Chapter 70
Chapter seventy
Seraphina
She slipped on Vasso’s nightshirt, letting the sleeves fall past her fingers. The demon lord lay on his side, watching her.
The tether between them—she’d always envisioned it as a rope. But each time she met his gaze, it changed from fibers to steel links.
Sera lay back down beside him and caressed the curve of his cheek.
Her fingertip followed his strong jawline to his chin, then down his corded throat.
His eyes never left her. Not while she learned every dip and curve, committing them to memory so that even in the darkness of death, she’d be able to find him by touch alone.
“Can you feel it?” he asked, lips pursed with worry.
“Yes,” she said.
Something had changed—some cosmic shift between them. The thread was now a chain. Placing her hand on his chest, she looked into his beautiful moons-gray eyes and told him, “I feel you.”
Vasso pushed a stray curl from her face, tucking it behind her ear. The contact sent bliss deep into her skin.
“Tell me we’ll make it. That I’ll be able to rescue Nora, and then you’ll build me that castle. Tell me we can hide away until we turn to dust.”
His dark brows scrunched tight. “I won’t lie to you. That isn’t something I can promise, Nula. Eventually, Supay will come for me. Send every monster created to get me belowground.”
“And what makes you so important? Don’t your wards need to be ruled?”
Vasso gave her a sad smile. “Alas, they do.”
She twined her fingers with his, rubbing her thumb across the calluses he loved to pick at. “When it’s done, when Nora is out, regardless of what that looks like, what would you want?”
“Besides this, every waking second?” He rolled on his back, searching for the answer in the canvas ceiling. “I’ve built my life around my duty and prophecies. I’ve been expected to follow both. And honestly, I’ve never really thought what I could be, what I could do if I had the chance.”
Her heart ached for him.
“But if you’d be willing to”—he swallowed, then stared deep into her eyes—“I’d like to figure it out together.”
“I’d like that too.” Sera kissed him. Their lips together felt right. She should be ashamed of how hard and fast she was falling, but who was she to question fate?
Pulling him on top of her, she nurtured that bond connecting them.
Skin brushing against skin, nothing between them but the sounds of their own ragged breaths falling over each other like fresh-fallen snow.
And when he had her screaming his name for the whole world to hear…
Seraphina Wildrick decided there would be nothing better than to be loved by him.
Sera woke up to an empty bed and voices in the distance.
Slipping on the satin sleeping clothes he’d left her, she smiled at the new leather armor he’d constructed. Carved into the thick black leather of the shoulder pads and corset were floral designs. He knew how to make her feel beautiful, even before a battle, it seemed.
The air was cool off the ocean. For a second, she stood in the dark, breathing in the salt and breaking waves. The voices grew, and Sera followed them.
On the other side of the dune, he was shirtless, hair tousled from lovemaking, and the way the moonbeams gleamed off his chest made her needy for him all over again. His companion was lurking in the shadows. Sera couldn’t make out anything about them, only that the voice was decidedly female.
“Are you going to tell her?”
“Eventually, that’s my intention, yes,” Vasso responded.
“And how do you think she’s going to take it when she finds out you’re the reason her sister is captive?”
Her heart froze. Her lungs fumbled their air.
No.
Sera swayed, hands sinking deep into the sand for stability before a rush of blood to her head made her wince.
No.
Do not break, her magic said.
On shaky legs, she made her way back to the tent. The crashing of waves covered the sound of her heaving. How? How had she been so fucking stupid?
Her flames surged within her as her disbelief morphed into rage. She had given herself to him. Body, yes… but her heart, her soul.
Sera ripped off his sleeping clothes and pulled on her Legion uniform. As much as she wanted to leave them, she threw the leathers into her pack.
“You fucking knew,” she said to her magic.
Yes.
“This entire time?” Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. She threw her pack on her shoulder and ran out into the night.
It was written.
She was an utter fool. Every word her mother had called her came rushing back. Spineless. Sniveling. Deficient. I do not care if you die; bring her back to me.
Sera slipped up a dune. As she continued west into the Deadlands, she felt with misty tendrils over rock and sand for a doorway, a gate, anything. She’d do it without him. How dare he? How dare he!
She choked down her bile.
Some things must come to pass.
A collection of tumbleweed moved. Snik emerged, bleary eyed.
“You need to get me into Gehenna, now.”
Snik looked back in the direction of the camp and whined.
Her voice caught in her throat. “There is no time. We can’t trust him.”
He was the reason Nora was imprisoned. She didn’t know how yet or why, but the statement had been clear as day—when she finds out you’re the reason her sister is captive. Her chest ached.
Snik grabbed her hand with his green claw and rubbed his face within it. With a yip, he galloped across the barren lands with only the moons as their guide.
Gripping her raven pendant, she heard its familiar caw in response.
She’d get down there, then she’d make a plan.
She followed the goblin over rocks as he approached a small pile of boulders. Pointing and yipping, he gripped the rock and pulled. Sera helped him, and deep in the sand was a hole.
“In there?” she asked. The goblin nodded.
Sera hesitated. It looked barely big enough for her to fit through.
That chain was pulling, and pulling. She placed her hand over her chest when a roar rippled over the desert. Screeching animals ran in a flurry past them.
Panic clawed at her throat.
This wasn’t her.
She knew now what he meant when he said he could feel her terror. Her chest was being chiseled apart. Her knees sank in the soft sand. She gasped, willing the pain to subside.
He is angry.
“No shit,” she said.
Snik whined and looked down the hole. Again, that chain pulled.
Vasso was hunting her. He was using the fated thread between them to find her. Sera glanced at the small shaft. He couldn’t fit.
Tightening the straps of her pack, she dangled her feet over the lip. Another roar shook the ground. Sera didn’t wait and slid into the abyss.