Blood Cursed E-Book

Sarah Piper

• Herausgeber: Two Gnomes Media
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

“My whole life, you’ve been making deals for my future—for my soul—with other people. Now you’re going to deal with me.”

For decades, the Prince of Hell has been gunning for a Silversbane heir—a witch whose blood can summon the spirits of the most powerful magic-users ever to walk the earth.

A witch like me.

Thanks to a soul-shattering devil’s bargain, I’m now his most prized possession.

But I’ve got bigger fires to fight than the ones burning in hell.

My friends are still imprisoned. Hunters have joined forces with the dark fae and the Council has turned their backs on us. One of my rebels is forbidden to love me and another can’t remember he ever did. Mix in an epic betrayal and a few dark secrets, and I’m ready to burn it all down.

So yeah, maybe the Prince of Hell is used to closing deals and getting what he wants. But when it comes to this Silversbane witch?

He should’ve read the fine print.
 

Leseprobe

Blood Cursed

The Witch’s Rebels, Book Four

Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Piper

SarahPiperBooks.com

Published by Two Gnomes Media

Cover design by Two Gnomes Media

All rights reserved. With the exception of brief quotations used for promotional or review purposes, no part of this book may be recorded, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the express permission of the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, organizations, brands, media, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

v6

E-book ISBN: 978-1-948455-41-1

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-948455-09-1

Audiobook ISBN: 978-1-977336-55-2

Contents

Book Series by Sarah Piper

Get Connected!

About Blood Cursed

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Origins of The Witch’s Rebels

About Sarah Piper

Book Series by Sarah Piper

M/F Romance Series

Monstrous Obsessions

Vampire Royals of New York

Reverse Harem Romance Series

Claimed by Gargoyles

The Witch’s Monsters

Tarot Academy

The Witch’s Rebels

Get Connected!

I love connecting with readers! There are a few different ways you can keep in touch:

Email: [email protected]

TikTok: @sarahpiperbooks

Facebook group: Sarah Piper’s Sassy Witches

Twitter: @sarahpiperbooks

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About Blood Cursed

“My whole life, you’ve been making deals for my future—for my soul—with other people. Now you’re going to deal with me.”

For decades, the Prince of Hell has been gunning for a Silversbane heir—a witch whose blood can summon the spirits of the most powerful magic-users ever to walk the earth.

A witch like me.

Thanks to a soul-shattering devil’s bargain, I’m now his most prized possession.

But I’ve got bigger fires to fight than the ones burning in hell.

My friends are still imprisoned. Hunters have joined forces with the dark fae and the Council has turned their backs on us. One of my rebels is forbidden to love me and another can’t remember he ever did. Mix in an epic betrayal and a few dark secrets, and I’m ready to burn it all down.

So yeah, maybe the Prince of Hell is used to closing deals and getting what he wants. But when it comes to this Silversbane witch?

He should’ve read the fine print.

Blood Cursed is also available in audionarrated by Tristan James and Aletha George!

One

Ronan

The instant we stepped into the hell portal, I knew I’d lost her.

I was still holding her tight against my chest, but it wasn’t her body that’d left us. I’d fucking felt it—the departure of her soul. The entirety of the woman I loved violently wrenched away as we’d tried to rescue her from the disaster blackening the skies in the Shadowrealm.

One horror after another, and yet for Gray Desario, they just kept on coming.

After what felt like a hundred years, the portal puked us out into the underground chamber beneath the Vegas desert—same spot where Darius and I had first entered. I hit the ground hard on my back, cushioning the blow for Gray.

I grunted at the impact, pain exploding along every bone-tired inch of my spine. She didn’t make a sound, though.

Blinking the stars from my eyes, I laid her on the ground and checked her over, feeling her head, her limbs, anywhere that might’ve been hurt. She seemed okay—warm and still breathing, heart still beating, blood still pumping through her veins, blue beneath the near-translucent skin at her wrists. But her eyes were—

Wait. Blood…

The thought tugged hard, yanking my attention away from Gray for a split second. Just long enough for me to recognize the wet, strangled gasps emanating from the other side of the chamber, shrouded in darkness. I sucked in a deep breath. The acrid tang of copper scented the air.

