Chapter Thirty-Six
Luke
Kara was so fucking believable.
The way she leaned into me, the way her gaze turned hooded and full of want as she tracked me with it. She was painstakingly gorgeous—even when she said something unhinged. And Hades, I tried not to show her how hard it was to hold in a grin. The effort was exhausting.
I loathed her so much.
The lies and even my thoughts were getting distasteful and harder to maintain. But I had to, if only for a little longer. The youngest Reaper didn’t need to know the power she had.
When Kara stood there, devouring me with her eyes, I snatched her wrist and pulled her along. She was wasting time. She’d gotten brazen with her trickery, thinking she was safe because I couldn’t fuck her.
I’d show her.
I’d play with her pussy for hours, keep her legs shaking until she was so swollen and sore, she’d know—even if I couldn’t fuck her, she still belonged to Hell. To its lord.
To me.
Then I’d let her talk about her family. About her interests. About every irrelevant little thing. I couldn’t feel her, not really—but I heard her and listened. I had listened to her nonsense for hours on end.
And, gods help me…I wanted to keep listening.
We had a day, at least.
She could speak until her throat was hoarse if she wanted. Even if she didn’t, she’d still be right beside me.
Almost.
I had almost reached my fate—and so had she.
I needed to hurry and secure the crossover. If I sensed it, then Harvest did. He was a part of me I’d cast out long ago to create something new. It made sense one of my creations would crave the very thing I’d waited eternities for.
But no one would get in the way of what I wanted.
“Look.” Kara clutched my arm, and I wished I could feel it. “What is that thing?”
Creatures existed in the Underworld that even I didn’t have names for. Witches created things. Warlocks mutated demons. Necromancers brought back the dead—unlike Harvest, who patched creatures together like toys from a nightmare.
But I’d not seen anything like the monstrosity cocking its head at us now.
It almost looked like a cow, judging by its ears. But the thing had no visible bone structure—its red ears pinned back as it rolled into a ball. A furry sphere barreled toward us.
“Is it safe?” Kara squealed, sticking out her hand.
I slapped it down and stepped in front of her. “Don’t touch it.”
She quirked a brow. “So, it’s mean?”
“I don’t know. Don’t touch it.” I tucked her behind me and growled a warning.
The thing skidded to a halt in front of me and shifted again—its limbs stretching until it resembled a dog-like creature. On four legs, its ears perked up. Up close, it still resembled a cow…if a cow had been born from Hell. The end of its tail wasn’t fur, but flames.
“Oh, my Hades!” Kara dropped to one knee, reaching toward it. “It’s so cute.”
My jaw ticked. “It’s hideous.”
“It has your unique pattern.” She ran her fingers over the creature’s fur where faint streaks of orange flickered through dark patches. The thing smashed its snout into her open palm, clearly delighted. “Another animal in Hell.”
Livestock? Was Hell getting livestock now? What else would become of Purgatory?
And she compared it to me?
“I won’t tolerate a comparison to a cow,” I muttered.
Kara’s eyes widened, then she looked at the creature anew. “Wait. This is a Hell cow?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does that mean bad cows come down here with you?”
My shoulders dropped, and I closed my eyes to take a long breath.
A bad cow?
When I opened them, she was grinning—eyes full of mischief, lips curled in that wicked way she always used before saying something worse.
Don’t laugh at her.
She couldn’t know how charming I found her ridiculousness.
“Let’s go.”
She gasped—and I groaned at the same time.
A hundred more of the things came rolling in.
Fucking literally.
Some started munching on grass while others trotted straight for Kara.
What was her presence causing?
“They’re so cute.” She laughed.
And when she looked up and smiled, I knew the answer to my question was simple.
Change.
Everything had to change eventually.
???
The crossover was close.
I couldn’t see it beyond the miles of sudden grass, but I felt it—tugging, calling, guiding me closer.
“It doesn’t look like Hell anymore,” Kara murmured beside me.
She was right. When we first stepped into the grass, it had only brushed our ankles.
Now, it reached my knees. Trees kept appearing while strange animals flew or sprinted between them.
I couldn’t name a single creature, but I recognized the mimicry—they were replicas of Earth animals.
And though I hated to admit it, Kara was right.
Each of them bore the same broken pattern across their skin. Marked by Hell, like me.
I couldn’t fathom their existence. Only knew that it meant one thing:
Change.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about losing control over this part of Hell. For so long, the voided place, steeped in darkness, had been mine to shape at will.
“What is that?” Kara raised her hand, pointing.
Confusion rippled through me as I realized our hands were locked together, fingers intertwined.
I stared. If she noticed my expression, she ignored it—still tugging me forward, still pointing. When had she grabbed my hand? I couldn’t feel her—couldn’t feel anything—but the instinct must’ve been mine. Had I reached for her without knowing?
I studied it. My claws against her soft, mortal hand looked wrong. Dangerous. Intimate. And still…I didn’t let go.
Kara grumbled, frustration edging her voice. “Look, Luke.”
Shaking my head to clear it, I turned. The sky rippled to our right—wobbling like a mirage, something half-there, half-pretending.
Unease coiled up my spine.
I yanked her close. “Back up.”
A loud gushing cracked through the air.
