Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5)

by Pippa Dacosta

  He bucked, back arched, head thrown back. Raging lust spilled into him. His bright eyes clouded. Teeth gritted, he fought, even now, but he wouldn’t win. Lust was madness, and he’d already been skirting its fringes. He twitched and jerked, and I felt every spasm through my thighs and arms. I poured the poison into him and watched how his brilliance dulled, how his smooth ice faded to a dirty gray. His wings wilted, ice-feathers curling inward.

  A sob broke from my lips. I plucked my hands free, and there, on his chest, were two perfect handprints burned into his tarnished demon skin. “Oh, I’m so sorry… So sorry…”

  He shoved upright, using his blackened wings for leverage, and clamped a hand around my neck. I jerked back and tried to twist off him, but he clamped his free hand on my thigh and sunk his ice-claws in, holding me pinned against him. “Stefan,” I hissed, tugging on his grip. He tightened his fingers around my throat and peered at me. His eyes! They smoldered gray, like ash. Breath sawed through his teeth. “Stefan, let me go.” I dug my claws under his hands and pulled. His hand around my neck released, but my triumph was short lived when he clamped it on my thigh. “Stefan…” I shoved at his chest, avoiding the burns, and beat my wing, trying to fight free. His lips parted, face twisting in pain. He lifted a hand, caught my hip, and dug in. In a tumble of chains, wings, fire, and soiled ice, he pinned me beneath him.

  “No, Stefan—no!”

  He wasn’t Stefan. I wasn’t sure what I’d created, but nothing of Stefan’s spark remained in his eyes. He wedged a knee between my legs and pried them apart. I wasn’t even sure if there was anything conscious left in his rabid glare. No, no! I couldn’t let this happen, for him, for me. His growl resonated. Those dull eyes didn’t even know me, not really. Lust had hold of him. I’d had a taste of what lust could do when my brother had used it against me. It had dropped me to my knees, emptied out my humanity, and turned me into a creature of need.

  “Don’t.” I shoved at him, twisted, and bucked. He reared up over me. His brilliance snuffed out. His skin burned, wings ragged and stained. And there was nothing in his eyes, nothing at all.

  I cracked a fist across his jaw, once, twice. He snarled, snatched at my wrist, and pinned it down, but I twisted as he grappled with my other arm and worked my leg free. With a vicious jerk, I brought my knee up between his legs and hit him hard. His cry was all beast, a terrible sound. I tore my arm free of his grip, plunged my claws into his side, and shoved him back as he reeled from my assault.

  I scurried out from under him, away from the reach of the chains. He lunged. The chains snapped taut, yanking him off his feet inches from where I sat. He snapped and snarled, twisted and howled. And I watched, unable to look away. It was…horrible. Lust made my gift for destruction look heaven sent. Lust was ugly. Stefan—burned, soiled—snarled and chittered. He sawed at his own wrists, digging his claws in and then used his teeth, and in every second, his gray eyes flicked back to me, marking me.

  I turned away. The longer I stayed, the more damage I’d do. At the door, his howls barreled through the dungeon, beating against my back. I gulped the disgust down and turned away from the madness I’d drowned him in. He spat and snarled demon nonsense. Hands clamped over my ears, I blocked it out, blocked the noise, the horrible guilt, the gut-twisting fear that he wouldn’t come back from this. What had I done to him?

  “Father!” I dropped my hands and lifted my chin.

  The door opened, and Asmodeus’s yellow eyed-glare slid over me. He pushed me aside at the sound of Stefan’s rapid snarls and growls. I gritted my teeth so tightly that pain flared through my jaw. I had to withstand this. If I buckled now, Stefan’s anguish would be for nothing.

  I stopped outside the stall as Asmodeus admired the twisted, broken thing I’d turned Stefan into. Bile burned my throat. I swallowed it and gulped down the surge of guilt with it.

  Asmodeus turned his head toward me. He’d see me standing tall, my face blank, eyes bright with flame because that was the mask I wore. Inside, I screamed and raged. I poured every measure of hatred for my father into thoughts of how I’d be the one to destroy him. My claws twitched with the thought of sinking them into my father’s crimson flesh. I’d tear him to pieces. And soon.

