My breath caught in my throat. He’d never apologized before.
“You think I’m happy about this? That the key to my power lies in another? That I must be made vulnerable to her—to you? I’ve guarded myself against this for so very long, but the enemy still found a way in, and I welcomed Him with open arms.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Our connection.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” I asked.
“What doesn’t it have to do?” He stroked my cheek as though he couldn’t help himself.
“I’ve been planning my war and my great escape for millennia. I knew there’d be costs—I’d expected pain, sacrifice. I thought it would be physical. I hadn’t expected you. I hadn’t planned on watching you take my pain and making those sacrifices for me.
“More than anything else, I hadn’t planned on my pain and sacrifice being emotional. I hadn’t expected it to hurt here,” he touched his chest, “where I can’t so easily heal myself.”
I didn’t breathe.
The Deceiver had been deceived. He hadn’t planned on using me to build his army on earth; he’d just improvised. He also hadn’t planned to care about me, but through our connection he’d been forced to.
What had he said? He’d let the enemy in?
I stared up at him as realization set in.
Of course. Of course.
Soulmates were bonded pairs. Love, among other things, passed through that connection. And from all that I gathered, God and love were synonymous.
The devil had let his enemy in.
“Yes,” he said, reading me, “you finally understand the chink in my armor.”
“Why did you take me if you knew this?” I asked.
He pushed himself to his feet and extended a hand to me. I hesitated.
“Little bird, for once this really isn’t a trap. I have answers for you. Take my hand.”
Though I was loathe to touch him, I did so, grasping his hand. He hauled me up.
We left our room. “The reason I took you, despite the risks, is really quite simple: you give me access to Earth.”
“Once upon a time, there were three fates.” The devil and I walked through the castle gardens. I hadn’t spent much time here, so close to where all those screaming souls were. The sound of so much agony chaffed against my spirit—and it was already so downtrodden.
The devil called this place the glass garden, and I understood why. Trees, bushes, and flowers were hewn from obsidian. They seemed to grow straight out of the lava rock beneath us, so lifelike I could see minuscule veins on the leaves, and rough bark on tree trunks.
I touched the petal of a flower we passed. It felt … alive. This was a strange, disturbingly beautiful place.
I withdrew my trembling hand. I was putting myself back together piece-by-piece after last night, but I was still shaken by all that had happened.
“These three fates sought to appease the old gods,” the devil continued. “So they formed husbands and wives for them. One of those gods was me.”
He snapped off a nearby rose. “You were to be my gift.”
Ah, the good ol’ days when women could be given like presents.
“Some of the other gods had received husbands and wives, and some had married each other. Each union diluted the power of the gods—one pie, too many pieces. They fell, and the remaining gods claimed their power. I saw what these marriages did, and I knew I did not want you.”
The feeling was mutual.
Even as I thought that, my connection tugged me closer to the devil.
“Initially,” he clarified, picking off the rose’s obsidian thorns one by one and tossing them to the side. “Don’t misunderstand—I very much liked the idea of my own woman—someone made specifically for me who would spend eternity at my side—but I was ambitious, and I wanted to share my power with no one.
“But the fates promised me that my wife would make me powerful, that she wouldn’t lead to my destruction like the wives of so many other gods had. And this place …” The devil surveyed our surroundings. I followed his gaze. Beyond the obsidian hedge that bordered the lush garden I could see the tips of flames reach high into the sky. Its brightness reached far, but it couldn’t drive away a darkness above it. “This place can make even a god go mad, if left alone for long enough.”
Methinks that was exactly what happened.
He led me to a dark stone bench, and we sat down, his body angled towards mine. “They gave me a glimpse of you.” He reached out to touch my hair. “And I was gone. You’d taken me completely. They made me a mate who could unearth who I once was, before time and power and loneliness warped me into this.”
“This is not just about you,” I said.
Sure, somewhere in that twisted form of him, there was a kernel of love, and I had the ability to lure it out of him. My heart ached with the need. But what if he broke me first?
There was no use rehashing what happened to me last night. He knew about it, and he had to realize how close he’d already come to cracking my mind.
“I would never break you,” he said.
“Stop reading my thoughts.”
“I cannot. You were made for me. That is how much a part of me you are.”
He rolled the stem of the glass rose in his hand. “I’ve always believed thorns rather than flowers incentivized people.” He took my hand and pressed the rose into it, curling my fingers around it. “Thorns haven’t worked with you. I’m trying flowers.”
I stood, holding the strange flower in my hand. “I don’t want this.” I stared down at the obsidian rose in my hand, then looked up at him. “I don’t want you.”
I felt full with emotion. Hate and fear and pain filled me, but underneath it all was love. Through our connection, God did in fact penetrate this place. I swallowed down my rising sickness. My one last link to God lay in this connection. This connection to the devil.
This was so wrong.
He stood, and he caught me before I could leave. Cupping me cheeks, he said, “Asiri.”
