She twitched, her lips softly smacking as the thirst for destruction began to rise up in her like one of Jacamoe’s undead.
I shuddered.
I’d come to Grimm to find the one thing I’d always wanted but could never find in Hel, my partner. My queen.
The mantle was a heavy one, being queen of Hel, and one few would ever wish upon themselves. My brother had mocked and scorned me for doing so. Bhex had always found me weak and my fascination with finding my queen pathetic at best.
I thought I’d found it in Alice. We’d even had a child together. But having Mariposa had changed me in ways I could never have imagined and made me a different man, one who was no longer so sure about his way or his reasons for doing as he’d done for so long.
Elle twitched, her groaning growing louder. The hunger to consume souls would soon become a ravenous thing in her. I remembered the only other time I’d seen her turn—she’d almost been too much for me in the puny mortal shell I wore.
What will she think when she learns the full truth of me? Will she still touch me? Want me? Will she still trust me? Alice hadn’t, not when she’d learned everything.
I blinked. If I didn’t do it now, I would never get another chance again. I’d asked her to trust me, and she said that she did. I hoped for the gods’ sakes that she’d meant it.
Kneeling beside her, I gently but firmly placed a hand upon her chest, keeping her locked where she was. Then without another thought or a second’s hesitation, I did to myself as I’d done to her just a couple of minutes ago.
Blackness swirled around me as the world spun. My claws trembled as I latched onto the edge of my golden soul.
I could only do it once. If she didn’t accept me—if she didn’t truly accept me—the soul would turn to dust inside of her. She would reanimate as a monster that would need putting down, and I would kill the whole world before I allowed that.
“Please, Elle, please,” I whispered around the blood that smeared my own lips as I violently yanked and tore my soul in two.
The birth of a queen of Hel was a violent one steeped in darkness and in blood. Nothing about my world was simple or easy.
Licking the blood from off my lips, I yanked my hand out from the cavity in my chest and looked at her. Her eyes were fully black, her face a mask of fury and raw, primal rage. Gods, she was a beauty.
“Forgive me, my queen,” I whispered before thrusting my fist through the wound I’d inflicted when I’d forcefully torn Hook’s soul out of her. She screamed, hooking her clawed hands into my back, driving them deep like spears and bleeding me like a stuck pig on a hook.
My fires began to rise up, bathing me in flame, and her too, meeting the water of her own form and turning instantly to heated steam. It was literally a baptism by water and fire, a cleansing and a test to see if she was worthy to walk beside the King of Hel.
Her unholy screams filled the night, and I shuddered as I landed in a heap on my arse, bringing her body to my chest and holding her tightly. Her skin was peeling off from the steam, blistering up in other places. My fires were consuming both of us. My hands were nothing but bone now.
Alice hadn’t wanted that life. She hadn’t wanted the burden I’d thrust upon Elle. Alice hadn’t wanted me. Nobody did, not when they knew the reality and burden of what it meant to be with something—someone like me. Bhex had warned me, told me I would find nothing but disappointment in the human world. I was too soft and too stupid to not seek companionship amongst my own kind, those born to endure the same hardship.
I cradled her bones to my bones, bending my head over hers, whispering words to her that came from my own heart. I’d always known I was different, that I was flawed, that I was not what a true demon king ought to be.
“Sleep now, Arielle. I’ll be here when you awake.”
CHAPTER
ELLE
I knew something was wrong the moment my conscious mind began flooding back in.
I felt every tear in my flesh, the ache of my wounds throbbing and burning, and hands holding me. I heard the rushed murmurs of a male’s voice. Slowly, everything came back to me: Jacamoe’s betrayal. My pathetic attempts at matching his magick with my own. Watching as Hook had risen like a zombie from its dirt cradle. The emptiness in his eyes as he’d stared at me. Father’s death…
I trembled.
Anahita’s inability to stop Jacamoe had been breathtakingly brutal. I didn’t even know if my sister lived or if I would be burying not just a parent, but another sibling.
Jacamoe’s revenge had been so well played that he’d nearly won. He’d nearly succeeded in bringing them all down. Crowley and I had fought like twin devils to stop him, but he’d tossed Hook at Crowley, effectively separating us.
If Maddox hadn’t shown up when he had—my nostrils flared and sickness rose up the back of my throat—I would have been dead. I almost didn’t make it out of that fight alive.
My mentor, my friend had betrayed me, betrayed us all.
I frowned. I felt different. Why?
It took me a second to realize that suddenly nothing hurt anymore. Wait, how am I thinking so rationally? So reasonably? Shouldn’t I be the monster of the deep again, the one who’d very nearly toppled all the great houses of Undine in her destructive and violent path once before?