Fucking hell. Gray and I had not been the first out of the portal.

He’d beat us here.

“Beaumont?” I called, rising to my feet and creeping closer to the darkness. The shapes before me emerged slowly, revealing the gruesome scene one sliver at a time. A pair of shiny black shoes came first, attached to legs that jerked and spasmed. Clenched fists, split knuckles and pale skin turning white. A chest blackened and wet with blood. A face twisted in shocked horror—a face that had once belonged to the demon thug that’d escorted us here earlier.

And then, almost unrecognizable in his violent, blood-splattered stupor, our vampire came into view, looming over the body and siphoning its blood like a starved newborn.

I stood immobilized, watching with a mix of fear and fascination as this primal beast devoured his prey. All traces of the cool, composed man I’d known and cared for had vanished, leaving in his place nothing but sharp fangs and a deep, desperate need.

It was too late to backtrack, too late to grab Gray and make a run for it. He’d already noticed my presence—I could see it in the twitch of his head, the brief but detectable pause in his wet, incessant slurping.

My eyes darted around for another exit, a weapon, a miracle, anything, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could’ve used to our advantage. Even the darkness worked against me, given vampires’ superior sight.

As if he could read my mind, the bloodsucker formerly known as Darius flicked his cold gaze up at me, not bothering to detach his mouth from the victim’s throat. In his eyes I caught a glimpse of something so horrid, so animal, it would probably give me nightmares for the rest of my long damn life—assuming I made it out of here alive.

His message was clear:

Move an inch, and I’ll devour you next.

I had no choice but to let him finish, and hope to fucking hell the demon guard was enough to sate him. Because if Darius came at me in his current primal, blood-drunk state, I wasn’t sure I had the strength—or the heart—to fight him off. Not with Gray lying behind me, soulless and unconscious. And if I died, she’d be next—slaughtered by the very hand of the vamp she loved. The vamp I was pretty sure loved her, too.

When he finally finished his meal, he tossed aside the body like an empty sack and rose to his full height, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, his eyes never leaving mine.

“That gentleman tasted like shite,” he announced.

“That’s because he’s a demon,” I said firmly. The skin on my arm burned at the spot where I’d allowed Darius to feed after he’d turned up wasted and half-dead at Elena’s house. “Vampires despise the taste of demon blood.”

Darius took a step closer, stumbling a bit, then catching himself.

“And who might you be?” he asked, his words slurring together. His eyes were glassy and dark, his lips and chin shiny with smeared blood.

Drunk, lost, and feral. Seeing him like that… It nearly broke me. The beast wobbling before me was so far removed from the Darius I’d known that my brain kept rejecting the images, desperate to convince me that it wasn’t real. That we were all trapped together in some heinous nightmare, or imprisoned by another cruel trick of the Shadowrealm.

But deep down I knew the cold, hard truth. We weren’t lucky enough to wake up from this. It was real. It was now. And unless I figured out a way out of here, it was going to get us all killed.

I swallowed the tight knot in my throat, forcing out my response.

“Me? Just another shite-tasting demon,” I said, but it seemed I’d already lost his attention. Darius’s eyes wandered past me, an unnatural grin stretching across his face.

I didn’t have to turn around to know exactly where his gaze had landed.

Fear soured my gut, spiking my blood with adrenaline.

“She’s spent,” I hedged, stepping in front of his path as he stalked closer to Gray’s form. “Not worth your effort—trust me.”

Ignoring this, he sidestepped me, a blur of color that vanished before my eyes, then reappeared right next to her. He knelt down and touched her face, fingering a lock of her hair, then pressing it to his lips to inhale her scent. A low rumble of desire reverberated in his chest.

But unlike the kind of desire I’d witnessed the night we’d shared her in bed, bringing her to the edge of ecstasy in a tangle of hot limbs and endless kisses, this was different. Dangerous. This desire meant to devour her, drain her of all that remained.

Every hair on my body stood at attention, my muscles tensing for a fight. But I couldn’t make a move in here. Not without risking his ire. Risking her life.