I furrowed my brows.
“Say it,” he said.
“Why? What’s the point?”
“Say it.”
I sighed. “Asiri.”
He closed his eyes. When he opened them, more than just an infinite swirling abyss stared back at me.
“Let me go,” I said, latching onto his wrists. I’d pry them off of me if I had to.
“Don’t you see it? We are more, Gabrielle. You know this. We hate more, but we can also love more.
“Let me in, consort. Let me into the heart of yours. I swear I won’t betray it.”
First an apology and now a request.
“You’re already in my heart.” Thanks to the connection I could feel him with every beat of that organ.
“By design I am, yes. But not by choice. Let me in.”
“I wouldn’t even know how.”
“You need to give in. Give in.”
“To what?”
“Your heart.”
It was already taken, and the man that held it lived in a different realm.
I closed my eyes.
“Look at me.”
I shook my head.
“Teach me how to be better. Open your eyes and show me how to live. How to love.” His voice was so gentle, so soothing. I desperately wanted to believe that he wasn’t an evil being.
A tear trickled out of my eye, and I felt his thumb brush it away.
“Please,” he said.
All at once, it broke.
I broke.
The damn that held back my rising pull to him and all the emotions that went along with it poured out.
My eyes snapped open and I drew in a shuddering breath. “Asiri.”
“Consort, I feel you. I finally, truly feel you.” He smiled, and angels should weep at the sight. It was almost too much, and I was falling, falling, falling. Down into those eyes of his, down into our connection. There wa
s nothing separating us except two sets of skin and the space between us.
He pulled me to him, and kissed me.
I could feel him. Him. This ageless, timeless thing. His soul was full of whitenoise, of shrieking souls and pain.
I wasn’t sure where I was. My lips were on his, and I could taste him and feel him, but that was distant, background noise to the feel of him. I’d reached inside him, and he’d let me in. Of all the beings out there, Asiri seemed like the most closed off, and he let me in. Only his soul, or whatever this was, battered against mine. I was surrounded by a terrible howling noise, and I could feel the discontent that festered inside of him.
So I began to hum, softly at first. I pulled on the siren, brought her through the connection, and together she and I began to sing. The storm inside Asiri settled, the howling quieted, and it calmed the raging madness inside of him.
The air shifted, and we were back in his bedroom—our bedroom. He moved us to the bed I dreaded so much.
And then I was running my fingers over his wing scars. And then I was kissing them.
“No more pain,” I whispered against his skin. He laid me on the bed before joining me. For the first time ever, I saw an expression on his face that was free of the violent tendencies he was so well known for.
Only one thing lay in his eyes now.
Hope.
Chapter 25
Gabrielle
What am I doing?
I felt like I was surfacing from a dream. One where monsters and gods played with mortals, and I’d tamed the worst of them.
My thighs rested over sculpted shoulders. A mouth pressed against my core, giving me the most intimate kiss. Not a shred of fabric covered me. Without thinking, I fisted my hands—hands that gripped already mussed up hair.
The color was wrong.
Not Andre’s.
What in the bloody hell am I doing?
Every fiber of my being focused on the naked man kneeling between my legs. He paused in his ministrations to kiss my inner thigh, and I saw his face.
My heart almost died of fright.
The devil was going down on me.
OhGodohGodohGod.
This was my own personal nightmare.
I shook off what felt like the aftereffects of a drug.
“Gabrielle.” His lips moved against my skin.
I yelped and tried to disentangle myself from him. I’d willingly let the devil into my heart, and I’d lost myself in the process. I could still feel him there, making himself comfortable. He was in me and I was in him.
His hands captured my thighs and held them in place. “No sense being shy now, little bird,” he said, his hungry gaze moving over me. “You are going to finally, completely be mine.”
Cue internal screaming.
No, no, no, no, no.
I squirmed against his hold. “That can’t happen.”
His eyes narrowed, and I felt the shift in his mood as though it were my own.
“You say this to me now, even exposed to me as you are?” He glanced meaningfully at the juncture between my thighs—which was, to my utter mortification—spread before him.
“I love someone else.”
He glared down at me. “You gave me your heart, and I gave you mine.”
I don’t want your charred husk of a heart, and I want whatever I gave you back.
I’d made a grave, grave mistake, and I might lose the only man that had ever mattered to me because of it. Kisses were one thing, but this? Relationships died every day for less. The devil and I might not have done the deed, but we were naked in his bed, and I’d been participating in some heavy petting. Andre would have every reason to leave me.
Contemplating that hurt too much. I pressed the heel of my hands against my eyes. I might’ve already lost him, and I knew it. I knew it.
I was a goddamn fool.
Whatever I’d soothed inside the devil now fell back to chaos. He slid out of bed, naked from head to toe, and all I wanted to do was call him back to me. I hated that. Our connection had betrayed me. I had divided loyalties, and I really, really shouldn’t. Not after all the pain the devil had put me and countless others through.
