Chapter 11
Eleven
Ursula
The next morning, we stood in the field in front of the manor as Felditch grinned at us with sadistic glee.
Not good. I glanced up at Silas, and he looked as concerned as I felt.
We hadn’t talked about the night before.
We’d gotten up, gotten ready, and headed out here like nothing fucked up had happened between us.
He was obviously as keen to forget as I was.
Felditch was dressed in red silk this morning, his hair flowing around him from an invisible breeze that only he could feel, and when his clap came, booming across the field, several people jumped.
“Today’s event is very exciting!” he called.
“This time, your only adversaries…” He paused for dramatic effect, his burnt-orange gaze sliding to each of us. “Will be yourselves!”
My stomach churned.
“Only those of you with ironclad mental fortitude”—he winked—“and, for some, cast-iron stomachs, will walk away from this task unscathed.” He clapped again, and another boom rolled across the field. “Today, each of you will be faced with your biggest fear.”
I fucking knew it. I wanted to lean forward and toss my cookies all over the ground. This was my worst nightmare.
Felditch, his orange gaze sharp with anticipation, lifted his staff and spun it over his head. Doors appeared behind us, just the doors, hanging in midair with nothing behind them. They were all different colors, with the same emblems as our rooms on the front.
“When I point to you, your team will step through your door, and your tasks for this event will be revealed. You both must walk out together when you are done. Walk, not carry or helped in any way.”
Feet shuffled, and concerned looks darted between teammates.
I didn’t look up at Silas again. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I didn’t do vulnerable, especially not with an audience.
Even an audience of one was too much. The shit I’d locked away inside me was not for spectators, but it looked like I was about to be torn wide open, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
“Remember,” Felditch said. “Your fears, whatever they may be, cannot kill you. Only giving in to that fear wholeheartedly will allow that to happen.” He spun again, aiming his staff at the door behind the vampires. “Team Vampire, you’re up.”
With a cocky expression, one of them shoved the door open and they stepped inside. As soon as they shut it behind them, the door vanished.
“Angels, you’re next.”
The angels went through their door, then the witches followed, stepping through theirs.
Felditch turned to us last, his hair flying around his face now, his chest heaving. His excitement had increased as every team had walked into the gods only knew what.
“And finally, Team Hell,” he all but roared.
Silas gripped the door handle and glanced down at me. I nodded. There was no backing out now. He pushed the door open, and we stepped through. It slammed shut behind us.
It took a moment for my sight to adjust. “Shit.”
We were in a dungeon. It was small and cold with black stone walls. Water dripped, and roars and cries came from somewhere above us. There was a table across the room with a row of small bottles lined up on top of it.
“What happens now?” Silas asked, his silver gaze watchful, wary.
I motioned to the table. “I assume those are for me.”
“How do you know?” he said.
“They’re poisons. I can feel it.” I strode over to the table. They were lined up, numbered from one to five, but there were two of the same in the number-four spot. One of them had an S etched into the glass, all the rest were marked with a U. “Oh look, you get one as well.”
He frowned. “You’re Lucifer’s taster, how can poison be your worst fear.”
I looked up. “The poison isn’t, but what some have the ability to do…is.” I hated admitting any kind of weakness, showing it, and I was about to be laid bare in front of Silas in a way I would never recover from.
“What will they do?”
“Not all poisons cause physical pain or injury,” I said, my gaze darting away from him because holding that direct gaze was impossible.
“Some affect you mentally, or cause you to hallucinate, some seek out your strengths and numb them so only your weaknesses remain, and some find your worst fears and heighten them. I’m guessing what’s in those bottles is all of the above. ”
“I don’t like it,” he said. “That he’s targeted you with that shit.”
“You and me both. But maybe you should forget about me, and worry about what Felditch has in store for you.”
He looked around the room. “I can’t see anything else, just that one bottle. Why only one for me?”
“I guess we’ll find out as we go.”
A gentle chime rang out, like silverware against a crystal champagne flute. The first bottle lit up, glowing gold. A piece of parchment appeared beside it. I quickly scanned it. Fuck. All the poisons had to be consumed in the time Felditch had allocated or we were out.
I swallowed thickly and turned to Silas.