Best I could hope for was a distraction.

“We need to get out of here,” I said, forcing my voice to stay calm and steady. “You killed one of hell’s soldiers. More will come. Let’s go.”

“Without this lovely creature?” He stroked her face.

It was all I could do to keep my heart rate in check. “Dead weight. She’ll only slow us down.”

“I could lighten the load a bit.” He leaned in close and brushed his nose along her neck, his eyes so dark they were nearly black now. I felt my own shift into blackness as my demon instincts took over. “Maybe I’ll just take a little off the top.”

A glint of fang, and I was on him, barreling into him with enough force to knock him halfway across the room. I’d caught him by surprise, and now I used up the very last millisecond of my advantage by slamming a fist into his face.

The force of the blow dislocated his jaw, splitting the skin over my knuckles wide open. I waited for him to retaliate, but Darius merely smiled, licking my blood from his lips as his jaw snapped back into place.

“You’re right,” he said smoothly, malice soaking his voice as we rose from the ground. He’d lost some of his slur, and now he towered over me, menacing and cold. “You taste like shite.”

“Told you.”

The two of us circled each other like wild cats fighting over a wildebeest. He was clearly toying with me, and I was still holding back. I didn’t want to hurt him any more than I had to, though I suspected he had no such hangups about my safety.

“So there’s no reason for me to let you live,” he said. “Unless you can think of one?”

“We’re brothers, asshole. Let’s start with that.”

Darius laughed, hollow and chilling. “A vampire and a demon? Mom and Dad must be so proud.”

“Genetics has nothing to do with it.”

He zipped behind me, a blur in the darkness. When he spoke again, his breath was icy at the back of my neck.

“Try again,” he whispered.

I dropped into a crouch and kicked backward, hitting air.

“Is that the best you can do?” he asked, already in front of me again. Taunting. Tormenting.

“Stand still and find out.” I charged, but he went blurry on me again. Every time I blinked, he vanished, then reappeared behind me. Next to me. Across the room. Again. And again. And again.

Demonic strength could do a lot of damage, but vampires were still stronger. Faster. I was outmatched, and he was enjoying the game, batting me around like a cat with a caught mouse.

Then came the cruel grin.

A chill raced down my spine.

“Whatever you’re thinking,” I said, holding out a hand as if that alone could stop him, “don’t—”

The plea died on my lips.

He came at me full on, and his attack was torrential, like a thousand powerful fists battering my jaw, my gut, my ribs, my kidneys, everything at once. My ears rang, my mouth full of blood, the blows coming so fast my bones hadn’t even had time to crack yet.

They would, though. That much was certain.

A human would’ve died five times over, but I was still on my feet, my body desperately trying to heal itself. I was still swinging, still clawing and scratching, still hoping for that miracle, even as the adrenaline started to fade.

“Done yet, hellspawn?” he taunted, landing another solid punch to the gut.

I gritted my teeth against a wave of excruciating pain, my entire body throbbing, bruising, bleeding, everything at once. My vision swam.

Blackness crept in around the edges, whispering promises of sweet relief as Darius continued to unleash his fury. But I couldn’t give in, couldn’t slide into the bliss of unconsciousness. Not like this.

As fucked up as this was, I hurt for him almost as much as I hurt for myself. There was a chance, however minute, that he would remember me. Maybe not today or tomorrow, maybe not in a year, but one day might come when his memories rushed back like a river breaking down the dam. He’d remember our friendship. And then he’d remember this moment.

And it would eat through his bones like acid. All the gut-punches in the world wouldn’t come close to the pain he’d feel on that day.

I wanted to spare him. To save him, even if I couldn’t save myself. Even if I couldn’t save Gray.

“Darius Beaumont,” I panted, holding up my hands for a momentary cease-fire. “That’s your name. Listen to me. You’re the most powerful vampire on the west coast. You were born in London many years ago. You own a club in the Bay called Black Ruby. Gray is… You’re bonded to her, Darius.”

He stopped the violence long enough to hear my words, but none of them seemed to be sinking in.

