Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
Istep out of the bedroom and stop just before the living room, fingers tightening on the hem of my shirt. They haven't noticed me yet. The three of them stand close in low conversation, shoulders pulled tight like coiled springs.
Cassiel is the first to break the quiet. “Why don’t you just ask your father for help with Zepharion?”
His question throws me. His father? I blink, caught off guard.
Deimos snorts and rolls his eyes, crossing his arms. “Yeah, no. I’d rather let Zepharion rip my spine out through my cock than ask him for anything.”
Bastion chuckles. “Dramatic much?”
Deimos tilts his head, smirking. “It’s a gift.”
Before I can ask who in Hell they mean, Deimos’ eyes find me and the conversation dies. He straightens, his smirk sharpening. “Ah, finally gracing us with your presence, Lustling.”
I cross my arms and raise a brow. “Good things take time.”
Cassiel makes a small, strangled sound and looks away. Bastion snickers. Deimos’ expression flickers, impatient. “Patience is for mortals,” he says.
“Or for those who know their worth,” I shoot back.
His jaw tightens. I savor the tightening because it’s mine to provoke. Then, with a casual flick of his wrist, a black portal tears open in the middle of the living room. The air around it hums, heavy and hot; smoke and that old, unfamiliar tang curl through the gap.
“Ready to visit Hell?”
No. Every nerve in my body recoils at the thought. Still, I know I do not have a choice. I square my shoulders and breathe out. “Not even a little. But I know I have to.”
His smirk softens, just a fraction. Without a word he reaches for my hand and laces his fingers through mine. Warm and steady. A promise without sound.
Bastion and Cassiel fall into step behind us and together we step into the dark.
The shift is immediate. Sulfur and warm earth hit my lungs first, the air heavy as if it carries weather.
The sky is a bruised purple, veined with black and crimson lightning that rakes the horizon in slow, terrible flashes.
The ground is obsidian, smooth and cracked where veins of molten red pulse.
Towers of black stone spear the sky, their spires jagged and crowned with banners stamped in sigils that make my skin prickle.
We are in a massive courtyard, the kind of place that announces itself before you see it. Dark banners flutter in the hot wind. The heat settles under my skin in a steady hum, like a second heartbeat that tells me this is where I belong and yet, be careful.
Bastion rolls his shoulders and grins. “Feels good to be back.”
I lift an eyebrow. “You like it here?”
“What’s not to like? Fire, chaos, power. Feels like home.”
Cassiel says nothing, but his jaw works like a man keeping a storm from breaking loose. Deimos is last through the portal; it seals behind him and he squeezes my hand once before letting go, cracking his neck as he takes in the scene.
“Alright, Lustling,” he says, turning with that wicked glint in his eyes. “Lesson one—welcome to Hell.”
The energy inside me answers the land. I feel better, stronger, sharper. Something about this place wakes the edges of me; it hums along my nerves and makes me want to stretch into it. Deimos notices the change in me and smirks. “Time for the fun part.”
Then he changes.
It happens in a breath. One heartbeat he is his usual arrogant, half-naked self; the next, power tears out of him in a rolling wave.
Black smoke coils from his skin, wrapping his silhouette.
His frame stretches and bulks; muscle tightens with a new, cruel precision.
Horns push back from his temples, long and jagged, tips faintly aglow; his eyes flare violet-gold.
Wings sprout—thick, leathery—snapping open with a sound like a storm rolling in.
His tail flicks, the tip a sharp, dangerous point.
His hands end in claws. He looks like a god that decided violence was an acceptable hobby.
I should be afraid. I should shrink. Instead I feel awe, a small bright thing in my chest.
Bastion laughs at me as if he can read the mouth on my face. “You’re drooling, Hellcat.”
I don’t have time to answer. He shifts too, and the air shivers.
His body bulks up further, melting into a darker bronze that shines like river rock.
Horns curl from his brow in a ram-twist, etched with runes that pulse faintly.
His eyes go molten gold. Black, armor-like plating crawls up his forearms. A thick tail, tipped in blade, lashes behind him.
If Deimos is temptation, Bastion is war incarnate—walking arsenal and terrible grin. I swallow hard and find my thighs pressed together with a guilty, involuntary hunger.
Cassiel’s change is not the loud, animal one that the others choose.
He does not bloat or sprout armor. He falls to his knees and dark light seeps from him, a shadow that seems to consume the air around his skin.
Then, as if the sky were remembering an old song, six wings unfurl—black and broken, beautiful and tragic.
Some feathers are charred, others torn away, leaving the raw under skin exposed.
Once those wings were gold. Once they carried him in a light I cannot now imagine. Now they are ruin made gorgeous.
He has always been otherworldly. In Hell he becomes a fallen god, heartbreaking in his ruined glory. I step toward him, fingers itching to trace the edges of his wings. He watches me, lips parted, eyes silver-blue and raw. There is a gravity in him that pulls at my insides.
I want him. Not the same hunger I have for Deimos or Bastion—though I want them, too—but something taut and curious and dangerous. Cassiel is a puzzle I ache to solve.
I trail my gaze over the three of them, drinking in their fierce, terrible beauty. “Not bad,” I murmur. “Not bad at all.”
Deimos chuckles and steps closer. “Think you can keep up, Lustling?”
Something stirs in me at the challenge. I can feel the land's heat inside my bones. I don’t know if I can shift fully yet, if the horns will push or the tail will answer, but there is only one way to find out.
I step between them and let the heat of Hell run through my veins. The courtyard thrums underfoot as if the place itself is testing me. I lift my chin and smile, a small, dangerous flare. “Let’s see, shall we?”