Shadows of Souls (Forbidden Bonds Collection #4)

Prologue

“You insufferable demon,” I roared into the emptiness.

Blood gurgled in my throat. Acid burned my vocal cords. I thrashed like a savage against my chains. Against these damned bars.

“Let. Me. Out.”

I choked on the odorous scent of sulfur pressing into the cell. Gagged as the stench crinkled in my nostrils. I took heavy, labored breaths, utterly worn out from my last beating. My eyes watered with the effort. I wrapped my fingers around the thick, bloodstained bars.

If I could get out of here, if I made it to the Realm Portal, I would be free.

“ZEMSHAZA,” I thundered. “I know you can hear me!”

Black fissures swam in my vision. Darkness blackened my mind. My spirit vanished beneath the tide of midnight that swarmed my soul. I jerked uncontrollably, burning with rage. Like a creature formed from nightmares. Like an unintelligent beast, frothing at the mouth.

I blinked against the darkness, squinting at the hall beyond the bars. I narrowed my eyes into slits to see something, anything, in this infernal darkness. A sudden, unnatural, monstrous hunger for fresh blood burned through my veins. I shook myself, possessing my sanity once again.

“I am not a monster.”

The soft whisper tumbled from my lips beneath the pressing weight of eternal night. I wrenched my fingers from the iron bars, clamping them onto my winged ears.

“I am not a monster. I am not a monster.”

I had to say it aloud. I had to repeat it.

I had to remember.

Crackling fire tickled my ears, arresting my attention. Hunched over beneath the low ceiling, I craned my neck towards the bars of the cell. I looked up. Raven-black fire began licking the stone walls. My nostrils flared in panic. What kind of torment was this?

I snarled against the flames. Then slammed my body into the iron bars once again.

Paranoia started kicking in. What if I didn’t make it out?

What if I never made it back home? I howled in the dark, grasping for the stringed strands of my hair.

I yanked, tearing at the braids. Tearing at my temples.

Thrashing violently against myself. Inglorious stars.

If I stayed down here any longer, I would lose my mind.

“I cannot die down here.”

I whimpered the phrase like a solemn, broken mantra.

I rammed my body into the bars over and over.

The hèllish doors wouldn’t budge.

“Truly, I applaud your efforts.”

Zemshaza’s voice snaked into the miserable cell like an oiled serpent. The sound was broken, and guttural as if a thousand voices aimed to speak at once.

“I assure you,” the Fallen High King continued. “They won’t work.”

His voice penetrated into the cell without him physically appearing.

A beat passed. Silence descended like rain.

Then.

“Slave.”

Slave.

Like that was who I was. Like that was the measure of my worth.

Like it was my title.

Like it was my name.

Centuries of trauma, of rage, coursed through my body. My hands grew clammy, as fight-or-flight kicked in. Adrenaline pounded in my chest while I took deep breaths to calm myself.

“Tassarion Celèstian Everthorn,” Zemshaza purred.

The sound of his voice made my chest clench.

Made my stomach roll.

“Be a good little pet for your master and lie back down. “

Like hèls I would.

I took stock of the tiny prison. There was the slab of rock where I was experimented on.

The stone table to one side, covered in dried blood...

my blood. The corner with a growing pile of rot where I was forced to relieve myself like some wildling animal.

The wall with numerous chains hanging down its center where spools of chains hung with sharp hooks at their ends.

Hooks Zemshaza used regularly to rip through flesh and bone.

For once, I wasn’t shackled to the chains like a dog.

The cell was barren of anything else. There wasn’t an item of clothing to be found except the ragged loincloth currently around my waist.

I had no clothes. No shoes. Bedding. Food. Water.

Nothing.

I tested my courage once more. Snapping my wings open, I charged the bars. This time, I collided into them with such barbaric force, they shattered like raven-hued stars. Wasting no time, I raced through the threshold of my prison.

Instantly, I inhaled sulfuric flame. Sucking in a sharp breath, I gathered my strength and lifted my wings.

I looked around a bit lost. I’d been enslaved here for half a millennia now, but I rarely left my cell.

And each time I’d been taken out, I’d been blindfolded.

I would have to rely on nerve and a little bit of blind faith to blunder my way to the Realm Portal.

Thanks to the blood that flowed in my veins, I would be able to sense it.

If the Infinite was merciful, I would find it before anything else down here found me.

Without wasting another moment, I picked a direction, and stumbled across the fiery floors. They were wet with fresh blood. I tried not to gag while I struggled to breathe past the smoky, ashen air. My wings were badly damaged so I opted not to fly.