“You’ve suffered memory loss,” I continued, spitting out blood. It was a struggle to stay on my feet, but I had to keep talking. Had to keep trying to get through his thick skull. “The three of us just returned from the Shadowrealm. We were trying to get Gray back to her own magical realm, but we were attacked by memory eaters and had to jump into the hell portal. Now her soul’s trapped in hell, and we’re here trying to kill each other.”

“Hmm. Charming story,” he said, his tone now light and teasing. “But how will it end, I wonder? The suspense is nearly killing me. Perhaps it will kill you, too.”

“The ending hasn’t been written yet.” I took a deep breath to regroup, hoping we still had a shot at a good one. Hell, I’d settle for one where we all walked out of here alive. Broken bones and bloody knuckles would heal. Gray’s soul was trapped in hell, but it still existed, which meant we might be able to get it back. And Darius’s memories? I wasn’t ready to give up on them yet, either. Somewhere, maybe they existed. In this realm or another.

Shitty as things had gotten, we hadn’t yet crossed the point of no return—not with any of it. There was still a glimmer of light. Of hope.

“Darius, listen to me. We can still—”

“Sorry, demon. I’m afraid your part in this tale has come to its inevitable end.” He grinned again, his eyes sparkling with fresh desire as they roamed over Gray’s body. “It’s time for my midnight snack.”

“Not a chance, brother.” I wound up for another hit—anything to stall him from his end game of feeding on her—but stopped short at the strange look on his face.

Brother, the word that’d barely registered with him earlier, seemed to snag on a memory. His gaze went far away for a beat, then came back, and he cocked his head at me and narrowed his eyes. The whole thing happened in the span of two heartbeats, but I swear I saw the flicker of recognition pushing out from the depths of rage.

“Beaumont?” I called, unable to keep the hope from my voice. “Darius? Do you—”

His hand shot out and grabbed my throat, instantly choking off the words right along with my air supply. He hauled me up, my feet dangling a foot off the ground as his mouth twisted into another sick grin.

Then it went slack.

I thought he had another memory, a flash of something. But Darius gasped in pain, his eyes wide with shock. He dropped to his knees with a grunt.

Finally freed from his impossibly strong grip, I squared off with a new assailant.

I took in the sight of her, my mouth dropping open. With her short stature, wrinkled skin, and head of close-cropped white hair, she looked like she should be sitting in a rocking chair and knitting blankets, not taking out vampires outside the hell portal.

Yet there she was, still gripping the hawthorn stake she’d jammed between his shoulder blades. She shoved it in a little harder now, her mouth pressed into a grim line as Darius’s head slumped forward.

Certain the vampire had been immobilized, she stepped back from him and brushed her hands together, finally meeting my eyes.

Recognition twisted my gut. My heart fucking stopped.

It was her.

Two

Ronan

“Deirdre Olivante,” I said, hating the shape of it in my mouth. Though we’d never met before, her name had been seared into my memory for decades, the echo of it like a ticking time bomb that haunted my every step.

She looked like I’d always imagined her. Short, small-boned, and old, but tough beneath her layers of crafted sweetness, with the same intense blue eyes and sharp cheekbones as her granddaughter.

I wanted to despise her, but right now I could only be grateful.

She’d saved us. Ironic, all things considered.

“Foolish boy,” Deirdre snapped, the first words she’d ever spoken to me. “Rayanne’s soul is trapped in hell, and you’re playing around with a vampire. I thought you were her guardian.”

I said nothing. She was right. Gray—Rayanne, to her—was my charge, and I’d failed her.

Again.

But the fire smoldered out of her words quickly as she took in the sight of Gray. Kneeling beside her on the floor, Deirdre brushed her fingers across her granddaughter’s forehead for the first time in more than twenty years.

“She’s beautiful,” Deirdre said, momentarily lost in her own world. Her voice was thick with emotion. “So grown-up. I never thought…”

She trailed off as a tear slid down her cheek. In that moment, she looked vulnerable and wounded, a woman who’d seen more than her fair share of suffering and loss.