  “Daughter…” He growled and unfurled a huge hand, urging me to take it. “You will sit beside me, as demonkin, as a member of the Court, as the Mother of Destruction, Daughter of Lust. Welcome.”

  I’d become a monster. I settled my hand in his and met his glare. While Stefan’s snarls and groans cut into me, I smiled up at my father and considered all the ways I’d destroy him. I would find Jerry and restore the veil. I’d sacrificed my love for it. Nothing would stand in my way.

  Chapter 8

  The ripe netherworld air drifted about the courtyard, bringing with it the scents of burned rubber, countless demons, cooked meat, and things I didn’t want to dwell on long enough to give them a name. I couldn’t move for all the demons and their elements. The gathering inside the fortress battlements was apparently in my honor, but thankfully, I was largely ignored. I skirted the fringes of the courtyard, hiking my wing out of the way to avoid any unwanted contact. I watched them—the demons—slid my gaze over each and every one. Either they hadn’t heard I could disintegrate them with a flick of my fingers, or they didn’t believe it. I’d much rather be ignored than groped by the demon rabble.

  When my mind wandered to the thought of Stefan chained deep below my feet, I wrenched it back into the moment and caged those thoughts behind cold resolve. Not now. I can’t think about him now. I needed to be detached, to keep it all inside. I twisted sobs into growls and hid my quivering flesh behind flame. The image of how I’d damaged him haunted me. I’d burned away his brilliance. If I let it, the guilt would floor me. For once, I was grateful for the demon in me. Be demon. Don’t feel. Be merciless, unrepentant fire.

  I wanted to ask my father about Stefan, almost had done, but I couldn’t let him think I cared. So I stewed in silence and fretted over how to get the key. Asmodeus had various chambers, but I’d not been able to get inside. Without that key, I couldn’t break Stefan out.

  Even if I did manage to free him, what would he think of me? It had only been a day since I’d poured raw lust into him. It felt much longer. I swatted that thought aside and watched two demons claw into each other over a roasted thigh joint. The demons here were meant to be higher elementals, but they behaved like lesser beasts. I hated them all. No wonder Akil had tired of them. There was nothing here to aspire to. They cared only for status, and that usually came by the slash of tooth and claw. Demons didn’t strive to better themselves. They didn’t reach for the stars. They didn’t dream. They didn’t hope. They certainly didn’t care. Akil really hadn’t been like them at all. I’d thought him more demon than most, and while I may not have really known him as Mammon, I didn’t believe even Mammon would look upon this rabble with anything but disdain.

  Akil. I had to find a way to restore him. Demons didn’t have books. The important things, they remembered. Everything else, they forgot. I had to find a demon who would know the answers and who would help me. Jerry. The princes weren’t likely to tell me how to bring Mammon, the Prince of Greed back. They’d hated him. But Jerry would.

  A glint of light was all the warning I received. I twisted away as a demon lunged in from my left. His dagger kissed my hip, but in the next swift movement, I had my hand around his throat and slammed him against the wall. He was a skinny thing, all branch-like protrusions. No wings. Gaunt, haughty face with beseeching brown eyes.

  I smiled, deliberately revealing fangs. “Hello, Samien.” I’d met Samien some seventeen years earlier when I’d been a pitiful half-blood girl, and he’d been Mammon’s hired help in this very fortress. Samien had been an ass then too, but he’d been following Mammon’s orders. I’d known then it hadn’t all been about orders, though. He’d taken too much joy in stabbing me in the back. “If I didn’t know any better, I might think you’re coming on t
o me.”

  He hawked and spat. His spittle fizzled dry on my chest with a sweet hiss. I plucked the dagger from his hand and pressed the edge of the blade under his chin, easing his head back. “Who put you up to this?”

  “I do not—”

  “Don’t bullshit me. You wouldn’t attempt this yourself. You’re too wily for that.”

  “Wrath.” He growled.

  “You mean the ex Prince of Wrath?” As far as I knew, Stefan still held the title. Samien had to mean the huge wolf demon Stefan had knocked off his pedestal.

  Samien’s brown eyes widened. “He wants you dead so Asmodeus will have no further use for the Winter-King and will kill him.”