My eyes snapped open. I wasn’t sure what I expected to see.
But it was just Maddox. His skin gleamed like molten metal. He had no cuts and no bruises—he was completely healed somehow. Yet somehow, he looked different too. Same hair. Same eyes. Same everything. But… I sat up.
He instantly released me. I cocked my head. “How…” My fingers curved over my chest, and I noticed that my skin was also healed. The cuts and bruises were all gone.
In fact—I flexed my toes, stretched my calf muscles, and there was no pain whatsoever.
I looked back at him. His lips were set in a straight but tense line. I knew that look. He’d been my partner long enough that I knew when something wasn’t quite right.
“What did you do? Why am I not insane with bloodlust?” The second I asked it, I felt the glow of a soul burning brightly within me. But it wasn’t a normal burn. It wasn’t like my own had been, or even Hook’s.
The new soul burn was brighter even than the sun and so incredibly powerful that I literally felt as though I could fly if I focused hard enough, which was absolutely ridiculous. I’d never felt so good in my life.
I wet my lips and started to shove strands of hair out of my eyes, and that’s when I noticed that it was no longer black, as it was after my battle with the Sea Witch. It was white. Snow white and streaked with blue at the tips. I blinked. “Ha-Hatter? What is— ”
“I healed you, Arielle.”
The answer was suddenly crystal clear, and I wondered why it’d taken me so long to figure it out. I glanced over toward Hook, who lay prostrate. His chest was barely rising and falling. We had to get him topside soon, to our healers and away from the death trap that was Undine.
All of it needed to wait, and yet... “You shared soul with me.” It took me less than a second to understand the ramifications of it all. His soul was golden. He was also a demon king. I shared a soul with an immortal godlike being. But I didn’t feel dark or violent or wicked. I didn’t feel deranged or like a monster. I only felt like… me, just better.
I swallowed hard. “How much will this change me?”
He sighed deeply and gingerly got to his feet, patiently holding his hand out to me to take it. I stared at his hand, feeling a little as though it was symbolism in some way, like if I took his hand, I was silently accepting what he’d done to me. He was a demon. I knew keeping his soul would not come without ramifications—maybe good ones, and maybe not.
I took his hand.
His breathing stuttered for just a second. He held my hand tightly to his chest.
Who is my partner? Who is he really? I felt in some ways like I was just beginning to explore the truth of that.
He brus
hed tendrils of hair behind my ears, and his touch was exquisitely gentle, almost tender. And then he spoke in that deeply cultured voice of a Landian male. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “But what I did was irrevocable. In days or even weeks you will begin to see the truth of your transformation.”
My stomach bottomed out and I was terrified to ask him what that meant. Scared to fracture this tenuous feeling of gratitude I still felt. So for now, I didn’t want to think about it.
“Why? That’s all I want to know right now. Why did you do it?”
“Because I couldn’t stand living in a world without the you that I know. I didn’t lie when I said I need you, Elle.”
“I can’t be your hope of salvation,” I said without thought, though the words were true. “No one can be that for anyone. It’s a fool’s errand to even try.”
He shook his head. “I don’t need you to want me. If you don’t, I accept that. I only need you to be.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. We had so much to talk about, but as ever with us, there was no time for any of it. “We need to get to Hook and Crowley. We need to let my sisters and their guards out of their cages. And then when we get back to Grimm— ”
“We need to talk. I know,” he said, sounding resigned to his fate.
Odd that I wasn’t mad at him. Maybe he assumed I would be. Hells, maybe I should have been. He hadn’t told me what he planned to do. He’d let me think he would kill me once I turned and became the monster of the deep.
He was a demon. The highest of them, in fact. And of course splitting his soul would come with its own share of consequences. I wasn’t stupid. He’d said I would transform and that thought was an ominous one. Just who would I be in two weeks time? Me, or a darker more twisted version of me? Was it just shock keeping me so sane right now? I halfway thought so.
Nodding, I pointed with my chin toward Hook’s body. “Can you rush ahead and take him to the hospital. He’s finally got his soul back. He might actually survive this.”
“Of course, but what will you do?”
I pressed my lips together. “I need to see to my sister. I will also be needed here. Father’s song will be in a few days. I was a terrible daughter to him in life, and though the bastard doesn’t deserve it I will be here for him in death.”
He clenched his jaw. I knew he understood that I was sending him away. But the truth was I needed time to think about everything. I wasn’t stupid, but I was done with snapping first and thinking later. He’d done what he’d done to save me, and I didn’t see how I could fault him for that. But I’d gone from being the puppet of a witch to… what? I didn’t even know what I was anymore.