Behind us, Darius twitched on the floor, groaning at the pain of the poison coursing through his blood. Despite the fact that he’d damn near killed me, I hated seeing him in that state. I hated seeing Gray unconscious on the floor, the grandmother she didn’t remember weeping over her body.

A fresh lump lodged itself in the back of my throat.

For so many years, I’d believed the worst thing I’d ever have to face was Gray’s death—the event that would trigger the official start of her contracted servitude, requiring me to deliver her straight to Sebastian.

But now here she was, very much alive, her soul trapped in his hell. Was that worse than becoming a demonic servant? An eternal slave?

Was there any chance of getting her out of either disaster? Out of any of the obstacles and terrible situations she’d likely face, even if we could free her from this latest round of torments? She was a powerful Shadowborn witch. To think she’d survive this life unscathed was a ridiculous pipe dream.

I turned away, unable to look at her another minute. I didn’t have the strength for this. It turned me inside out, like someone had carved me open and set all my nerves on fire. It hurt to breathe. To blink. To think.

Gray’s death? It would’ve gutted me.

But this… This was definitely worse. She wasn’t dead, just trapped, condemned to an eternity of suffering, mere seconds after we’d liberated her from the last otherworldly prison.

Deirdre sighed, and I turned back to face her, our eyes locking once again. Hers were cloudy with sadness and regret, and for a brief instant, that shared pain connected us by an invisible thread.

In another life, we might’ve been family.

I wondered if she was thinking the same thing. Then she got to her feet and said, “Don’t just stand there moping, demon. Sebastian is certainly expecting you by now.”

“Fuck Sebastian.” I closed my eyes, breaking the momentary connection. “There’s nothing he can do for me now. And if you think for one hot second I’m taking her anywhere near him, you’re—”

“She’s lost in his domain now, Ronan Vacarro. He’s the only one who can help us get her back.”

“Us?” I opened my eyes and looked at her again, eyeing her skeptically. “You think there’s an us in all this?”

She folded her arms across her chest and jutted out her chin, a look that was so very Gray, it shot a bolt of pain through my heart.

I stepped closer, staring her down. “Let me tell you what it means to be part of an us. Gray and I were an us. We had each other’s backs. We cared for each other. We shared things, went through shit together, came out on the other side swinging. We didn’t condemn each other to—”

“Enough!” Her eyes blazed, and she didn’t back down, glaring at me as if she were the one towering over me rather than vice versa. “We’ve all done unspeakable things to keep her safe. Don’t pretend you’re above all this. I know the truth.”

“You know nothing about me, witch.”

“Oh, no?” Her steely gaze softened, and she reached up to touch my face, her palm soft against my cheek. “I know what you gave up for her. I know what she means to you. And,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, “I know what haunts your dreams.”

At first her touch felt kindly, like I’d always imagined a real grandmother’s would. But then it turned icy cold, spreading across my jaw and into my head, boring into my skull. The feeling was like a brain freeze, like eating ice cream too fast, and everything else in me went still as she rifled through my mind—not my thoughts, I realized, but my dreams. My nightmares. I saw each one flicker and glow as she paged through them like stories in an old, dusty book.

When she finally pulled back and the warmth rushed back into my head, she was looking at me with a mixture of righteousness and pity. Compassion.

“Do that again,” I warned, “and you’ll… I’ll…”

I pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head, letting the words die off. I didn’t have it in me to threaten her. She’d been right. We’d all done things to protect Gray. Would do them again in a heartbeat. I had no right to judge her.

In a fluid, effortless motion at complete odds with her small physical stature, she hauled Darius to his feet and yanked his arm over her shoulder, taking the bulk of his weight against her body. Darius groaned in half-hearted protest, but he leaned into her, trying to find his footing.

“I’ll deal with him,” she said, then nodded toward Gray. “You get Rayanne to Sebastian. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”

I looked at Darius, the blood congealing on his lips and chin. His hands trembled, his head lolling sideways as if he didn’t even have the strength to hold it up. His eyes held none of their earlier viciousness.

Fucking hell, Beaumont.

