Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Leander
My palace thrummed with the steady flow of temptation.
It pulsed through the floors and into my bones. Every climax in the pleasure rooms, every win at the gaming tables, every bite of fruit in the grove: a thousand small currents feeding my hunger, fuelling my domain.
After hundreds of years in Hell, I still devoured every sliver of Essence. The souls in the catacombs offered me minuscule amounts of energy. The fresh souls gave me the best hit.
But this latest soul – my little Champion – had somehow offered the strongest taste of temptation in the last hundred years.
I was absolutely obsessed.
I'd spent more time with her than any other Champion before.
My Thorns were growing suspicious. Even Elise's outburst had me concerned.
I couldn't let them see how much a mortal soul had unsettled me.
That would make me look weak. A demon of Hell could never display weakness, or a stronger, more cunning creature could seize my domain.
After all, that was how I'd risen to become a demon centuries ago.
I stood barefoot in my throne room and felt the night’s harvest pour in. Silk rasped on skin. Glass caught against teeth. A laugh at the moment a wager tipped. Honey on the tongue, salt in the throat, nails on a back. None of it touched me, and all of it did.
I was the conduit. This domain survived on Essence, and the only way to siphon it was when a soul connected with my sin.
Good thing none of my bound souls were holding out on me tonight. Because when they yielded, the pleasure was like nothing else. I closed my eyes and relished them. All mine.
If only my little Champion were here to feed me as well.
She'd return from Corruption soon. I feared that Cressida would have presented an excellent bargain.
Knowing how fierce my Champion was, she'd have turned down the demon bitch, and I’d still have time to persuade her to join me here in Temptation.
Everyone was talking about her. No thanks to Elise. They'd all learned about her weakness, and her odds displayed in the Betting Hall had fallen even more.
I could have changed the numbers, but seeing my bound souls underestimate her was much more fun.
When we fought in the courtyard, she'd picked up skills with a sword quicker than most. She stalked me like I was her prey, light on her toes.
That was a first. Not many had the balls to face me like she did.
She attacked like a vicious monster, too.
If my Thorns had spent enough time watching her, they'd know what a worthy fighter we'd gain when she binds herself to me.
Once she's bound, maybe then we can face our growing lust.
I knew she felt it, too.
When I joined her in the bathhouse, I had to restrain my very nature from taking her there.
Most souls in Temptation were simpering idiots.
They all lusted over me because I was the Demon of Temptation.
Many heard the rumours of how well I fucked.
I'd bring my lovers to ecstasy, so of course, they all wanted some of that for themselves.
But Nina . . . she had such good restraint. I could sense her arousal, her desire for me, and all she needed to do was give in to that temptation. Still, she refused.
My little Champion was a feisty one.
She hasn’t kneeled. Not yet.
But she will.
And when she does . . . it will be exquisite.
I dressed in a long coat the colour of wine, with velvet cuffs embroidered with black thread.
Tasteful and lavish. Beneath my coat, I wore a black silk shirt ruffled down the front and fitted trousers.
I slipped on my obsidian stone ring and picked up a gold-handled cane that looked more like a weapon than an accessory.
I vanished from Temptation and emerged in the Sanctuary.
The cragged ceiling pressed low, with pillars of gold-veined stone rising in a perfect circle around me.
This was the only spot where demons ever agreed to gather.
We were useless in the Heart of Hell, but we had power here, on the border between our domains and The Crossing.
Four demons were waiting, distanced from one another around the circular platform.
"Good of you to join us,” Madalena purred.
“Leander,” Cressida said, inclining her head the length manners require and nothing more. But there was a new twinkle in her eye. What had she learned from my little Champion, I wondered. “You look well.”
"Likewise,” I said.
She didn’t, but I was feeling generous.
“Yes, I am flourishing.” Cressida’s gaze slid across us all. “No pledges yet, I hear. Not one.”
Madalena clicked her tongue softly, as if disappointed in the year’s crop. “They are stubborn.”
“They are strong,” Dimitri said. “There is a difference.” His voice always sounded as if it had travelled a long way. He was one of the oldest of us and had withered plenty. Age hadn’t made him any less dramatic. It brought me such joy to know my Champion had bested him.
Yvette rolled a pebble between her fingers and thumb until it cracked. “Strong is thrilling,” she said. “Strong breaks with a sound.”
“I want to know which of you think you’re going to win The Cycle,” Madalena hissed. "Are you trying to steal the throne from me?”
I scoffed. "Have you finally lost it?”
"Do tell us, Leander?” Cressida chirped in. "Made any offers to your sweet little thing?”
I'd offer my Champion my body if she bound herself to my domain, but they didn't need to know that. Though I think she’ll hold out longer than I expected.
My Champion was incredibly fierce. She made my cock throb.
"She is proving stubborn like the rest.”
“That’s not what I found when she visited my domain,” Cressida purred, licking her fingers as though there was a trace of something on them.
“If you have a point, Cressida, stab me. I could use the entertainment.”
“Your Champion’s form is delicious, isn’t it. Though I doubt you’ve seen it in all its glory. She’s very close to making a deal with me.”
