“That’s never going to happen.”
The devil’s hand dropped to his stomach, and he undid the button of his suit jacket. “You could do this willingly, you know,” he said, shrugging the jacket off and tossing it on a nearby armchair. He reached a hand to his wrist and unbuttoned the cufflinks. Then he moved to the other wrist and unbuttoned those.
“No, I really can’t,” I said.
The devil reached out, his hand cupped the base of my skull, and his eyes dropped to my lips. “You’re objection has been noted,” he said, and then he kissed me.
By the time Andre kicked down the door and stormed into the dungeon, a grief-fueled rage had consumed him. Dust and plaster billowed around him as he stepped inside. The earth shook beneath his feet, the shockwaves rippling throughout the room.
His heart felt like it was imploding. Gabrielle, gone. They will pay.
The fairy’s music still pounded in his ears, so he saw, rather than heard the cloaked figures’ screams when they caught sight of him. They scattered, but there was nowhere for them to go. Andre blocked the only way into or out of the room.
He took another step into the room, his eyes scanning the crowd. Kill them.
He bellowed and the entire castle quaked. “You will all go down tonight and face your reckoning together,” he said, his power amplifying his voice so that it vibrated the very walls around them. “And I swear by whatever god you all believe in that I when I join you, I will torment you in hell for all eternity.”
Andre crossed the room and stood before the group. He could smell their terror. He grabbed the robed figure closest to him and yanked off the figure’s hood.
A redheaded woman. Fear glittered in her eyes, but so did confusion.
She has no idea why I’m mad with grief. Grief for Gabrielle.
At the thought of her, Andre let the woman go long enough to withdraw his swords. Letting out a roar, he slashed an “X” down the woman’s front. He saw her scream as her body was flayed open, and he smelled the sharp sting of fresh blood and entrails. It smelled like justice.
Unthinking, he moved onto the next robed figure and pulled the hood off. This one cloaked a bearded male in his late twenties. He performed the same brutal slashes and moved on.
Another robed figure tried to run. This time it was a blond male. A flick of Andre’s wrists was all it took to mortally wound him.
He drew his lips back. “All who try to flee might as well run headlong into my sword, for you will die first.” The group seemed to tremble at his words, and he was getting high off of it. The madness, the bloodlust … it was all taking over; the more violence he meted out, the more violent he became.
It wasn’t enough. These supernaturals were so … weak. They were cowering rather than fighting. And yet they’d still managed to kill his soulmate.
The thought fueled Andre’s fury. A fourth victim went down, then a fifth, and he still hadn’t come across those two women.
“Where are you, you sadistic bitches?” he yelled. “Will you not face me? Or has your courage left you?” They would hide behind others to save themselves. “Afraid you’ll be cleaved in two?”
Andre could smell one of them—the woman of ash and roses. She was here in this crowd. He could pluck her right now. But he wouldn’t. If Andre could help it, he’d continue to taunt her and the other woman until they were all that remained. He wanted them to be overcome with fear by the time he got to them. He’d drink it in, savor it like demons did.
They’d die slowest of all. “Cower all you want, you’re not leaving …” Andre trailed off as the sharp, irresistible scent of his soulmate’s blood laced the air, distracting him. There was too much of it. No way a mortal could survive that kind of blood loss.
It stilled his hand and replaced his rage with something much, much worse. Sorrow. He needed to see her. Now.
He took a step away from the remaining crowd and pointed one of his swords. “Anyone so much as thinks about making a run for it, and I will make you wish I’d sliced open your stomach.”
The group seemed to quiver at his words. He knew that amongst them those two women remained. Getting distracted now was dangerous while they were still alive. They might try to rise up against him.
The thought almost brought a grim smile to his face. If they did so, they’d lose. He’d incapacitate them, lock them up where no one would ever find them, and spend weeks torturing them before he finally let them die.
Some part of him even hoped it would come to that because right now, no one was putting up a fight. It felt less like retribution and more like slaughter.
Once again the seductive smell of his soulmate distracted him, beckoned to him.
Andre slid his swords into his sheath and purposefully turned his back to his enemies. His eyes drifted across the room. A primal cry left his throat as his eyes fell on Gabrielle’s broken body.
Her hands had been tied above her head and her legs bound at her ankles. Trussed up and slaughtered like an animal.
Moving faster than human eyes could follow, he crossed the room and stared down at her. Gabrielle. Forever and always his soulmate.
He lifted a hand to her face, and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. Even death couldn’t ruin her beauty, but the soul that resided inside this body was gone. And their bond, broken.
A drop of his blood landed on her cheekbone, another just below her eye.
Out of his peripherals he saw movement as someone else entered the room. The fairy had decided to join the foray after all.
The devil’s lips moved over mine, and for a moment I forgot what he was and kissed him back.
I kissed the devil. Not that it had ever been in doubt, but I was so going to hell for this.