PROLOGUE
BLOOD DRIPPED ONTO THE STONE FLOOR WITH AN OMINOUS echo, the only sound to penetrate the heavy silence. That and the pounding of Naiamah’s heart as she gathered her courage and readied to move her arm.
All she had to do was reach up to her chest and she would be free. Safe and free. Just the thought of her rescue sent a rush of reassurance through her fear and despair.
She’d been pinned in place with knives. So many knives. Through her palms, her upper arms, her shoulders, her midsection, thighs, feet. The pain was so intense, she kept blacking out, wavering in and out of consciousness.
Worse, the wooden plank she was skewered to was propped against a stone wall, situated on a tiny platform.
That platform was only about six feet across, and it plummeted down to a deep pit.
At the bottom were large spikes. As if that weren’t enough, hellfire burned around them.
If she fell down there … well, there was a chance she might never come out again.
And the entire chamber had been warded against hellgates.
Even if she somehow freed herself from the plank and managed to draw the gate sigil with her own spilled blood, the magic would not activate.
The only possible escape was to fly, but her captor had thought of that too.
Her wings were spread and pinned to the wood with still more knives.
Even if she somehow managed to pull those free, he had methodically shredded them, tearing into the fine skin like tissue paper.
It would take time to heal. Time she didn’t have.
A ragged scream tore from her throat at the white-hot pain that shot up her arm as she tried to move her left hand. Her vision wavered in and out as she clung to the edge of consciousness, but there wasn’t time to pass out.
Lucifer would be back at any moment. Now that he had discovered the secret to thwarting her powers, there would be no escaping him.
In the past, he had feared her because of his attraction to her.
The moment a succubus of her caliber sensed even the slightest sexual energy from another being, she could begin to feed, sucking the life force out of her prey until they were nothing but a withered husk.
But Lucifer had learned that if he bled her, beat her, tortured her to a state of debilitating weakness, then her powers were repressed. To begin draining another’s energy took a certain measure of strength, and if she did not have that strength to begin with, well, then she was helpless.
Helpless and a fool.
She’d been a fool to believe that she could infiltrate Lucifer’s inner sanctum and not get caught.
Even with the Necromancer’s magic to sneak her past the wards, this was still the lair of the High King of Hell.
She had underestimated him—and perhaps overestimated herself—and now she was paying the ultimate price.
Even before she’d done the unthinkable and broken into his territory, Lucifer had always held a certain fixation with her.
As the most powerful succubus in Hell, she was a threat to him.
One of the few in existence. And it was in the High King’s nature to covet what he couldn’t possess.
Naiamah had been denying him her entire existence, and she would continue to do so until her dying breath.
If she didn’t get free quickly, there was a high chance that final respiration would come sooner rather than later.
He’d promised her death—permanent, irreversible death, not the temporary death a demon could regenerate from—but only after making her suffer for daring to defy him so blatantly.
How long that suffering would last, she couldn’t say, but she was sure that before the end, she would be begging him to kill her.
Unless … she could get her hand free.
“You can do this,” she told herself, swallowing back the despair that threatened to choke her. Yes, she was a powerful force to be reckoned with, but she was also impaled over a pit of spikes and hellfire, facing more torture and certain death, and that was a bit beyond anyone’s capacity to endure.
“Just pull it out, and you’ll be free. He’ll come for you. He’ll save you.”
Her racing heart calmed at the thought of him. Her prize. Her possession. Oh, he would argue that he belonged to no one, but Naiamah knew better. He belonged to her. She alone could manipulate and control him. She alone could give him the untold pleasures of a powerful succubus.
And in return, he alone fed her, sated her as no other could.
The power of his sexual energy … Even now amid the agony, her body throbbed at the mere thought of it.
She’d given up fighting the addiction. Now she was enslaved by it.
She wanted nothing more than to bask in it, revel in it, be consumed by it.
That heady rush all tied back to him, and thus, he had become the object of her obsession.
