by Liza James
“You were my one exception, tainted with the blood of a Demon.” Her words transform into something acidic and even more deranged. “But I fixed you, I made you into the Angel you were always supposed to be. I masked your bloodlines with a spell that was unbreakable, invincible. I had hopes when you found them and Fell, that you would follow through with our plans. But you’ve always been a disgusting disappointment, and it all started with him and his sister.”
“Leave them,” Lucifer insists. “This is unavoidable, and if Sunan gets what she wants, she won’t be a threat to anyone else.”
“No!” I reply, my voice is hard with determination. “We aren’t fucking leaving them. She’s our sister, and Leon has always been there for us.” I quickly turn around and move to race down the stairs, Nathanial is right by my side as he takes my hand and steps ahead in order to pull me along. Luna and Elijah follow us as well, but Esme is held back by Lucifer’s hands.
“Say the fucking words!” Sunan screams once more and Amelia flinches back at the sound. She immediately starts speaking, and Leon struggles to lift his hands and cover his ears. He’s clearly in agony, fighting back with every bit of strength he can manage.
“Ol, Amelia—”
“Fucking mutt,” Sunan coldly interrupts and corrects her verbiage.
—half-breed of both the Underworld and Arcadia above, allar ol cnila de yours g sibsi. Ol darbs de a etharzi c ge congamphlgh ca el.”
“She won’t survive this, it’s her third fucking bond. She can’t do it again,” Elijah stresses, worry lining his voice as we come to the bottom floor.
“Not unless he’s her Fated. If that’s what’s happening, then it might be a successful bond,” Nathanial answers clinically, relying on anything he possibly knows as a healer.
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Leon mumbles incoherently while Amelia continues crying through the words she’s being forced to speak.
I step forward, Luna at my side as we both breach through the space that surrounds them. “They’ve already initiated the bond. Even if she tries to kill Leon, Amelia can heal him,” Nathanial shouts over the chaotic noise. He reaches for my hand and pulls me in front of him, “Project, tell me where Danner is through the bond. I’ll protect you from here.”
Nathanial’s arms wrap tightly around my shoulders as I work to quickly release my spirit from the physical confines of my body. “I’m always your reflection. Everything you feel, what you can do, the emotions that build inside of you. They reflect through me and are amplified. I think that’s why I could project after I met you. It’s why we were becoming more volatile towards each other the more time we spent together. We were constantly mirroring each other until we finally gave in. I might be able to reflect your ability, even while you’re projected, now that we’re linked. Go,” he lifts a hand and grips my jaw tightly. He whispers everything as quickly as he can.
His touch flows through me and I slip away, my spirit releasing into the space while my form collapses in his arms. At the same time, Luna and Elijah begin altering our surroundings. But I’m in an odd dimension, one that gives me the ability to see what’s truly happening, with a thin veil of what Elijah and Luna create layered over top.
It’s confusing at first, and I have to work to sort the images. But soon enough I’m able to differentiate what’s happening until the entire room plunges into darkness. When the lights come on again, we’re in the middle of the city. Cars race through the area in a mess that sends Sunan’s eyes flashing all over the place. The Demons around her become frightened, and their hold on Leon slips enough for Amelia to reach forward and pull him into her arms. She keeps stepping backwards, her strength clearly returning due to the bond they’ve now formed.
Good, I need her to survive this.
I quickly glance around the room in search of Danner, studying the space for his hidden stature but I don’t see him. Nathanial is still hovering over my body, his eyes tracking the spaces I move to as if he can see me himself. I have a feeling that he can still feel my presence through the bond, and maybe that is directing his gaze.
Amelia turns to quickly pass Leon off to Elijah, when Sunan’s hand whips forward and wraps through her hair. She yanks her daughter backwards and Amelia comes crashing to the ground. Sunan begins stepping back, dragging Amelia by the grip she holds on her.
I race toward them, and I feel Nathanial’s eyes as they follow me along. His voice yells out for me to stop, but I can’t. I can’t let her take Amelia. Luna is suddenly there as well, running toward Sunan when both of our hands wrap around Amelia’s legs. Luna can’t see me, she doesn’t know I’m here but we work together to try and pull Amelia free.
