Page 132 of Soulbound
Don't trust her, Malachi Gray had said.
She's no longer your wife.
"Cleo," he said hoarsely. He’d never seen her look like this, and it struck him how familiar her cross expression, exasperation, and glowing smiles had become. Cleo couldn’t hide a damned thing, and yet this stranger—this black queen—held the same unblinking qualities as the demon. Whoever this was, it wasn’t his wife. There was a stillness to her expression, a hungry eagerness that was unlike her.
But he could feel the real Cleo in the back of his mind, the bond between them pulsing a little brighter as he came into her sphere.
Cleo was still in there.
He just had to reach her.
The Blade in her hand flipped abruptly, the hilt falling into her palm. One last sacrifice. She hadn't meant herself.
Of course.
"You should have allowed me to kill the incubus," Lascher murmured. "I would have spared you, but the spell needs another death to power it. This is not personal."
"No!" A faint scream sounded through the bond. The real Cleo, hammering at her cell.
"Then wield the Blade yourself," he told it. She shouldn't have to watch this happen by her own hand.
"But I want to do it," said the black queen.
"She needs to be initiated," Lascher added. "Your blood will give her strength. And I can't touch the Blade."
The demon and the black queen parted, moving with predatory intensity around him. Sebastian opened himself to the flow of his sorcery. It buoyed him, offering strength, but he wasn't certain if he could face the demon and survive. And he couldn't hurt her.
How to stop this then?
"I love you, and I would do anything to protect you, Sebastian."
A long ago night, Cleo's hand curling in his and offering comfort, but nothing more. Love. He'd never understood it, not truly.
The moment in Lady Beaumont's house came to mind, his father's face rippling as the demon finally threatened Sebastian. The threat had given Drake the strength to rise up and overtake it, even for a moment. His father had been driven by love, the one thing powerful enough to overcome the demon's stranglehold upon him.
This wasn't about fighting them. He couldn't win that way, and the pair of them were anticipating it. A month spent mastering himself was never going to be enough. Lady E had known that.
Could he gamble everything?
Upon love?
"You want a sacrifice?" His voice sounded hoarse, but he let the tide of power ebb from his body as he released it. He looked at his wife, forcing himself to see past those black eyes, trying to find her somewhere within. "Then you have it."
He knelt on the wet lawn, unbuttoning his coat with swift fingers. Nerves fluttered in his stomach, but he cast the coat aside and looked up. Both of them blinked at him.
They're not human. The demon thinks it knows humanity, but it doesn't.
It couldn't see the trap.
"My life is yours, Cleo. It always has been." He started working on the buttons of his shirt, tearing it when his fingers fumbled, and jerking it open.
"Finish it," the demon said remotely, though he could see the bulge in its jaw as Drake fought to rise.
The black queen strode toward him, the Blade of Altarrh in her hands. His blood was already on the knife. He could feel it hungering for more.
Grabbing a handful of his hair, she yanked his head back, revealing his throat.
"The first time I ever met you," he said softly, "I wanted to hate you. I was terrified to see what sort of woman my mother had saddled me with. I knew your father, and so I wasn’t hopeful of much. A forced marriage to Tremayne's daughter?" He laughed gently, free of the bitterness that had once chained him. "And yet, there you were, standing amidst your ducks. Feeding Sir Eiderdown and Lord Featherbottom, and Christ, you were babbling, but there was something about you I’d never seen before. And you were… beautiful. You were everything I think I’d never dared hope for."