A waterfall tore into existence—ripping open the sky, crashing downward in a wild, thunderous rush. Water spilled with force, slamming into the ground below.
I scooped Kara into my arms and ran left. That much water would’ve knocked us flat with nowhere to go.
“Wait.” Kara gripped my jaw, trying to turn my head.
The ground beneath the waterfall had opened up, forming a basin that gurgled as it rapidly filled. But the earth didn’t stop shifting. Cracks branched out in every direction, breaking apart to guide the water farther. A cliff rose beneath the falls, and a mountain stretched along the horizon.
In moments, a river flowed through the field, snaking between the grass and trees. Above us on the hill, I didn’t know what might wink into existence next.
All I knew was this: I watched a world—life—being born in Hell.
Fucking cows. Trees. Birds. What next?
The knowledge was so ludicrous I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.
“Luke?” Kara’s voice brought me back, her curious stare locking with mine.
“It’s amusing, Kitten,” I said, unable to help the smile tugging at the edge of my mouth.
I didn’t want to let her go. So, I shifted her in my arms, cradling her tighter, and continued walking.
“What is?” she asked.
“I remember what it felt like…when I was first thrown into Hell.” The words came out stiff, rough with the weight of memory. I wasn’t used to speaking about my past. I wasn’t used to wanting to.
But she was quiet. Waiting.
Patient.
“I was thrown into darkness,” I said. “The other fallen…they were cast into their own realms. Just as dark, but different.”
“Hell and the Underworld,” Kara guessed.
I chuckled darkly, nodding. “There was no escape. No understanding of what my punishment was. Just endless dark. It took time—and more desperation than I’d ever admit—to discover that through exile, I’d become strong…but still trapped.”
I paused, the memories pulling at me like chains.
“Eventually, I learned what I could do. I found I could travel to the Underworld, but only for short stretches before Hell yanked me back. The angels—those who fell with me—changed in the dark. I changed. One moment, there were only a few of us. The next, thousands. Like the fall multiplied us.”
Heavier now, my voice dropped. “The punishment wasn’t just the fall.
It was the silence. The void. That’s what broke us.
I would’ve begged for this grass…that waterfall…
anything to look at besides that consuming black.
Madness takes hold when there’s nothing left to see, no shape to hold on to.
And back then, I had power that I didn’t understand.
By the time I figured out I could shape the place I was trapped in, it had already been too long. ”
I looked up at the sky. It was changing again—no longer black, but shifting to something like red, almost pink. Soft. Foreign.
“I discovered I could sway humans,” I said.
“Lead them off their paths. Whisper temptations in their ears, stir anger in their hearts. It didn’t take much—just a push.
I already opened Pandora’s box; they only needed a nudge to fall in.
Don’t get me wrong, Kitten…they were capable of damnation all on their own. But I helped.”
Kara didn’t speak. She listened. As if she wanted to hear the truth, even when it burned.
“Your father was created not long after that,” I added. “And soon, the first wicked souls came to me. At first, I didn’t understand why. But I could always tell what they’d done. The weight clung to them. How wicked they were.”
My voice turned harsh. “Maybe He sent them to me as another punishment. I made them worse, so He made me their warden. I punished them—whether they did evil on their own or because of my influence. I became judge, jury, executioner.”
I looked around at the trees, the river… The impossible softness of this place I had ruled in fire.
“So yeah. Seeing this…” I swept a hand across the blooming horizon. “It’s jarring. It’s ridiculous. And it makes my fucking blood boil.”
I could make Hell appear like this if I wanted. But back then, I hadn’t known. And when I finally discovered what I could do, it was…too late. I had grown ugly in the dark—so ugly that I hated beauty. Especially the kind that fit in my arms and could send the strongest man to his knees.
“Hell is trying to convince you to stay,” Kara whispered, blushing. “Maybe it’s not your fate to go to the human world.”
I gripped her tighter. “I know my fate. The question is, do you?”
Tears glistened in her eyes, and everything inside me rioted at the sight.
“I know what I must do,” she mumbled, her voice as sad as her expression.
“Save your family?” I murmured, bending down until my breath touched her lips. “I’ve always told you what you should do.”
She knew exactly what I meant—her eyes narrowed instantly. She scoffed and pulled away from me.
“I’m not saying goodbye. It won’t come to that.”
But it would.
She just refused to listen.
She walked through the tall grass and knelt at the river, dipping her hands into the water. “You’re determined to make me dislike you,” she said. “I feel like I don’t know how.”
Her words slipped into my bones, rattling something loose in my chest. I didn’t know how to believe her. But the adrenaline pounding through my heart said otherwise.
The grass bent gently as the wind picked up, and I heard its steady swish. Her blonde strands danced with the breeze, and that’s when I caught it—the unmistakable scent of fresh air and water.
It had been so long, but I recognized it instantly.
Earth.
And beneath it, something more potent. Something far more dangerous.
A sweetness that coiled through the air like smoke—honeysuckle, warmth, and everything her. So distinctively female I nearly dropped to my knees.
I didn’t.
Instead, I inhaled deeper.
And I didn’t want to exhale. I wanted to trap that scent inside me, terrified of losing it again.
Because I smelled Kara.
And she was more addicting than the split-second whiff a couple days ago could have ever prepared me for.