“Whatever happens, whatever I say, or how hard I beg for it to stop, you have to make sure I drink each one when the next chime sounds, okay? And when it’s your turn to drink as well, give me mine first. The last thing we need is for the poison to hit you hard enough you forget about me, especially if I’m too incapacitated to do it myself. ”
He frowned. “You want me to force you to drink them?”
“If I can’t…or won’t do it? Then yes.” I picked up the first bottle. “Remember, this can’t kill us, only giving in to the fear can do that,” I said for my sake as much as his.
Alarm covered his face, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think it was real. I chose not to check; I didn’t want to be disappointed again. Pulling out the cork and tossing it on the table, I raised it toward Silas. “Cheers, big ears.” Then I downed it in one.
My world spun, the poison instantly doing what I knew it would. It slid through my body, numbing reality, stripping me bit by bit of rational thought. The dungeon vanished.
I was alone.
Completely alone.
Panic gripped me by the throat, choking me. No. No, not this. I was surrounded by darkness, a black void.
Hell was gone, my sisters were gone, everyone and everything I loved was gone—and they weren’t coming back.
I screamed, the sound echoing into nothingness.
The horror of it ripping through me like I was being torn apart.
I tried to tell myself it wasn’t real, but it was.
Oh gods, it was. My heart was shredding in my chest.
“Ursula,” a rough voice said through the darkness. “Come back. Fuck…come back.”
I jolted and blinked, and the dungeon came back into focus. My face was wet with tears, my heart pounding, hurting from the horror of those brief moments deep in one of my most terrible fears.
Sucking in a breath, I tried to reorient myself.
“You okay?” Silas asked.
Not even close. “At least it was quick.” No doubt a small taste of what was to come. I had to assume they’d get longer and more horrific as we went.
“You were out of it for twenty minutes,” he said.
Fuck. “It felt like moments.”
The chime came again, a little louder than the last. The next bottle was glowing green. Hand trembling, I picked it up and pulled out the cork.
Silas growled.
Ignoring him, I raised the bottle. “To Felditch, suck my dick.” I downed it.
A moment later, unimaginable grief washed over me.
I turned and the room was filled with my sisters, all of them slain, lying dead, mutilated, bleeding all over the floor.
I screamed, falling to the floor, crawling around their bodies, searching for those who might have survived this massacre.
Their blood coated my hands, my clothing, there was so much of it.
So much. They were gone. They were all gone.
I kept crawling, and then I found him. Lucifer.
He lay unmoving, his body cleaved open, bloody wings painted on the floor beneath him.
His eyes snapped open, his yellow irises locking on me. “Why did you fail us? Why did you let them win? You killed us.” He sat up abruptly and grabbed me by the throat. “You fucking killed us.”
I tried to scream, grabbing at his fingers around my throat.
“Ursula!”
My name was roared, and again, I was pulled back from the darkness. I was on my hands and knees, sobbing, my palms grazed from crawling all over it. Silas was beside me on the ground, trying to pull me into his arms.
The chime rang out again, loud enough to make me want to cover my ears. I reached for the table, but I was unable to get there on my own.
“I need the next bottle.”
He made no move to get it.
“Silas,” I bit out when the chime came again, this time so loud the room shook.
Cursing, he released me, snatched the red glowing bottle from the table and handed it to me.
I pulled out the cork and, gods, whimpered.
No. I couldn’t do it. “Bottoms up,” I choked out, anyway, and lifted it to my lips—but I couldn’t make myself drink.
Gasping out a breath, I gripped it so tight I was surprised it didn’t shatter.
“I don’t…I don’t want to do it,” I said, no, I pleaded. “I ca…I can’t do it.”
Silas’s eyes were filled with anguish. “Yes, you can, Urs. You can do this.”
I shook my head as the chime rang out again, and this time gravel and rocks slid down the walls from how fiercely the room shook.
He took the bottle from me, his hand trembling, and lifted it. I shook my head. His fingers curled around the nape of my neck, holding me steady as he pressed the bottle to my lips and poured its liquid into my mouth. “I’m sorry, baby,” he choked out.
My world shifted. It was like I was hovering above myself as I watched a much younger version of me run to meet Magnus.