And judging by the look in his eyes, he didn’t know either.
“I need time, Hatter. That’s all. I’m not mad at you. If you hadn’t done what you did, I wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t be me. So thank you. Thank you for doing it. I don’t ever want you to think I don’t recognize the sacrifice you’ve made.”
He pursed his lips but nodded once. Still, I read the conflict in his eyes, and I knew that on some level, he understood that what he’d done wasn’t entirely fair. I’d asked him to kill me. That had been my choice. I knew little of demons, and what I did know wasn’t good. But then all I had to do was think of my partner, of all that he’d done for me, for us, and I was conflicted all over again. What’s truth, and what’s fiction? I didn’t know, and I no longer had the luxury to find it out, because like it or not, a new world had been thrust upon me.
“But you also didn’t give me a choice in this— ”
He flinched, and I could see the pain reflected in his eyes. He knew it was true.
“Am I demon now too?”
He swallowed, and for brief moment, I wasn’t sure he would answer. “Yes.”
I wanted to laugh. I also wanted to cry. Every time I turned around, it seemed like I was losing another part of me. A demon, a siren, and a witch walk into a bar…” I snorted with laughter, but the truth was that I didn’t know how I felt about any of it. I sniffed, swallowing the lump in my throat.
“I’m sorry. But there is more, and I would not forgive myself if I didn’t tell it to you. You aren’t just a demon, Elle. You’re mine. My queen. You’re now the Queen of Hel.”
I turned away, trembling and shaking all over, telling myself not to leave that way. He deserved a pat on the back or an acknowledgement, at the very least.
But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I heard rather than saw him pick up Hook’s body. I felt the pulsing power of the travel tunnel at my back, courtesy of the key card.
When he left, I thought that maybe I would feel empty, cold, and dizzy with desire to get him or even Hook back. But I didn’t. I was completely numb. I felt myself walking back toward the pathway where Crowley’s body lay scattered in pieces.
Hook had really done a number on him. If Crowley actually could heal from something like this, he was gonna have a helluva of headache.
I glanced down at the bits of him scattered along the cobbled floor. He was healing, just as he said he would. I saw new flesh already beginning to form on the stumps that remained.
So if it was true, then it was also true that it was the last time he would heal. Jacamoe had stolen his last and final recharge from him. When Crowley came back, he would be as mortal as Hook and just as physically weak.
I saw his beating heart in the corner. I almost walked past, but I felt something for the first time since my reawakening, a soft and gentle stirring in my breast, and I marveled that a creature of hells could feel that way. Kneeling, I tenderly reached for the beating organ, bringing it gently to my breast and cooing softly to it.
He’d been there for me when everyone else had abandoned me. Knowing what it would mean for him, Crowley hadn’t left me. We might have had our disagreements, and he might even have hated my guts at this point, but he hadn’t abandoned me. It had been just us, and he’d stayed.
I kissed the heart, feeling the smear of hot blood upon my lips. I licked it off without thinking and felt a queer sensation coursing through me.
I hadn’t hated the taste of it.
Do demons drink blood? And how demon am I, really? As Queen of Hel, will I one day feel the sudden desire to bathe in the blood of my enemies? There wasn’t a group in all of Grimm more bloodthirsty than demons. I shivered, only snapping from my thoughts when I felt the heart lurch with a slugging beat in the palm of my hand.
I didn’t know if it was true that the epicenter of the soul resided in the heart, but I thought that maybe it did. And if it did, I whispered to it, “When you wake up, I’ll be here. Though I’m not the same anymore, I’ll always be here for you, just like you were here for me too.”
Then, standing, I turned and walked his heart back toward the largest mass of him that remained. I set it down gently, almost reverently, back in the cage of his chestplate.
I had to find my sister. I had to release her and her guards. Then I would stay just long enough to bury my father and wait for Crowley to fully regenerate. After that, I would face what awaited me topside.
I thought that maybe a sane person would hate Maddox, and I wondered at why I didn’t. I didn’t have a clue what lay in store for me in the future. All I knew was that I wasn’t even close to being the same as I’d been just a year before. Then, I’d been a cursed siren.
I had become something altogether different and singularly unique. Who am I, really? And more to the point, who do I want to be now?
I needed to know that before I could decide on anything else. I needed a chance to grieve the loss of my kin and to grieve the loss of who I’d once been. I needed to become stronger and better so that this never happened to me again.
When I went back to Grimm, I wouldn’t be the same. But I no longer wanted to be.
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