Bullshit.
My Champion would never offer herself to a gilded viper.
Madalena snorted.
I shrugged, schooling my face into indifference even as fury clawed up my spine. “I have no shortage of souls to feed on.”
"But you don't have any new, delectable souls, do you?” Cressida cooed. “Because you failed to bind a soul from the last crop, or have you forgotten?”
I will claw your eyes out one day and eat them.
"You're in for a treat when I bind not one,” I said, "but two souls.”
Yvette shrieked. "I don't understand why you enjoy playing with the souls.”
I stifled a laugh, but Madalena's face flushed with rage.
“Cease your quarrels.” Dimitri’s glance flicked to me and away. "We are here for the same reason as always.”
“We all know the rules,” Cressida snapped. "The throne requires the assent of all. None will ever give it. The Cycle turns, and we harvest. Eternity locked in stalemate.”
Dimitri nodded. "So we must force these Champions into our bargains, or destroy them.”
Reluctant nods all round, except Yvette, who was mumbling to herself. "I am tired of these games.”
"Stop fucking around, Yvette,” Cressida barked. "These games bring us fresh souls. We continue as we always have. Unless you all wish to crown me your Queen.”
I scoffed. "You're bold, I'll give you that.”
"I have existed in Hell longer than you, Serpent.”
“Alexei would have enjoyed this,” Madalena drawled.
"If Salazar were still on the throne, we would have none of this madness,” Yvette said.
All our eyes narrowed on the thin, pale demon.
"This is your fault,” she hissed at me.
I merely grinned. They blamed me for everything. It was flattering, really.
Then our heads snapped to the door that materialised. Alexei strolled in as if he had been here all along. His figure was clouded, struggling to stay solid in our reality. I could see the chaos coursing through him if I looked hard enough.
“Apologies,” he said, which meant nothing. “Business delayed me. You were saying something tedious about rules?”
“Cressida was saying it,” I said. “We were trying to keep ourselves awake waiting for you to turn up.”
“Mm.” He laced his fingers, not hiding the purple pollen staining his hands. “What else did I miss?”
“Cressida is corrupting Leander’s Champion,” Madalena drawled, then cackled.
I didn’t so much as blink.
“Corrupting?” Alexei repeated, dragging the word across his tongue like it tasted sweet. “How dreadful. And here I thought Leander’s Champion was far too delicate for such filth.”
Hell used to have standards. It’s lowered to squabbles among the petty.
“Is that why you’re so interested in another’s Champion, then, Cressida?” he said. “Afraid that your pretty Amabel can’t handle it?”
“Careful,” Cressida snapped. “You’d do well to keep my Champion’s name out of that diseased mouth.”
“Ah,” Alexei said softly, his form corporeal one moment and then intangible the next. “So it’s true, then. She does mean something to you.”
Cressida’s composure cracked, just slightly, and it was delicious. I enjoyed witnessing my court succumb to their own whims. Her jaw tightened, gold nails biting into her palm.
“She means what all souls mean,” she hissed. “It’s the Essence I want. Nothing more.”
“Of course,” Alexei murmured. “And yet, rumour travels fast. Some of your servants claim she walks the gardens alone after dusk. Sings to the thorns. That doesn’t sound like corruption to me. That sounds like affection.”
“Lies,” Cressida spat. “Your domain breeds them.”
“True,” he said with a lazy smile. “But my lies have a way of becoming truth.”
Her fury was a thing of beauty. It was almost enough to make me miss the old days, when Salazar sat above us like a blade poised to fall. He was the only one who knew how to rule this court properly. The rest of us? We bicker and preen and call it power.
Alexei’s smirk found me next. “Still playing the patient one, Leander?”
“Patience,” I said, “isn’t one of my virtues.”
Once, Salazar inspired fear. Now, Hell has fallen to mediocrity.
Sometimes I wonder if casting him out was a stupid fucking mistake.
“We lose focus,” Dimitri boomed, his voice rolling through the chamber. “There is one course of action. Bind your Champions before the next trial.”
A room of knowing faces. Nods, and perhaps lies of agreement.
“As sworn, no soul must reach the end,” he continued. “If they do, destroy them before the final trial. As is our word. Unless we wish to crown a new master of Hell.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Madalena said. “We are not wasting souls. Their Essence is too fresh to burn. We should be siphoning it.”
“Then do what we agreed,” Dimitri said, exasperation cracking through his composure. “Use your sin. Bind your Champion. Or else they must be destroyed."
The silence was the answer, sealing our agreement.
And just like that, they began to vanish. Cressida dissolving in a flash of gold and fury, Yvette shattering like glass, Madalena laughing as she went.
I remained, watching Alexei step through his door back to Chaos. His mocking grin was the last thing I saw before I vanished.
Stepping back into Temptation was a warm embrace. I thought of my Champion, the way she moved when she fought. The way she tapped into the fabric of my domain, led by her desires, feeding me simultaneously as she connected with my sin.
My blood burned hotter than it had in centuries.