He paced. I could see the scars trailing down his back where his wings had been ripped from him. “It’s the vampire, isn’t it? Even after everything, it’s still him you want?”
“It will always be him,” I whispered.
The devil turned from me and leaned a hand against the wall as though catching his breath. He let out a roar and slammed his fist into the stone surface. Flakes of obsidian chipped away beneath his fist and the entire building shook from the power of the blow.
“No, Gabrielle.” He swiveled to face me. “You are mine, and I vow to you, those words of yours will change. You’ve just made this a whole lot easier for me.”
Goosebumps broke out along my skin at his ominous vow.
“It really doesn’t matter at this point,” I said. “I lose something, no matter what.”
The devil drew in a long breath and collected himself. “The longer we live, the more we lose. Innocence, virginity, friends, time, and if you live long enough—and you will—memories.
“Few things survive. Andre won’t survive you, but I will.” His calm demeanor was all the more frightening now that I could see right inside him. I could feel the torment of his emotions battering against mine. “You’ve already opened your heart to me. Your mind and body will follow soon enough.”
He grabbed his clothes and began pulling them on. I gathered the bed sheets to me, covering myself. Once he was dressed, he headed to my armoire and threw an outfit onto the bed. “Get dressed. The time for secrets is over. I will show you your legacy.”
Coming here was a mistake.
Not that the devil had left me much choice. As soon as I’d donned another gown, he’d roughly grabbed me and transported us out of the bedroom.
We stood amidst the burning souls, the flames fueling the devil’s inhuman anger. Every so often I sensed another emotion flicker beneath that rage of his. Hurt was the most common, followed by frustration. Love wasn’t something you could compel another to feel. He understood this, but he didn’t have much patience or practice waiting for me to love him. From what I gleaned from our connection, he felt entitled to it.
But ever since his final words back in the bedroom, he’d acted calm, as though he weren’t a ticking time bomb set to go off at any minute.
He raised his hands to the fire, which roared and crackled. “This, consort, is power.” Souls screamed around us, clawing at themselves like they might be able to tear the pain off of themselves.
“So you can make souls feel pain. How big of you.”
The devil was not right in the head. Maybe I’d broken him before he had the chance to break me.
“Their pain is what gives me power.”
Like I said, not right in the head.
The devil narrowed his eyes. “You misunderstand. I’m not talking about enjoying their pain; I’m talking about using it. An engine needs fuel to run and a person needs food and drink to live. I am no different. As the fire burns these souls, it creates usable energy, energy that feeds my power, and now yours.”
Mine?
I set that horrifying thought aside. Otherwise, it would distract me from the fact that the devil was giving up his trade secrets, one of which was that essentially, hell was nothing more than a glorified steam engine.
And the devil was the terrible machine it propelled.
“My power gets its source from pain—both emotional and physical. The more souls I have, the more power I collect.
“And now you create chaos and mayhem, fear and anger and pain topside,” he continued. “I could never feed on the emotions of the living before you became my queen.”
Alarm raced through me. “And now you can?”
He inclined his head. “And now I can.”
I almost stopped breathing. “How?” I whispered.
“
Through our bond.”
I stumbled back. The roar of the flames the screams of the damned became background noise to the pound of my heart.
It was so much worse, so much worse than I’d imagined.
“You think you are the only one held here against her will? My eyes see no real sunlight, my lips taste no real food. I smell only brimstone and rot. I live off of corrupted souls.”
He held his arms up and gestured around him. When he faced me again, something incredibly tragic entered his features. “This has been my prison for as long as I can remember.
“But now that you’re here, that all will change.”
He harvested the dead and I harvested the living.
I placed my fingers to my temples and rubbed. This entire time I hadn’t realized … All that power. I thought it came for free. I should’ve known better. Everyone pays a tithe. Especially me.
I dropped my hands. A long time ago Andre told me that the devil did all that he did for one sole purpose.
Power.
My gaze slowly lifted to his. “What will you do with all that power?”
He cocked his head. “Isn’t it obvious? We take over other realms, one by one. Earth first,” he said, sauntering to me, “because that one’s the most powerful and the most corrupt. And now it’s accessible.
“Limbo will fall shortly after that. Then the Otherworld—I’ve already begun to claim it, but this will be the proverbial nail in its coffin. The fae are delightfully nasty things; it will be nearly effortless to bring their world into the fold. And eventually … the Celestial Plane. Heaven.”
Horror, true earth-shattering horror, dawned on me.
He meant to take over every world in existence, and I was the key to them all.
Chapter 26
Gabrielle
I was back.
The earth spit me out into snow, and I dug my hands in it. The devil wanted this place, and he would use me to get it.
World domination. Excuse me, worlds domination. That was his end game.
A shudder worked its way through my body. Now that I was here, an increasingly large part of me wanted to see his plans actualized. It was the same part of me that fed off of suffering.
The Damned (The Unearthly Book 5) Page 19
