skin between was a sickly, inconsistent blue, marbled like raw meat.
I set the knife on a nearby table, casual as a chef about to fillet the evening’s catch. “You ready to talk?”
He spat blood at my shoes. Missed. The bastard was pathetic. “Eat me, pretty boy,” he hissed. “Put my cock down your throat, maybe if we’re both lucky you’ll fucking choke on it.”
They all thought I was the soft one. I cultivated the look with a long black coat, skinny jeans, the threadbare T-shirt advertising a band that never existed in this world. I wore eyeliner and cheap cologne and never once let my hair stay combed for more than an hour. I smiled, even now, even with his blood in my teeth.
“I’m not hungry, but you will be soon. My friend Aziz says hunger is the most honest thing in the universe. You should listen to him.” Picking up the knife, I nudged the tip of it under his chin, not quite breaking the skin. “Tell me where she is, and I’ll make this painless. Promise.”
He rolled his eyes, which was a mistake. I used the chance to shove the blade into the soft spot just below the jawline. The edge piercing the skin, blood jetting out across my fingers, hot and thick. With delicate precision, I slipped it up until the point jutted up into his mouth. His jaw dropped open as he screamed and it looked for a brief second like he had a second, metallic tongue. Nudging it further, thrusting the blade into him, I eased it back until it poked the dangling uvula at the back of his throat. The handle of the knife grew slick in my hand from the blood, but I tightened my grip. He choked on the metal, gagged, then let out an agonized gurgle. The sound echoed off the concrete and out into the Boston night, where the Green Line rumbled past, indifferent to violence.
I let him squirm for a bit before I drew the knife out with a wetslurp, blood oozing down his neck to his chest. “Last chance,” Isaid, wiping the blade on his sleeve. “I’m not gonna ask a third time.”
He inhaled a ragged breath and grinned. “We know you. You’re not like them,” he managed. “You’re weak. You want her back? Go beg your master.”
I yawned and reached into my pocket. From the little leather pouch, I drew a pinch of iron filings mixed with the burnt residue of angelic flesh, which gave it a red hue. I remember the look on that fucker’s face when I took him down. A cherubim named Safael. I’d enjoyed gutting that sanctimonious prick back in the day. Now, one dead enemy would help me get what I needed from a living one. I tossed it in his face. He screamed again, but this time the sound had a low, rattling edge that reverberated in my chest.
The runes on my blade flared. I pressed the flat to his cheek and drew it down, slow and deliberate, until I hit the corner of his mouth. The wound spat yellow blood, thick as honey and reeking of diesel, ammonia, and rot. “You should see what this stuff does to your insides,” I said. “I tried it on a friend once. He lasted six days. Six.Painful. Days.”
He bucked, tried to kick me. I let him have the satisfaction of a solid hit to my ribs. It barely hurt. “You’re wasting time,” he croaked.
“I’ve got eternity,” I said. “You don’t.”
He started shaking. Not from blood loss, yet, but from the creeping rot of the dust eating through his nervous system. Demons built their lives around immunity. Find the right contaminant, you could break any of them.
I spent the next twenty minutes working my way down the classic list of pain, humiliation, deprivation. I started withfingers, snapping each at the base, then peeling off the nail beds in long, wet strips. I asked after every break: Where is she? Who has her? What did Lucifer promise you for keeping your mouth shut?
He held out until I moved to the eyes. The knife was too blunt for precision surgery, but I managed to gouge a channel through the lower lid, deep enough that the eyeball drooped from its socket and hung by a thread of optic nerve. The demon pissed himself at that point, which always signaled the beginning of the end. When he shit himself a few minutes later, I knew I had him. Even demons had a breaking point. So used to doling it out, they weren’t used to taking it, and most weren’t able to take this kind of torture for long.
“Talk,” I ordered. My patience was real, but not infinite.