Deirdre must’ve seen the concern in my face. Adjusting him against her body, she said, “He would have killed you both had I not intervened.”

“He would’ve tried, maybe.”

“Ronan, we don’t have time. I’ve got him. You need to help Rayanne.”

“He’s not himself,” I went on. “But he’s… he’s important to her. To both of us.” I stepped closer, putting a hand on his shoulder as if he was mine to claim. “I can’t let you end him, Deirdre. No matter what he’s done.”

She sighed loudly, her patience clearly thinning. “I’m not planning to decapitate him, demon. He needs sedation and treatment. Unless you want me to release him into the wilds of Las Vegas, I need to relocate him somewhere safe, preferably before sunrise.”

Safe? I almost laughed at that. Where the hell in this city was a safe place for a powerful vampire with no memory, out of his mind with bloodlust, currently neutered by hawthorn, completely at the mercy of a pint-sized, dream-stealing, elderly witch?

“I’ll find you at Sebastian’s casino once the vampire is secured,” she said, the sternness in her voice leaving no room for argument.

Darius groaned again, but if he had an opinion on the matter, I had no idea what the hell it was. I had to go by instinct, trusting that I knew the real Darius well enough at this point to know what he’d want.

Like me, he’d want to protect Gray at all costs. He’d want me to focus on her. To find some way to get her out of this fucking bind.

I scooped Gray into my arms, holding her tight against my chest.

For a moment, Deirdre and I stood facing each other, looking over the charges each of us held close.

These are the most important people in my life.

“I’ll take care of him, Ronan,” she said, a little bit of that grandmotherly tone creeping back in. “You have my word.”

Her gaze dropped back to Gray, her lips pressed into a tight line. The creases between her eyes deepened with worry, and she glanced back up at me, as though she wanted me to give her the same reassurances.

But I didn’t owe her a damn thing. She knew who I was. Knew that I was perpetually obligated to keep Gray safe, even if I wasn’t in love with her so deeply my heart would never hit a steady beat without her touch again.

With my best friend—hell, my entire life—cradled in my arms, I emerged into the lonely desert night, leaving Darius in the care of the one witch I’d hoped I’d never, ever meet in person.

The witch who—twenty-some years ago in her own dark moment of desperation at the crossroads—had signed her name in blood on a contract with the Prince of Hell, bargaining away her granddaughter’s eternal soul.

Three

Liam

For all the power I possessed, for all the fear my presence invoked in humans and supernaturals alike, for all the incomprehensible vastness of my very being, I could not save her.

The pain wracking my human vessel was agonizing, guilt’s red-hot lava boiling in my stomach, shame blazing a new fire in my chest, regret eating a gaping hole in my heart that could only be repaired by Gray’s safe return. Shifting into my shadow form would’ve spared me, but the pain was no less than I deserved.

I couldn’t risk depleting my rapidly waning energy with another shift. Not until I made my journey into the heart of hell.

For once, I wasn’t speaking in metaphor.

“Ah, my old friend, the Lord of Shadows. Welcome to Sin City.” Sebastian entered the conference room with a flourish, then sat at the head of the long, sleek table, his image perfectly framed by two large paintings depicting nude women pleasuring scores of demons.

How the natural order saw fit to keep this despicable being in power was beyond even my understanding.

“My assistant tells me you requested a meeting,” he continued with a smirk. “Does this mean your rendezvous in the Shadowrealm didn’t go as planned?”

“Let us not pretend you don’t know exactly how things unfolded in the Shadowrealm.” My temper flared, but quickly faded under the watchful eyes of the women in the paintings. They seemed to be disappointed in me, as though I’d managed to fail them as horribly as I’d failed Gray. I could hardly blame them.

Hanging my head, I said, “I’m afraid I’ve… miscalculated.”

“An understatement, I presume.” Sebastian chuckled, removing a small silver box from his inside jacket pocket. “Cigar? Something tells me you’ve got a doozy of a story to tell.”

The greasy demon prince held out the box, his thrill at my misfortune—Gray’s misfortune—plainly evident. When I waved him off, he removed and lit a cigar for himself, his cheeks billowing as he puffed the thing to life.

