The devil had taken his soulmate. Just like all the tales said he would. A cry tore through Andre’s throat.
He saw the moment the fire died from her eyes, the moment her soul was no longer here but there. But even the terror of that sight couldn’t compare to the sickening way her life force severed itself from his heart. That invisible cord that he’d carried inside him like a flame for almost two decades, the one that had flared up the first time he laid eyes on Gabrielle in his club and had burst to life several days later when she’d Awoken. It had been snipped. He could practically hear Morta’s cackle from somewhere beyond.
“No,” he repeated. The word was a broken plea. It couldn’t be. Not now, not after everything they had endured to be together. Not when he’d only just gotten a taste of what it would be like to be with her wholly and completely.
He pressed a hand hard against his heart as he hunched over himself, trying to stem the pain of the cord’s absence. It was the same hand that had tried to stem Gabrielle’s blood from seeping out of her only minutes ago, and now her blood smeared onto his clothes. He smelled like her. How dare she linger if she was gone.
Gone.
Around him, objects that still swirled around the room now crashed to the ground as his heart contracted. Distantly he heard people scream.
This time around there was no body to revive. But perhaps she could escape, like on Samhain.
His eyes closed and he shuddered. No one who entered the Underworld left. That had always been consistent throughout the myths. She’d been taken, and this time she wasn’t coming back.
“No!” he bellowed, and Bishopcourt quaked with his agony.
At some point his coven dragged him away from the room.
Gone, gone, gone. She was once his. And now she was gone.
Across the world, as the news came in, people cheered. All but a few. A monster’s arms and legs were restrained, otherwise he would’ve already ended his life. His coven clustered around him, holding him as heaving sobs shook his monstrous frame and blood streamed down his cheeks. His wails only ceased when the first rays of dawn rose on the horizon.
Soulmates weren’t meant to part.
In a dark room in Castle Rushen a shapeshifter shook, wiping the vomit off his chin. He hadn’t stopped trembling since he’d pulled the trigger. She was dead—the girl who’d once been his friend, the girl he would’ve died for a month ago—and it was his fault. When he killed her, he killed some part of himself as well. Something integral. He retched again. In what world was this right? In what world was this just?
A seer closed her eyes and dreamed of great, leaping flames and hollow, endless pain. She screamed as it lacerated her skin over and over. With a gasp she woke, feverish from someone else’s nightmare.
Next to her, a fairy lay in a pool of his shedded dust. Tears tracked down his cheeks as he thrashed in his sleep, twisting himself in the sheets of a dead woman.
In a musty emporium a stooped messenger cleaned off a glass case, which housed a priceless treasure. Its owner would be needing it soon.
And resting on a desk in the master bedroom of Bishopcourt, under the watchful gaze of a painted crusader, was a final line of hope written on an already forgotten letter: I’ll be coming back, Andre. Have faith. I love you, and I’ll see you again soon.
Chapter 31
I woke with a gasp. The obsidian slab I lay upon chilled me to the bone. I sat up, and as I did so, dozens of spiders skittered off my body. I sucked in air to scream, when my outfit caught my attention.
The confection was nothing like I’d ever seen before. It moved like silk, but it was woven into web-like lace patterns. My eyes darted back to one of the rogue spiders fleeing from me.
Spider silk?
I felt a laugh rising to the surface, something hysterical that wouldn’t stop once it started. I bit down on it when the unnatural chill of the place sank into my bones.
I slid off of the altar, barely registering its Satanic symbols as I padded barefoot across the hexagonal chamber. The walls were made of more obsidian, and torches glowed blue.
My breath misted in front of me as I left the room, the train of my dress dragging behind me. In the distance, I could hear shrieks and shouts. Moans and wails. My fangs descended at the sound and the hairs along my arms rose.
Something propelled me forward, even as terror coursed through me. Down dark, despondent hallways I traveled, the noise increasing with every step I took. Cold traveled up my bare feet as I padded along the glassy black floor.
I ended up at two night-dark doors, each propped open. On the other side of them was a staircase made of onyx, and beyond that …
I grabbed the twisted wrought iron bannister and descended, my shaking hand sliding over the railing. The stairs opened to a balcony.
And there he waited.
He must’ve heard the slither of my silk dress, or maybe he felt my presence the same way I could now feel his, because he turned to face me.
I swallowed my gasp. The devil was the same, but he wasn’t. He was taller, more filled out, and his face …
I now understood why, to Christians, he was once known as the morning star, one of God’s loveliest angels. Swathed in shadows, his full beauty stared back at me, hidden no more. Only now did I realize every physical facet this being held back from me. Held back until now.
The devil—Hades—reached a hand out for mine. Numbly I took it.
He brought my hand to his lips and kissed it. Then, he swiveled to face our empire.
The world below us was one of flame. Now that I was here, in this truly godforsaken land, I couldn’t help the strange, new pull I felt towards him.
“Welcome to hell, my queen.”