I don’t realize at first what I’m doing, but as I listen to both of my sisters cries while we work as one, I notice that I’m physically interacting with a different dimension for the first time. I throw my head back to find Nathanial braced on the ground over my figure. His body is tense, and his eyes are shut while he floods our bond with his strength. He’s doing what he said he could, reflecting my own power, amplifying my own ability now that we’re bonded.
The city bustles around us, distracting Sunan until she’s raging uncontrollably. “Let go you little mutts. This one is fucking mine, and she’s going to pay for what she’s done.”
Abruptly, Sunan’s Demons rip forward and I falter when one wraps its razor sharp teeth around Luna’s arm. The city scape flickers and Elijah shouts as he rushes toward us.
“Let me go,” Amelia yells and my eyes flash back to her before falling to Luna again.
“No,” I cry even though she can’t hear me. I can’t do this. I don’t want to let her go.
“You have to let me go,” she concedes as she pulls her legs up and tries to break free from our hold. Luna maintains her grip, even as she cries out in pain. But Elijah reaches the Demon and hastily stabs it through the back of its head. “Please, you have to. Take care of Leon, and Elijah. Nathanial was one of my best friends at one point in our lives. They don’t know what they’ve already done for me. But I have to go. I’m sorry.” Amelia kicks her legs forward until one crashes against Luna’s shoulder, shooting her back in agony and into Elijah’s arms.
I retain my hold and Amelia’s eyes shift to the space I should be in. “Back the fuck off, Stells. I know you think you can fix this, but you can’t.” Anger slips into her tone as she tries to pull her familiar shield back in place. She’s detaching herself, concealing within the hard exterior she wraps herself in. She kicks her leg forward, attempting to connect with me in some space but I hold on. It’s not until she finally makes contact with my jaw that I finally lose my grip and watch her slip out of my grasp. Her mother watches in satisfaction and laughs a bitter sound that pierces through my chest.
I fall back on my hands, unable to stop the heavy tears that fall from eyes. I helplessly watch as Sunan escapes into the darkness with her Demons and my sister.
I’m holding Stella in my arms, her weakened body lays against my chest while my back is braced against the couch. She’s exhausted, both mentally and physically from everything that just happened. We all are. We never found Danner. He obviously left the minute Esme had broken his hold on myself and Elijah. I can guarantee he’s with Sunan, just another slave she’s manipulated into being her servant.
We’re back home, finally. Leon lays passed out across the sofa, but his breaths are shallow and uneven. He doesn’t feel well, growing more and more uncomfortable by the minute as the bond strains and stretches between him and Amelia.
She’s gone.
She’s back with Sunan, that evil, disgusting waste of a fucking Angel. Who knows what she’s about to go through, or what she’ll be when she comes out on the other side of it.
“Amelia is fucking related to Luna and Stella,” Elijah mutters as he scrubs a hand down his face. He’s pacing around the room while Luna lays at my side, her head rests near Stella’s while they both sleep. “How the hell did I not know that? How
could I not feel that?”
“Sunan taps into incredibly dark magic, Elijah. I don’t know what it is, but she was able to hide Amelia’s bloodlines her entire life. How was she able to stay in Arcadia as a half-breed? Sunan held way too much control, she’s a master at manipulation and she taught Amelia to exemplify the same traits,” I explain quietly. I run my fingers through Stella’s hair and then rest the back of my hand against her forehead. I’m still in the habit of checking her temperature, even though we’re bonded and I can feel her health pulsing through our blood.
“And now Leon and Amelia are bonded. She survived the link, which means they are most likely Fated. She and Leon are going to be tortured being apart. Maybe he can find her, the way I found Luna in the woods,” Elijah pauses his movements, letting his eyes fall to Leon who now slowly stirs awake.
“I’m not looking for her,” Leon groans out as he turns to face us. His skin is whiter, ashier than usual and his eyes are darker than before.