An anguished cry burst from me. My brain, my heart shattering. Not this. Please, not this, not here.
Lucifer told me never to go to the fae realm, but it was the only way to see Magnus. He
waited for me by a tree just inside the gateway and pulled me into his arms, smiling down at me. “My love,” he said and kissed me. “I have such plans for us.”
He was the first male I had loved this way, and he loved me, too, I felt it.
Lucifer warned me to be careful, that the fae were tricksters and liars, that they had the power to fool even me.
But I knew this was real. The love for me that poured out of Magnus was real.
Yes, it felt different, a little strange, but that was only because he was fae.
I knew the truth. He loved me as much as I loved him.
He led me through the forest and to the castle, sneaking us in through a secret passage into the dungeons. We laughed and kissed and rushed down the stone corridor. Magnus pressed his finger to his lips as he knocked on a wide wooden door.
I frowned. “Who’s in there?”
He flashed his charming smile. “A friend. Someone I trust.”
The door opened and we rushed inside. Magnus dragged me forward with force, and I stumbled into the middle of the room.
The door slammed behind me, and I spun around.
Magnus locked the door and put the key in his pocket, a smile curling his lips that turned my blood cold.
I spun back, and three males I had never met before stepped out of the shadows.
“I did not believe you would deliver, Magnus,” one of them said.
My lover laughed, a sound that lifted shivers all over my body and sent dread slicing through me. “What is going on? Why am I here?”
“Do you really think I love you, Ursula?” Magnus said and chuckled. “You are Hell spawn, gods, disgusting. I would never mate with you in truth. We heard Lucifer had a new creation, and we wanted to know what it was.”
I stumbled back, and one of the males, a huge fae, grabbed me.
I struggled, but they were too powerful, too strong.
I was young, naive, still learning to use my powers, and barely into my warrior training.
Add in the hit to my body, that was still adjusting to the poisons I took every day as part of my job as Lucifer’s taster, and I was no match for them, not for powerful fae, and definitely not on my own.
Magnus rubbed his hands together. “Right, let’s see how much the demon bitch can take.”
The room spun, and I was no longer watching from a distance, I was her, that much younger version of me, I was back there, in her skin, her mind, reliving the horror in real time.
The torture began. The experiments to see if there was any other way to kill me besides taking my head, which they planned to do when this was finally all over.
I screamed until my throat was raw, until my body went limp and I prayed to the gods for death.
A chime boomed, my world shaking around me.
The dungeon and the fae castle dissolved and I was in a different one, back with Silas.
That’s when I realized I wasn’t lying on the ground, I was in Silas’s arms, trembling uncontrollably, teeth chattering.
His hold was tight, plastering me to his body like he thought he could stop me from floating away again.
I wanted to cling to him, for him to hold me fast, because the hopeless feeling inside me continued to grow, twisting and digging deeper.
He held two bottles, the fourth poison, both identical and radiating a blue glow. This time, we were doing it together.
He pulled the cork out of one of them and lifted it to my lips.
I shook my head, feebly. “No, no. I don’t want it. I don’t want it. Don’t make me do it. Please, Silas. Please.” My world was ending. “I want to die. Let me die.”
“I will not fucking let you die. You understand me?”
I fought and he held me down and forced my mouth open, doing what I told him, making sure I’d drink every one.
I screamed and thrashed. “No…no.”
“Ursula!” He growled so loud and brutal that I froze. “You have to drink this.”
I sobbed, out of fight. My hands fisted against his chest were too weak to push him away as he lifted the bottle to my lips. “I’m sorry,” he rasped again. “But if you don’t drink this, your fears win and I’ll lose you. I will not fucking lose you.”
I tried to turn my head, but I was too weak to even do that.
His thumb pressed down on my chin, forcing my mouth open as another chime came, shaking the room, causing more rubble to fall around us, and he poured the contents into my mouth.
I stared up at Silas as something glittering streaked down his cheek.
I blinked drowsily at it, at the single tear making its way down his face. “You’ll be okay. I won’t let you go.”
Then he pulled the cork out of the second bottle with his teeth and drank it, following me into the next nightmare.
My world, once again, spun.