Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Belial
I never should have let her leave.
My newly crowned queen was tenacious as anyone could be. Rayven had faced the worst of Hell's monsters—myself among them—and not only survived, but emerged from the flames as one of the Underworld’s most ferocious creatures.
So, when she asked to go to the mortal realm in my place to deliver Judgement to a soul, I’d agreed. If she could survive in the deepest bowels of the Underworld, she could handle herself anywhere in her own world. Besides, the irony was poetic.
The usual protocol for delivering Judgement to souls before I could send them down the River Styx to the deeper layers of Hell was to wait for nature to take its course.
But when a soul committed a crime against death itself, I’d expedite the process by ripping their soul out before their body was done using it.
Sometimes their crime was so great, I saw to the matter personally.
That’s what brought me to her.
I’d gotten an itch in my marrow that told me someone was raiding the tomb of my last human pet, and I teleported to the mausoleum immediately. What I found were two thieves, robbing the corpse of the family jewels I’d buried with her.
I’d killed the male right there in the cemetery by ripping out his spine.
However, I couldn’t bring myself to destroy his female companion.
From the instant I laid eyes on the little thief, I wanted to own more than her bones.
So I took her, with her heart still beating, down to Hell for the best form of torture I could muster for a woman like her: my personal attention.
My contempt for the woman quickly turned to obsession.
Only days later, I made her my queen.
This was the first time she’d returned to her world since I kidnapped her, and her absence—even for just a night—was unadulterated torture.
I had no doubt in her ability to protect herself. Even if I did, I’d sense if she was in any danger, and I'd be at her side in a blink.
So why couldn’t I shake the urge to cut her task short? To drag her back home and never let her out of my sight again?
By blood and darkness, I loved her. That aside, I was still the possessive demon lord that had dragged her to my realm and made her my prisoner a year ago.
If any filthy mortal so much as breathed on my mate, I’d obliterate them. I’d keep them alive for as long as possible, just so they could hear each sickening crack and crunch of their bones as I ripped them from their body with my bare hands.
“Where is she?” I slammed the book I’d been trying and failing to read for the last two hours, making Cecil, the castle librarian, flinch and lose balance of the stack of books in his arms. Using my arcana, every volume froze in midair before they could hit the ground and floated back to the shelves, inserting themselves into their designated places.
The skeletal servant didn’t have eyes. Instead, teeth lined the gaping sockets where his eyes had rotted out long ago. When he blinked, they clacked. “M–My Lord?”
“Find Cambridge Funeral Home. Kill the necro-rapist. Strip his soul,” I repeated the simple steps of her assignment just loud enough for Cecil to hear. “That was it. She should have been back by now.”
The undead servant slipped a long, knobby finger between his leathery throat and his cravat and tugged on his collar nervously. “Well, it is her first time back in the world of the living, My Lord… S–She might have needed time to gain her bearings.”
I dismissed Cecil’s comment with a wave of my hand. “Nonsense. My queen has navigated the labyrinth of my realm; she can certainly find her way in her native land. Especially with my teleportation magic at her disposal."
“Perhaps you fear that she won’t return to you, now that she has a real opportunity to escape,” a new voice said. I jerked my glare away from the librarian to see my queen’s maid rounding the corner with a tray of tea and cookies.
I glared at the skeletal woman, who had once been a feared witch in her living days. “I do not fear that she won’t return to me.”
Holga placed the tea service on the table before me, glancing at me with those hollow eye sockets in a way that suggested she didn’t believe me at all.
I bit my lip beneath my mask, fingers clenching tight around my neglected book. Maybe there was some truth to her suggestion. As the lord and master of the Hells, and over death itself, I feared one thing alone.
Losing Rayven.
She was my everything, the breath in my lungs, the blood in my veins, the reason for my being from the moment I dragged her down to Limbo and clamped my collar around her throat.
If I somehow lost her, my castle would return to the cold tomb it had been before her presence gave it warmth. I’d likely become the raging demon lord I was before her love soothed me into something more, and I’d hunt her down and make her mine whether she liked it or not.
I’d done it once before. I’d do it a million times over again, until the end of eternity. However many times it took to make her mine forever.
“She’ll return, My Lord,” Cecil assured me, his many teeth gnashing in Holga’s direction, shushing her for putting the idea of Rayven’s escape into my head. “She loves you. We’ve all seen how she looks at you.”
His words sparked warmth in my chest, and I imagined the way my raven-haired queen looked at me. The reverence, admiration, and fear in her eyes. The feral look that glinted in them as she stared up at me from her knees.
I knew she loved me, that her heart beat for me alone, but a foreign sensation bubbled just beneath my comfort. Something festering, slowly seeping through my bones, that I couldn’t put a finger on.
I ran my fingers through my dark hair, carefully missing my antlers. “Then why do I feel as though something is wrong?”
Cecil frowned. “If she’s in any danger, you will sense it.”
“Yes, I know that. Something else doesn’t feel right.” I couldn’t shake the feeling prodding my brain. “Her leaving the Hells… I feel as though I should have gone with her.”
“If I may be so bold, My Lord,” Holga said as she poured me a cup of Earl Grey tea. Her bony form clicked and clacked with each of her movements. “She can’t be chained to your side forever.”
At that, I scoffed. If I had a mind to, I absolutely could chain her to me.
I smirked beneath my mask. It wouldn’t be the first time.