  And ex-Wrath gets his title back. I plucked the edge of the blade against Samien’s neck and watched blood bead. “I’m within my rights to kill you here and now.”

  “You are weak—”

  I jerked my knee up between his legs and smothered his body with mine. The sweet smell of burning demon flesh filled my nostrils. “I was weak. Once.” His eyes rolled back, showing me the white around his irises. Panic. Good. He deserved it. I nuzzled his neck and breathed in his scent. “I have you now. The kill is mine, and no beast here will stop me.” I felt the crowd at my back and knew where each demon stood by the heat alone. None cared for our scuffle in shadows. In fact, it was perfectly normal.

  Samien opened his mouth to issue a cry. I smothered his mouth with a hand and pushed my face close to his. “You are mine. You will do as I say. I own you now. Or I rip out your throat and roast you carcass on the fire as an example to the others here who would think to attack me.” A slither of lust trickled down my spine. I’d do it too. Wetness sizzled dry on my leg. His piss. He nodded or tried to. I should have let him up, but for a few in-between moments, I didn’t move. I felt the race of his heart as it thumped in his chest. Blood throbbed through him. Where his demon skin met mine, his limited power skittered. For once, I was the predator, and I had my catch pinned beneath my claws. Bloodlust surged in place of reasonable thought. I wanted him dead. He’d have killed me. This was just. It was right. But it was stupid, pointless, and typically demon. The human half of me that Samien despised was the half that saved him.

  I shoved back. “Do you still live here in the fortress?”

  “Yes,” he croaked.

  “I will come to you. Tell no beast.”

  He ducked his chin and scuttled off. I raised the blade to my lips and licked its edge, drawing Samien’s scent and taste across my tongue.

  My father’s demon eyes watched me over the heads of the bickering demons. He stood proud and devastating on the steps—wings spread, piercings aglow—and eyed me with a lascivious grin. I licked the blade. Hello, Daddy dearest, just teaching a demon their place… Satisfied, he turned his attention on the crowd, and I returned to my patrol.

  Chapter 9

  Samien stopped short of dropping to his knees when I entered his bedchamber, but he was close to it, and that was good enough for me. “Do you work for Asmodeus in this fortress now?” I wasted no time in getting down to business. I certainly wasn’t there because I wanted to be.

  “Yes, and the princes when the court is in session.” He bobbed his head up and down, up and down, uncertain whether to look me in the eye or look away from his new owner.

  “How do they treat you?” I stopped in front of him, hand on hip, wing slightly spread, and sneered. He looked at me like it was a trick question. “Worse or better than Mammon?”

  His gaze dipped, his reply stalling on his gnarled lips. Caught between a rock and hard place: to help me or tell my father everything.

  “I have a proposition. I can return Mammon to his rightful place as your liege, but I need your help.”

  “Mammon is dead,” Samien hissed.

  “No, not quite.” I flashed sharp teeth. “Trust me, Samien. I want Mammon back, and I will make it happen. Until then, I need you to find me the key to the chains in the stalls below the fortress. Do you know the ones?”

  He nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Bring me the key, and when Mammon is restored, I will make sure you are rewarded with your freedom.”

  He blinked, hands wringing. “Asmodeus will kill me should he discover—”

  I had my element wrapped around the warmth inside him before he could finish his sentence. I put some heat into it, just a little shove. He dropped to his knees, coughing and spluttering.

  “What do you think I’ll do?” I crouched down at eye level and pushed more inside. He buckled and collapsed onto his side, burning from the inside out. I let him squirm, even relished in it. “Fail me, and I’ll use your ashes for seasoning.”

  He dipped his chin and mustered a nod. I yanked the heat back, released him, and tried not to think about how exactly like my father I’d sounded.