She was immeasurably glad he’d accepted her gift, and she could have kissed her past self for her foresight. Wearing the vial required a measure of trust, and until he’d accepted it, she hadn’t been entirely certain he would grant her that boon.
Through her contacts at the Blood Market, she had acquired two tiny vials of potion affixed to two chains. Those vials were filled with one of the most powerful spells she’d ever heard of in Hell.
Normally, demons could not summon other demons.
They could send a mental summons request. If the other chose to respond, they would be able to arrive through a hellgate, but they could just as easily refuse.
The only exception was when a demon owed a favor to another—a common payment for services rendered.
Then that demon could be summoned at the other’s will.
The vials Naiamah had acquired were an exception to those rules.
They had been created long ago by some powerful practitioner of Sheolic arts—whom, she didn’t know—and they allowed a demon to summon another, instantaneously, at any time or place, without requiring the use of a hellgate or contracted debt.
But there were two vials; it was a contract of sorts. Or rather, an exchange.
Two vials, and two possible summonings, only possible by the wearer of the vials. Each had to agree to wear it for the other to work. If one rejected it or simply refused to wear it, neither vial would have power.
Hence her uncertainty whether her gift be accepted. But it had been. And as such, she could summon her rescuer here and now, and he could summon her too.
When she’d presented the other vial to him and explained its use, his flame-filled eyes had narrowed, and she’d feared he would become enraged.
But after some careful coaxing, he’d eventually admitted that he saw the value in it.
The moment he’d accepted the vial and donned it, a strange warm sensation had taken root in her chest. The uncomfortable feeling had lingered for days after the interaction.
Regardless, any discomfort would be worth it now, just as soon as she got her hand free.
She would force him to come here, convince him to save her, and then reward him until she was positively bursting with power and vitality, and she had drained him to near unconsciousness.
She would find a way to convince him that the entire misadventure was his idea so he would not turn his frightening wrath in her direction when Lucifer inevitably retaliated against him.
She imagined he felt a measure of possessiveness over her, the same way she felt for him.
She pictured the fury contorting his features when he saw her current condition.
Hellfire would ignite around his powerful form, and he would swear to take vengeance upon Lucifer for daring to touch her.
That odd warming sensation sparked in her chest again.
Irrelevant. This was a matter of survival.
But strangely, her recollections of him gave her the strength she had been missing to do what needed to be done.
Gritting her teeth, she took a long breath.
Then, squeezing her eyes shut, she opened her mouth and screamed a feral scream at the same moment as she yanked her hand forward with all her strength.
For a moment, nothing happened besides her impaled palm sliding all the way down the knife to the hilt. She screamed louder, never relenting the force in her arm.
At last, the knife shot out of the board and sailed through the air over the edge of the platform, where it plummeted into the flames and spikes below.
Not that she was aware of it. The pain was all-consuming as it shot up her arm and through her body like a lightning bolt. Her head spun, vision rapidly darkening, until she mercifully passed out.
But she wasn’t unconscious for long. Minutes later, she blinked groggily back to the present, and the moment she was aware enough, her heart began to pound with excitement and relief. Freedom was finally within her grasp. All she had to do was reach …
Slowly, painstakingly, she bent her elbow and lifted her arm toward her chest. Every minute movement caused tiny flections in her bicep and shoulder muscles, and the knives stuck through them cut deeper, causing more agony to flood her nerves.
But finally, her fingers touched her sternum.
Gingerly, she stretched her fingers until they hooked on the chain of the vial, and then she carefully tugged it out from within her dress. She was glad she’d tucked it away so securely because Lucifer would surely have taken it if he’d seen it.
Finally, the vial slid against her palm, and she curled her fingers around it. Her pulse accelerated the closer she got to freedom.
She closed her eyes and began the summoning, picturing her rescuer’s face in her mind’s eye and calling him to her. She visualized his landing beside her on the platform, and the possessiveness she’d imagined before filling his features.