“It’s a little hard for me to defend these accusations when I have no memory. Forget the katana. This isn’t a fair fight.”
“Don’t you get it, Ursula?” Venom laced his voice. “Having no memory is a blessing. Stop feeling sorry for yourself and count yourself lucky.”
She gripped her knife, tears stinging her eyes. “And what did you do, Bael, to end up here in this wasteland below your manor?” She gestured at the empty cavern. “What guilt eats at you, that you’ve created your own little void? No messy emotions. No one close, no one to hurt you. Pretty safe here, among the mushrooms and the rocks, isn’t it? Tell me, Bael. When was the last time you loved anyone but yourself?”
His eyes shaded to a deep black. “That is none of your concern, hound.”
“The lords’ wives told me you were an amazing lover. But it doesn’t seem you kept any women around for long. No wonder you adore Nyxobas. You’re just like him. Lost in the void. Talk about a coward’s way out.”
She stood, her legs shaking, and crossed back to the stone bridge. As she crossed, she peered over at the sheer drop into darkness.
And the darkness called to her.
Chapter 26
Ursula stopped when she reached the atrium. When she’d come through here with Bael, the candles in the sconces had been lit, and sunlight had streamed through the hole in the wall. Now, darkness shrouded the entire space, as if it were night. The hair rose on the back of her neck. Something was wrong.
“Cera?” she called out, her voice echoing off the ceiling.
Maybe I’d do best not to call attention to myself.
She edged back to the tunnel, and then a cloaked figure stepped from the shadows. A cold chill struck her like a slap in the face.
“Ursula,” he cooed. Abrax’s voice was unmistakable. A soft rasp, simultaneously terrifying and hypnotic. “I was hoping I might run into you.”
He pushed back his hood, revealing his perfect porcelain skin and glacial gray eyes. Black magic twisted around him. Not angry and savage like Bael’s, but cautious—almost tentative. Little tendrils that searched the darkness, probing for answers. One snaked by her throat, cold as a corpse’s fingers.
He stepped toward her and she shrunk back toward the tunnel. That was her only chance of escape, even if it meant a humiliating retreat to Bael after their argument.
But Abrax wasn’t a demon she could fight. He wasn’t even a demon. He was a demigod. And without Emerazel’s magic flowing in her veins, she didn’t stand a chance.
If she let him get too close, he’d lure her in with his seductive spell. He’d drain her soul and send it to Nyxobas’s void. She took another step back toward the tunnel. A few more steps and she’d be within the relative safety of its walls.
“Ursula,” he purred. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not here to hurt you.”
You must think I’m a total mug.
Just as she began to turn, Bael appeared in a blur of night magic. “What are you doing in my manor, incubus?”
“Oh, did I interrupt something? A lover’s quarrel?” Abrax smirked, his magic retreating. “You know that Nyxobas strictly forbids liaisons between hounds and his demons. But, of course, I’ll overlook it. I am sympathetic to perverted urges, secret passions... a bit of unnatural fornication between the godlike and the beasts.”
Ursula gagged. Did he just say unnatural fornication?
Bael’s eyes burned with black fury. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to congratulate you two on your performance in the melee. Fighting side by side as you did. It was like watching a ballet performed by trained serpents.”
“That’s not why you’re here,” said Bael, his voice cold as ice.
Abrax flashed a brilliant, white smile. Everything about him was repulsive—apart from how he looked. “Correct. I wish to parley.”
From what Ursula knew, “parley” was some kind of medieval English way of saying, “I’m going to talk a lot and then screw you over.”
Abrax took a step closer to the pair. “You saw how well Massu performed today.”
From the shadows behind Abrax, a pair of oneiroi stepped into the light. Ursula hadn’t even noticed them before—truly, the oneiroi were creatures of shadow.
They stood to Abrax’s right—one tall and one short. An iron muzzle covered the shorter man’s mouth, and when he lifted his face to the light, she recognized Massu’s eyes.
The larger oneiroi held an iron chain leashed around Massu’s neck. Massu glared at Ursula and started for her, but the other oneiroi yanked him back.
“I brought him along to say hello,” said Abrax.
Massu growled, jerking at his chain like an enraged pit bull.