  Chapter 10

  The arrival of the princes could be felt in the air and seen in the hunched shoulders and uttered grunts of the demons milling about the fortress. I’d woken, tasting anticipation on my lips. The elements teased and crowded, pooling in the furthest corner of the fortress where the throne room waited. What was left of the Princes of Hell would gather there. Envy was dead. Technically, so was Greed, although I still heard Akil’s whispers in my dreams and tasted the cinnamon and clove scent of him when I awoke. Stefan was apparently still the Prince of Wrath, if Samien’s pathetic assassination attempt was anything to go on. I ached to go to Stefan but couldn’t afford for my father to discover my lapse. Any sign of compassion would mark me as too human. If Samien did as he was told and found the key, I’d get Stefan out soon enough. That left Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, and Pride. Gluttony, I’d reduced to lava during the battle of Boston, but like all Princes, the bastard was immortal. He’d have come back from that, and he’d be pissed. Pride and Sloth, I’d seen only from a distance and knew nothing about. I was about to get a lesson in hell etiquette from the biggest, ugliest, most malicious and brutal demons stalking the netherworld. None would take kindly to a one-winged, half-blood whore sitting among their glorious, princely selves. At least my wits and claws were sharp.

  My objective was clear: infiltrate their circle, learn all I could about their plans to destroy Jerry, and take it all to the King of Hell himself. Jerry would know what to do. He’d also know how to resurrect Akil. Everything was going to be fine. All I had to do was be utterly and unequivocally demon.

  My internal pep talk crumbled and fell away when I entered the throne room. I made sure to fix my gaze somewhere in the middle distance and forced one foot in front of the other. Ethereal touches—the demon equivalent of a handshake—surged over me. Unseen elements whipped and lashed, vying for control. Ice, fire, water, earth, air. I didn’t know which element belonged to which demon and let them all lick over me. Only the touch of my father’s fire dared ease beneath my skin and explore deeper. A shiver tried to crawl up my spine. I burned it out with an internal blast of heat and set my veins aglow. Might as well enter as I mean to go on. I flared my wing outward and trickled fire across its ragged membrane. I didn’t falter. Didn’t hesitate. I stopped beside my father at the table. The two empty thrones loomed behind us.

  Chin up, gaze locked off-center so as to avoid eye contact, I waited.

  Gluttony stood opposite me, a deliberate move. He’d have chosen that spot. I knew it was him from the gravelly, shark-gray skin. He was considerably smaller than when he’d loomed giant-like on the battlefield, but he still towered over me, and he seethed. His gritty earth element crowded around but didn’t venture too close.

  A demon further down the table growled low at the back of his throat. Besides that, nobody moved. I itched to speak or smile and crack a joke, anything to break the suffocating tension.

  “She’s filth. You disrespect us, Lust—” The demon who’d spoken was a new voice to me—either Pride or Sloth. He trailed off with a few guttural-sounding foreign words. Gluttony grumbled a word I had no h
ope of deciphering. Then another voice chimed in until it became a gaggle of voices all grumbling and growling over one another. At least they weren’t lashing out. Yet.

  My father stood perfectly still and quiet beside me. He observed his brethren with a blank look I could only assume was disinterest. I chanced a glance up at him, but he didn’t acknowledge me. I was on my own.

  The first demon brave enough to approach trailed his feathered wings behind him like a cloak. His muscular, panther-black body blurred in and out of focus, as though his form was some kind of projection and not entirely there. A scar cut through his bottom lip, down his chin, and trailed down his neck to a broad chest. The scar was the only thing in focus. The rest of him blurred and churned like stormy midnight seas. Even his eyes clouded.

  I raised a brow and looked at him sideways. When solid, he wasn’t as heavy as my father or Mammon, but he could easily knock me on my ass. I could probably outrun him. Those trailing wings would slow him down. Of course, he had flight on his side. In that department, I was sorely lacking.

  He hooked a finger under my chin, his touch becoming solid at the last second, and turned my head toward him. “Mm…” His eyes didn’t have pupils, just swirling darkness. He could have been molded from the night itself. “The scent of Greed lingers on her.” He spoke British English clearly, as though he’d spent time practicing or time beyond the veil in the human realm.

  I jerked my chin free. “Touch me again, and I’ll roast those pretty feathers of yours from your body and pick the meat from your bones like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

  His barely-there lips twitched, and his wings ruffled, sending puffs of black dust into the air. I doubted he understood my reference, but he’d picked up on the tone. I blinked lazily. If he made a move, I’d throw down on the table right there. I’d beaten demons twice my size and three times as nasty by striking first. If he twitched in my direction, I’d bathe him in flame.