Page 63 of Soul of a Witch

“Jealousy isn’t attractive on you, Lucifer.”

“I should rip out your tongue.”

“I’d grow a new one, even more sarcastic than the last.”

He snapped, lunging forward with a snarl. But he didn’t come close enough to touch me. He held himself back, restraint kicking in at the last possible second.

“Do you have any idea how close I came to sending a hunter after you?” he snapped. “Yearsyou’ve spent locked up in that house, talking to ghosts, waiting for your fucking hallucination to come to life.Madness.You’re fucking feral.”

“I’m not.”

He looked as if he wanted to kill me, and I would have loved for him to try. Perhaps he’d been stronger than me when I left Hell all those years ago, but the difference between us was far slimmer now.

“Two thousand years ago, you envisioned a witch in the middle of a field full of your dead friends,” he hissed. “You’ve searched for her ever since. Across centuries, Callum. And for what? To kill one more God? To feel the thrill of slaughter again? You won’t even claim her for Hell.”

“I’m not obligated to bind myself to anyone,” I choked out the words, bitter as they were. I had to get out of here. I’d been away from Everly for far too long.

“Oh yes, of course not. Callum, the great and terrible, who has no friends, who takes no lovers. Who will not bind, nor mark, nor claim another living thing.” Lucifer shook his head, and I recoiled when I saw tenderness on his face. “That war broke you. I know. All these centuries I should have kept you close, but I thought you would get it out of your system —”

“Stop speaking to me as if I’m a youth!” I lunged forward, and he leapt out of my range with a soft, disapproving chuckle.

“Yet you’re still making the foolish decisions of one. Wasting your loyalty on an untrained witch, as if she won’t perish like every other human. As if she could ever understand the thousands of years you’ve seen, the pain you’ve experienced. As if she could ever be more than a passing fascination.”

“Passing fascination?” I echoed, laughing low under my breath. “You’ve sat in your onyx tower too long; it’s softened your brain. Everly is not, and has never been, a merefascination. She is my reason, my logic.Sheis my one and only God. Think I’m mad if you wish. There is nothing left for me in this existence except for her, and I would sooner rip myself apart than allow you or any other being to stand in her way.”

“I will not risk bringing hybrid spawn into existence without a guarantee it is Hell’s and Hell’s alone,” he said. “Do you understand me?”

“As I said, jealousy isn’t —”

“You need to learn to shut your mouth.” His hand darted out, grabbing my face and digging his claws in. To think I once loved him. To think I once wanted nothing more than to accept his mark and be taken into the council.

“Claim her,” he said viciously. “I want her marked, I want her soul bound. Do you understand me?”

“You won’t make me your pawn in whatever pissing contest you’re in with Heaven’s hosts,” I said, although it was rather difficult given his tight grip. “Who I claim is personal. That choice has always beenpersonal.”

“Perhaps for common demons. But we are not common, are we, Callum? The destruction creatures like you and me can inflict upon the world is unprecedented, and Heaven knows it. You don’t want the angels involved, trust me.”

My jaw clenched. There was an odd tingling in my abdomen, a sensation like fingers grasping at my skin and tugging. It made me think of Everly’s fingers, so soft and warm as they caressed me. Realization pulsed through me and the tugging intensified.

I was being summoned.

“The angels won’t touch her,” I said. “Nor will you, Lucifer. You’ve seen me fight. You’ve seen me go to war.” Shuddering at the sensation of the summoning, I grinned up at him. “What makes you think I would hesitate to bring about the apocalypse itself if it means keeping her safe?”

He bared his teeth at me. “Are you threatening me?”

He may as well have asked me if I was prepared to be a traitor to Hell itself. But I was. His question didn’t frighten me, as he hoped it would. The clawing hands were growing stronger now, and I was being pulled back and away. Lucifer finally realized what was happening, but it was too late.

He couldn’t do a damn thing to prevent me from being summoned.

“I’ll see you soon, Callum,” he said, right before I vanished, my spiritual form ripped away and sent flying, plummeting into the human world.

The first thing I noticed was the smell of ash. The next thing I noticed was blood.

The forest looked as if it had been hit by a small bomb. Young trees had their trunks snapped in half, their carcasses lying burned on the singed forest floor. The buildup of leaves beneath my feet was still smoldering as I stepped forward, gazing through the haze of smoke. The burnt bodies of Eldbeasts lay around me, some still twitching, jaws snapping.

Then I saw her.

Everly was curled at the base of a tree, her arms outstretched to grip the massive roots. Her body was coiled, hunched over, shaking violently. Her hair was drenched with rain and mud, and her arms…

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