Smoke curled around his pockmarked face. I wished I had the power to bring disease to his lungs. To cause him a very long, very painful demise.

But Sebastian was immune to the powers of Death.

“So tell me. Did the witch refuse your proposition?” he asked. “Tell you to stick it where the sun don’t shine?”

“The proposition, as you call it, is no joking matter. It’s a matter of her true destiny. As such, it was not something to be entered into lightly. There are many facets, many details which must be explored and debated ad nauseam. We did not have the time to fully discuss her options.”

“You never even told her there were options.” Sebastian sucked on his cigar, the end of it crackling. His eyes shone even more menacingly in the orange glow. “There’s a difference.”

A thousand retorts swirled in my mind, but every one of them turned to dust on my lips. Sebastian was right. I’d kept everything from her—everything that mattered. Her true choices, and what each one would’ve meant. Her legacy. Consequences. Information that would’ve altered the course of her destiny and saved a lot of lives in the process.

I’d staked everything on my ability to train her in time, to persuade her onto the right path. I was so certain, so blindly convinced she’d accept, none of the myriad other pathways spiraling out before her seemed plausible.

After all, who could refuse the call of Death? According to the scrolls in the hallowed Hall of Records, no one in a hundred thousand lifetimes had ever dared.

Then again, I was fairly certain Death had never fallen in love with his protégé, either. That was a complication I could not have foreseen.

I knew I should regret it, but I couldn’t. No matter the outcome.

Even now, the remnants of our kisses on the beach in the Shadowrealm warmed me inside. I closed my eyes, allowing the moment to replay itself. I smelled the salt of the ocean, felt the grit of sand and shells beneath my back as Gray fell into my arms, her mouth warm and soft, her hair tickling my cheeks, her laughter like music I’d only just begun to remember.

If I lingered there, if I allowed myself to partake in the comforting opiate of human memory, the pain burning through my body might finally ease, ever so slightly…

“In any case,” Sebastian said, wrenching me from that blissful haze, “she’s in my possession now, and though I can’t use her as I’d originally intended, what with her soul being trapped in hell and her body being—well, wherever that thing ended up, I’m not keen on relinquishing her. As you have failed to uphold your end of our bargain, it seems our partnership has come to its unavoidable end.” He rose from the table in a cloud of smoke, the fat cigar lodged into the corner of his mouth. “Now, if that’s all, I’m a very busy man, and—”

“You must allow me to reclaim her soul,” I said, suddenly frantic. “To reunite it with her body before she dies. There’s still time, Sebastian. She deserves better than lingering in hell, and you know it.”

He glared at me a long moment, then said with another smirk, “The way I see it, Lord of Shadows, you should be thanking me.”

“Whatever for?”

He resumed his position at the head of the table, taking another puff on the cigar. “I’ve spared you the ugly task of killing her yourself. This way, she’ll never even know about our arrangement.”

“I never agreed to killing her. That was your term for it.”

“What would you call ending her life as she knows it, then? Tearing her from the ones she loves, forcing her into a service from which she’d most certainly recoil? What would you call eliminated one’s every last choice?”

“I did not sign her original contract.”

“No, of course not. You merely agreed to alter the start date.”

“I never should’ve accepted your terms.” The lava inside me sputtered to life once again, burning a hot path to my throat, though I was admittedly more upset with myself than with the demon presently taunting me. “The natural order is not something to be twisted and bent to one’s will, Sebastian. We must respect it at all costs, or what are we left with? What do we become but a rabble of unconscious ghouls, roaming the earth like the primordial beasts of old, tearing one another limb from limb for the pure sport of it?”

“Save your philosophy, demon. You and I had a perfectly legitimate deal. You failed to deliver, ergo—”

“I am no demon, Prince.”

“Ahh, but aren’t you?” He stabbed the cigar into his ashtray, grounding it until his fingers were coated in ash. The room was hazy with smoke, and now it began to descend on us like a fog. “You’ve bargained with her life almost as many times as I have. And here you are at the final hour, once again begging me to make another deal.”

“I’ve done no such thing.”