The devil turned from me to the audience around us. “I hear there should’ve been a Joining tonight, and by the devil, there will be one.”
The wind continued to twist around us, a tornado trapped in the ballroom, and the devil and I were at the eye of it. Guests covered their faces as the storm tore at their clothes and hair. Among them I caught sight of Leanne and Oliver.
“You can’t have her!” Andre shouted. I could feel the static electricity snapping off of him. His hair lifted, a strange breeze blowing it in the wrong direction. His fangs had descended, and his lips curled back menacingly. The pupil’s of his eyes stretched almost completely over his irises, making them look nearly black. Our connection throbbed, like it knew it was in danger of snapping.
The devil laughed. “Oh really? And what will you do about it? I made you; I can unmake you.”
The devil snapped his fingers, the action quelling some of the electricity in the air. Some, but not all. Instead, the electricity changed form. Sparks jumped off of Andre and, holy crap, this was going to turn into Bishopcourt fiasco, part two.
Some of our guests had managed to escape out the front door or through the now broken windows, but most of them watched, captivated, as the devil wrought destruction down upon them.
I realized with a start that most of the vampires had never laid eyes on the devil. I’d gotten so used to his drop-ins, that the wonder of his presence was lost on me. But now vampires like Vicca stared at him, mouth agape—a strange mixture of fear and awe in their gazes. They’d never seen the thing responsible for their damnation.
Andre was the only other vampire in the room not shocked by the devil’s presence. But boy he did look pissed. He strode towards the storm, pushing against the wall of wind.
The devil paid him no attention. “As I was saying,” he glanced over the crowd, “tonight there will in fact be a Joining.” Once more he turned to me, hand outstretched.
“I’m here tonight to claim Gabrielle Fiori as my consort, the Queen of Hell.”
“Fight him, soulmate!” Andre shouted.
But all the fight had been drained from me. I was covered in blood, my dress torn where I’d been shot, my hair wild, and my wound still raw. I’d given the last days and hours of my life everything I had. I had nothing left of myself to give.
The room fell silent. Utterly silent—even the wind, which still twisted around us, had quieted, as though someone had turned down the volume. The only sounds were my sluggish heartbeats, pounding arrhythmically between my ears, and the whoosh of blood it moved through me.
Deep breath in. Slow breath out. As I stared down at the devil’s hand, I calmed. My moment of truth was upon me. The destiny I’d been hurtling towards was finally here. No more innocent lives would be lost.
I reached out.
“Gabrielle, no!” I never again wanted to hear the note in Andre’s voice. It was the sound of a creature in great pain, and I had caused it.
This ended tonight.
I grasped the devil’s hand, and with a triumphant smile, he pulled me to my feet. He tugged me to face him, and his hand slid up my arm, twining around mine. “I, Rex Inferna, recognize you as my mate and doth bind you to me en infitum, Gabrielle Fiori, Regina Inferna.”
I began shivering as the cold chill of fear seeped into me. On the other side of the twister Andre was creating his own storm with his rising emotions. The walls and floor shook as objects lifted themselves off the ground.
“And so it shall be, now and forever,” the devil finished.
Andre let out a roar, and the chandelier shook violently. The house made a pained groan. It wouldn’t last much longer under the strain of Andre’s pain and anger.
The devil’s hand locked around my wrist just as the whirlwind that spun around us suddenly ceased.
My eyes found Andre’s wild ones.
“I love you,” I said.
The shadows around the devil and me shifted and lengthened. I realized as they circled us that the darkness was made up of screaming souls. Andre strode through them, his hair whipping about his face and his jaw set, ready to fight the devil for me.
Seeing this, the devil turned his head so that his lips skimmed my temple. I shuddered as he pressed a kiss there. The shadows swarmed in on us, and I could feel myself—both body and soul—being ripped from the fabric of this world.
I reached out for Andre as the devil wrapped his arm around my waist.
“No!” Andre thundered. For one sheer moment, his fingers brushed my outstretched ones. Then both he and Bishopcourt disappeared, and the blackness consumed the devil and me.
One by one my senses disappeared. First sight, then smell and taste. I no longer choked on the sour tang of lost souls and ash, which made up the matrix I traveled in.
Touch—thankfully—went next. I could no longer feel the devil’s grip on my body, nor his breath on my face. The last thing to go was my hearing, and I knew that only because the devil’s final whispered words rang in my ears long after my other senses had fallen away—
“Finally, consort, you are mine.”
Chapter 30
Andre dropped to his knees as the shadows swallowed Gabrielle up.
“No.” His voice broke over the word. Seven hundred years of his soulless existence, a few short months of something dangerously close to happiness, and all of it for naught.
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. The Biblical reference rang like a dirge in his mind.