Walking proved to be equally unpleasant.

I struggled immensely. I’d lost so much muscle in my legs.

Had my bones broken and re-broken in the same place over and over.

I tripped and fell. Smoke burned my eyes and seared my skin.

Bits of fleshed flaked and flew away as my skin began disintegrating beneath the heavy weight of the fire.

I grit my teeth to keep from crying out.

Quivering from unrelenting pain, I quietly shoved myself back onto my feet and kept going.

Deep chasms interlaced the cavernous space, like jagged fissures, filled with blackened lava emanating a lavender glow.

Above, endless, thorny, chains hung from the vaulted ceilings, each with the heads of disemboweled spirits attached to the ends.

I kept my face forward, but stars. It was hard to avoid those trapped in the molten flames.

My powers stirred. A song rose in my chest as I fought the ache that arose inside.

I wanted to sing to the souls trapped in this kingdom.

The Souls Court of the Underrealm was a dark and wicked place to be banished for all of eternity.

Squashing my empathy, I made my way through the darkness.

I drug myself over elongated, unstable, coal bridges.

Passed beneath nightmarish, gothic archways with carved beasts that had open maws branded into the high perches.

Shuffled beyond broken windows draped in tattered velvet that hid storehouses of siphoned souls.

“Help ussss,” voices hissed into the smoke that coalesced all around me. Several arose from souls trapped in the molten fires below.

“Soooul Bennnder,” they continued. “Wings of Namenthyssss.”

They dragged the words as their croaking voices kept begging.

“Use your ethèrrr. Use your innate angelic powers for usssss.“

A deep, rasping breath.

“Hallowed oneee.“

Another rasp.

“Areeee we not soulssss who deserveee to be freeee?”

I shuddered at the skeletal voices that curled into the air.

The souls were everywhere, loose and tormenting.

I blocked them out. I was sorry for them, but I wasn’t about to be trapped here any longer with them.

I shuffled on, navigating this Infinite-forsaken manor towards my destination.

I felt a tug of light. As if the Realm Portal could sense me coming, so it was helping guide my way.

I rushed through the growing cries, hating these rotting souls for calling me out.

A snarl to my left broke through my stupor.

I froze.

Quickly, I tucked my wings tight into my spine, and stilled my breath.

I didn’t move. Didn’t make a sound.

I did everything I could not to draw any attention to myself.

“Hallowed swine.”

A vicious, monstrous, voice spat from across the thick, smokey haze.

“We can see you.”

Then six, large silhouettes shot across the haze, their horns protruding from their heads, aiming for my exposed flesh. I registered the seven blood-red eyes. Pallor skin. Tattered skirts. Claws for hands and feet. Well, hèls. I’d been found by Spirit Harvesters.

I didn’t think. I moved.

I snapped open my wings, and shot like lightning through the smoke.

“Get back here, Hallowed filth.”

I didn’t think so.

I flapped my wings with all my might, racing through this elephantine manor. Excruciating pain licked my bones but I pushed it to the recesses of my mind. After five hundred wingyears of beatings and torture, I’d grown immune, numb, to physical pain throughout my body.

I raced my way through the infernal darkness until I found myself in a cavernous space.

I’d flown so far, so fast, I’d lost the Spirit Harvesters.

I looked above, panting. My wings hummed with the exertion.

My limbs burned. As I blinked through the darkness above, through the open ceiling, I found it.

A towering doorway made of silenced souls, glimmering in onyx and lavender, with an open center that was filled with the swirling display of the cosmos beyond.

The Realm Portal.

I pressed my lips into a thin line, warring internally with my swelling emotions.

I was going home. Fresh tears prickled my eyes. I floated towards the portal.

Close.

I was so close.

A cruel, dark chuckle slithered into the air, withering my hope.

“Now Slave. You weren’t planning to leave without saying goodbye. Were you?”

Blood pounded in my ears. I blinked through the darkness and saw what wasn’t there before. Grotesque bodies in all shapes and sizes floating like a nightmarish army.

Rot.

I was completely surrounded.

I said nothing as I looked at the wall of demons blinking hungry, inky-black eyes at me.

“Tassarion, you are many things. Deaf isn’t one of them.”

I turned my head. And found High King Zemshazrayèl Beliah floating in my direct path to the Realm Portal. A knot formed in my throat. Taking on the king alone was one thing. Taking him on with this horde of demons, was something else entirely.

“Need I remind you what happens when I have to repeat myself?”