“Yes, you are,” Elijah bites out as he takes a step closer.
“No. I’m fucking not. As far as I’m concerned, the sooner she dies, the sooner this bullshit bond is severed, and I can go on my way.” Leon slowly sits up, raising his voice in anger.
Stella and Luna both stir at the commotion and flutter their eyes open while they listen.
“First of all,” I interrupt. “I can guarantee that Sunan has Amelia hidden within the dark magic she accesses. I doubt Leon would even be able to find her in the first place. If she was able to bury those bloodlines and raise Amelia as an Angel undetected for years, then she’s using something far darker than I’ve ever witnessed before.”
“Fucking hell,” Elijah snaps as he resumes pacing. “How can you say that shit, Leon? She’s your Fated. If she dies, you most likely will as well.”
Leon growls a bitter sound that spills from his throat. He works to stand up and square his shoulders through the discomfort he’s clearly feeling. “Because I don’t give two fucks about Amelia or whatever her mother is doing to her. I care about the two of them getting what they fucking deserve. If I die in the process? So be it, they’ve taken everything from me as it is.”
“So, she is your Fated?” Stella asks, just as Luna sits up at my side.
“Yeah, in some sick and twisted mistake by the goddamn Universe.” Leon walks towards the staircase as he turns to address us one last time. “I’m going upstairs to pass the fuck out. Don’t wake me up.”
Stella tenses in my arms once we’re all alone. I can feel the worry through her blood, wondering where Amelia is and what’s happening to her. I pull her tightly against my chest and graze my fingers across her stomach. “We’ll find her.”
Her face turns towards me, her weary eyes meeting my own. “How? How will we be able to? You and I have to leave for Avernus in only a few days.”
“Us being in the Underworld will be beneficial to what’s happening,” I remind her. “We’ll be with Esme and Lucifer. We’ll be the first to know if Sunan contacts anyone in Hell and we can research the dark magic she’s tapping into.”
“We have to find her as soon as possible.” Luna stands and steps toward Elijah, running her hands around his waist as he pulls her against him and envelops her in his hold.
“We will,” he says quietly, but I hear the uncertainty that taints his voice.
“Leon will help, we’ll fucking make him,” I add. I don’t know what has happened between him and Amelia, but it can’t step between my Fated and Luna finding their sister.
“Amelia has done horrible things,” Elijah prompts as his gaze drops to each of us in the room. “Unforgivable things. Most, we don’t even know about.”
“We know,” Stella says quietly, and Luna looks back to meet her eyes. “She’s also helped, in her own way. She helped me when I had to go to the Underworld. She helped initiate the bond between Nathanial and I.”
“She’s broken. But she’s our sister, and we have to try. We aren’t letting her go. Not without a fight,” Luna agrees.
“Then we start tomorrow. We’ll begin the search before Stella and I leave, gather information and potential locations that she should could be hiding. We’ll continue from Hell. Keep your eyes out for Danner as well, he’ll be with Sunan.” I shift to stand and pull Stella up with me. Elijah and Luna nod in agreement and when I look to see the time, I realize it’s nearly sunrise.
But we’re all exhausted, so I lift Stella in my arms again and carry her upstairs to our room. I’m not sure where Leon chose to pass out, but as I near our door, I see that Amelia’s is cracked open the tiniest inch.
I pause, stepping towards it while Stella pushes it open a bit farther. We both peer inside and find Leon, he’s passed out on Amelia’s bed, his head rests against her pillows. His breaths are still shallow, but they’re slightly more even than they were before.
“He’s going to get worse,” I tell Stella. She wasn’t around when Luna and Elijah spent their night away from each other. “It’s physically painful to be apart from your Fated. A few hours, a night here and there is simply uncomfortable. But the longer they’re apart, if Amelia is being truly tortured or hurt, the worse Leon will become.”
Stella’s eyes widen with disappointment as she turns to look at him again. “What if he feeds?”
“It may help temporarily, but nothing releases the strain that’s being put on their bond.”