An electricity ignited the air, shattering my thoughts. Every muscle in my body tightened. It was the influence of my ancient arcana, but it wasn’t coming from me.
I shot out of my seat, sending my tea and book clattering to the ground in an explosion of porcelain shards that scattered over the rug. The soul that had taken refuge in the tea cup fled in a blur of dim light.
On the next breath, blue flames ignited between the bookcases opposing my seating area. It morphed into the shape of a door, and Rayven appeared a moment later dragging something massive behind her.
For a second, I expected it to be the corpse of the soul she’d been sent to handle. But when the light caught the peculiar shape, I scrunched my nose.
Was that… a tree?
Relief lifted my chest and I surged forward. She released the tree, running toward me with tears in her eyes. “Belial!”
I flung my mask away, so eager to kiss my mate that I didn’t care if Cecil or Holga saw the marred face of my human form. Catching her in my arms, I spun her around and crushed my lips against hers.
It was relieving, the way she clung to me, as if we’d been parted for far longer than a single evening.
I set her to her feet, keeping my arms wrapped around her waist with her chest flush to mine.
She searched my eyes, her own full of adoration, as she reached up to trace my scars with her fingertips.
“Please forgive me.” I said, my tone hushed.
She blinked. “For what?”
“For ever questioning your devotion and love for me.” I trailed my fingers along her jaw, brushing my thumb over her supple bottom lip. “Tonight, I was weak.”
Her smile had a bolt of warmth spreading through my cold chest. “This was the furthest we’ve ever been apart since we met. I’m surprised you didn’t follow me and drag me back home after I took an hour longer than I said I would. I’m surprised you let me go alone at all.”
I swept her dark hair behind her ears, admiring her beauty. “The Queen of the Underworld should move as she pleases.”
She beamed at me with a tearful smile, and it was then that I realized she was trembling. “I did it. I claimed both souls.”
My head canted to the side, and I raised a brow at her. “I only sent you out to collect the necro-rapist’s soul.”
“The victim’s never left her body after she passed. It was stuck somewhere deep inside her, hiding.”
I gave a solemn nod. That happened sometimes when humans passed. If their soul didn’t feel safe to leave their body, I’d often have one of my ferrymen collect it.
Dismissing Cecil and Holga so that we could be alone, I scooped Rayven into my arms and carried her over to the seating area, sitting down with her tucked in my lap. With my magic, I poured a cup of steaming hot tea into the second cup Holga had provided, and brought it to Rayven’s lips.
“Drink,” I urged. “You’re freezing.”
She did as told, warmth coming back to her cheeks. “It’s winter on Earth, and it was snowing. I almost forgot what snow looked like.”
“You like the snow?”
She nodded as she took another sip of tea. “One of the few things I miss about it, actually. Well, Christmas in general."
“Is that why you brought the tree?” I eyed the spruce tree she’d dragged in. It still had odd, colorful bobbles attached to it, which stuck out wildly against the grays and browns of the library. She’d likely stolen it from the funeral home where she’d claimed the souls.
I couldn’t help but smile. She was my radiant Queen of Carrion, Mistress of the Underworld. But underneath all that, she’d always be my little thief.
“You did well, my treasure,” I praised, hugging her tighter against my chest as she sipped her tea.
A small smile curved her mouth before a furrow of frustration formed between her brows. “I almost shattered the funeral director’s soul.”
I leaned to nip at her jaw, pressing my lips against her skin. “I wouldn’t have been angry if you had.”
She shook her head. “No. He deserves to be tortured, slowly. For a long time.”
“We’ll send him down the River Styx then,” I mused through a bridled smile. She really was a brilliant queen. “And we can take the woman’s soul and make her a nice little heaven in the library here.”
That’s what the Library of Souls was for, after all.
Each book on these shelves was more than a story.
Each volume was the afterlife of a soul I’d deemed too worthy to send down to the deeper layers of Hell.
There, they lived peacefully in a world perfectly crafted for them, blissfully unaware of their death.
“Should we do it now?” Rayven held out her hands, a glowing ball of light nestled in each of her palms. I took them and placed them on a side table.
“There will be plenty of time for that later. First, I want to know why there’s a human Yule tree in my library. Of all the things to bring back—”
Rayven’s demeanor shifted in a beat. She leaped from my lap, excitedly bounding over to the tree, and heaved it upright, leaning it against a bookshelf. “Isn’t it beautiful? I thought it would be nice to place it in the throne room. I know you’re not really into mortal holidays…”
Not “into” mortal holidays was an understatement. There was no point celebrating them in the land of the dead. Especially the winter solstice. The majority of humans didn’t even call it that anymore; it had become warped over the years, morphing into something I didn’t recognize.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t care. I’d transform my castle into a goddamn circus if that’s what it took to make my human mate happy.
I gathered her into my arms, turning her away from the spruce tree that would inevitably wither within the hour. I didn’t have the heart to tell her yet that it would be dead soon.
With my hands on either side of her head, I angled her face so our eyes locked. “It’s a Christmas you want? Decorations, a tree, presents, carols? Is that what will make my queen happy?”
She nodded, her midnight lashes fluttering at my suggestion, confirming that a Christmas in the Hells was exactly what was on her heart.
I planted a kiss to her brow, her nose, one eyelid and then the other, before stamping a kiss to her perfect lips. “Then that’s exactly what you’ll get.”