“Why does he hate her? What happened?” She asks, turning her gaze back to me as we leave him and step into our own room. I stalk towards the bed and lay her down, shifting back so that I can undress before climbing in beside her. She sits up and begins doing the same.
“I don’t know exactly what happened between them. I know that she was trapped on earth for a brief period of time when she was young, but I don’t know the details of what happened. By the time we met her as a teenager, we thought she had been raised the way Elijah and I had, with no parental figures—only mentors.” My eyes fall to Stella’s naked form, raking over her creamy skin and flawlessly curved figure. I want to feel her against me, have her flesh connecting with mine. I don’t even need to fuck her in this moment, I just want to feel her.
“And by that point, she was already a master at hiding who she truly was,” Stella replies knowingly. I nod my head and step on to the bed, reaching forward and dragging her against my skin. She wraps her arms around my neck and straddles her legs across my thighs. “What if we can’t find her?” her voice drops low in an anxious whisper as she voices her fear.
“Then we dispatch every Demon in Hell to rip through Sunan’s whereabouts until we do,” I growl, while I wrap my fingers around the back of her thighs and pull her wider across my lap. I feel her relax at my declaration, her body melts against mine and her emotions immediately begin leveling out.
I take it back, I do need to fuck her. And I feel the need rising in her blood as well. It’s the connection we crave, the union after having a night like we just experienced. I want to feel her against me in every possible way, listen to her heart beat wildly in her chest and watch as her hair bounces and falls around her shoulders.
She rolls her hips forward, grinding her core against me as her lips pull up into a confident smile. “Because we’re the new rulers of Avernus,” she announces with an assertive tone. There it is, the resolve. We’ll make this work, we’ll find Amelia. We’ll destroy and decimate anyone who tries to stop us.
She sits up and slides back down on my length, gasping as I fill her. I grip her hips even tighter and let my fingers bite into her flesh.
“Exactly,” I reply, leaning forward and taking one of her nipples into my mouth. Her head falls back as she moans and begins riding me in greedy strokes.
“Should I call you King Nathanial again?” She asks, humor lacing her tone while she bounces on my fucking cock.
“Nah,” I say and then bite down on her nipple. “You only call me daddy.”
The music pounds through my ears as I stride ac
ross the floor of our club in Avernus. Nathanial and I have been here for a few months now, and we continue our search for Amelia. We’ve sent Demons and Fallen Angels to the places we think she could be, but have come up empty handed so far. We’ve also been focusing part of our efforts on our new home, getting to know our kind and how things work in the Underworld.
I’ve loved it, truthfully. In the brief moments my mind isn’t lost in search of Amelia, I find comfort and rest in the home we’ve built here. It feels familiar, and Nathanial has transitioned perfectly from his rule over the Fallen Race to ruling over Avernus. We easily project back and forth now, visiting Elijah and Luna at least once a week. We have meetings to discuss any new information regarding Sunan and Danner, and Leon has moved in with them while we search.
He’s an entirely different story, however. He grows weaker and sicker every day, he’s angry and uncontrolled most of the time now. He ends up leaving for days on end where he binge feeds to dangerous levels. Sometimes he comes here to Avernus, other times he’s lost on the upside instead. I can practically see the internal war that feasts on him. I know he’s slowly losing himself to the torture he feels Amelia experiencing, and then the spiteful part of him that believes she deserves it.
I can’t even imagine what they’re both going through. Tonight however, Leon is here, and I’m thankful to be able to keep an eye on him while he moves through the club. He’s on a binge, so his strength has somewhat returned. However, he hasn’t been the Leon I first met months ago, not since Amelia was taken.
I step through the crowd of dancers, after checking on Leon, and I move to oversee the bar and the other attendees. I’ve got my favorite, purple latex dress on. I use the term dress loosely, it’s a tight short skirt that clings to my ass and hips. But the top is a few strappy pieces that wrap around me in deliberate places. My hair is pulled up into a high ponytail, hanging long down my back until it brushes against the exposed skin right above my ass. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wear it like this on purpose.
