Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5) (5 page)

He bucked, back arched, head thrown back. Raging lust spilled into him. His bright eyes clouded. Teeth gritted, he fought, even now, but he wouldn’t win. Lust was madness, and he’d already been skirting its fringes. He twitched and jerked, and I felt every spasm through my thighs and arms. I poured the poison into him and watched how his brilliance dulled, how his smooth ice faded to a dirty gray. His wings wilted, ice-feathers curling inward.

A sob broke from my lips. I plucked my hands free, and there, on his chest, were two perfect handprints burned into his tarnished demon skin. “Oh, I’m so sorry… So sorry…”

He shoved upright, using his blackened wings for leverage, and clamped a hand around my neck. I jerked back and tried to twist off him, but he clamped his free hand on my thigh and sunk his ice-claws in, holding me pinned against him. “Stefan,” I hissed, tugging on his grip. He tightened his fingers around my throat and peered at me.
His eyes!
They smoldered gray, like ash. Breath sawed through his teeth. “Stefan, let me go.” I dug my claws under his hands and pulled. His hand around my neck released, but my triumph was short lived when he clamped it on my thigh. “Stefan…” I shoved at his chest, avoiding the burns, and beat my wing, trying to fight free. His lips parted, face twisting in pain. He lifted a hand, caught my hip, and dug in. In a tumble of chains, wings, fire, and soiled ice, he pinned me beneath him.

“No, Stefan—no!”

He wasn’t Stefan. I wasn’t sure what I’d created, but nothing of Stefan’s spark remained in his eyes. He wedged a knee between my legs and pried them apart. I wasn’t even sure if there was anything conscious left in his rabid glare.
No, no!
I couldn’t let this happen, for him, for me. His growl resonated. Those dull eyes didn’t even know me, not really. Lust had hold of him. I’d had a taste of what lust could do when my brother had used it against me. It had dropped me to my knees, emptied out my humanity, and turned me into a creature of need.

“Don’t.” I shoved at him, twisted, and bucked. He reared up over me. His brilliance snuffed out. His skin burned, wings ragged and stained. And there was nothing in his eyes, nothing at all.

I cracked a fist across his jaw, once, twice. He snarled, snatched at my wrist, and pinned it down, but I twisted as he grappled with my other arm and worked my leg free. With a vicious jerk, I brought my knee up between his legs and hit him hard. His cry was all beast, a terrible sound. I tore my arm free of his grip, plunged my claws into his side, and shoved him back as he reeled from my assault.

I scurried out from under him, away from the reach of the chains. He lunged. The chains snapped taut, yanking him off his feet inches from where I sat. He snapped and snarled, twisted and howled. And I watched, unable to look away. It was…horrible. Lust made my gift for destruction look heaven sent. Lust was ugly. Stefan—burned, soiled—snarled and chittered. He sawed at his own wrists, digging his claws in and then used his teeth, and in every second, his gray eyes flicked back to me, marking me.

I turned away. The longer I stayed, the more damage I’d do. At the door, his howls barreled through the dungeon, beating against my back. I gulped the disgust down and turned away from the madness I’d drowned him in. He spat and snarled demon nonsense. Hands clamped over my ears, I blocked it out, blocked the noise, the horrible guilt, the gut-twisting fear that he wouldn’t come back from this. What had I done to him?

“Father!” I dropped my hands and lifted my chin.

The door opened, and Asmodeus’s yellow eyed-glare slid over me. He pushed me aside at the sound of Stefan’s rapid snarls and growls. I gritted my teeth so tightly that pain flared through my jaw. I had to withstand this. If I buckled now, Stefan’s anguish would be for nothing.

I stopped outside the stall as Asmodeus admired the twisted, broken thing I’d turned Stefan into. Bile burned my throat. I swallowed it and gulped down the surge of guilt with it.

Asmodeus turned his head toward me. He’d see me standing tall, my face blank, eyes bright with flame because that was the mask I wore. Inside, I screamed and raged. I poured every measure of hatred for my father into thoughts of how I’d be the one to destroy him. My claws twitched with the thought of sinking them into my father’s crimson flesh. I’d tear him to pieces. And soon.

“Daughter…” He growled and unfurled a huge hand, urging me to take it. “You will sit beside me, as demonkin, as a member of the Court, as the Mother of Destruction, Daughter of Lust. Welcome.”

I’d become a monster. I settled my hand in his and met his glare. While Stefan’s snarls and groans cut into me, I smiled up at my father and considered all the ways I’d destroy him. I would find Jerry and restore the veil. I’d sacrificed my love for it. Nothing would stand in my way.

T
he ripe netherworld
air drifted about the courtyard, bringing with it the scents of burned rubber, countless demons, cooked meat, and things I didn’t want to dwell on long enough to give them a name. I couldn’t move for all the demons and their elements. The gathering inside the fortress battlements was apparently in my honor, but thankfully, I was largely ignored. I skirted the fringes of the courtyard, hiking my wing out of the way to avoid any unwanted contact. I watched them—the demons—slid my gaze over each and every one. Either they hadn’t heard I could disintegrate them with a flick of my fingers, or they didn’t believe it. I’d much rather be ignored than groped by the demon rabble.

When my mind wandered to the thought of Stefan chained deep below my feet, I wrenched it back into the moment and caged those thoughts behind cold resolve.
Not now. I can’t think about him now
. I needed to be detached, to keep it all inside. I twisted sobs into growls and hid my quivering flesh behind flame. The image of how I’d damaged him haunted me. I’d burned away his brilliance. If I let it, the guilt would floor me. For once, I was grateful for the demon in me.
Be demon. Don’t feel. Be merciless, unrepentant fire.

I wanted to ask my father about Stefan, almost had done, but I couldn’t let him think I cared. So I stewed in silence and fretted over how to get the key. Asmodeus had various chambers, but I’d not been able to get inside. Without that key, I couldn’t break Stefan out.

Even if I did manage to free him, what would he think of me? It had only been a day since I’d poured raw lust into him. It felt much longer. I swatted that thought aside and watched two demons claw into each other over a roasted thigh joint. The demons here were meant to be higher elementals, but they behaved like lesser beasts. I hated them all. No wonder Akil had tired of them. There was nothing here to aspire to. They cared only for status, and that usually came by the slash of tooth and claw. Demons didn’t strive to better themselves. They didn’t reach for the stars. They didn’t dream. They didn’t hope. They certainly didn’t
care.
Akil really hadn’t been like them at all. I’d thought him more demon than most, and while I may not have really known him as Mammon, I didn’t believe even Mammon would look upon this rabble with anything but disdain.

Akil. I had to find a way to restore him. Demons didn’t have books. The important things, they remembered. Everything else, they forgot. I had to find a demon who would know the answers and who would help me. Jerry. The princes weren’t likely to tell me how to bring Mammon, the Prince of Greed back. They’d hated him. But Jerry would.

A glint of light was all the warning I received. I twisted away as a demon lunged in from my left. His dagger kissed my hip, but in the next swift movement, I had my hand around his throat and slammed him against the wall. He was a skinny thing, all branch-like protrusions. No wings. Gaunt, haughty face with beseeching brown eyes.

I smiled, deliberately revealing fangs. “Hello, Samien.” I’d met Samien some seventeen years earlier when I’d been a pitiful half-blood girl, and he’d been Mammon’s hired help in this very fortress. Samien had been an ass then too, but he’d been following Mammon’s orders. I’d known then it hadn’t all been about orders, though. He’d taken too much joy in stabbing me in the back. “If I didn’t know any better, I might think you’re coming on to me.”

He hawked and spat. His spittle fizzled dry on my chest with a sweet hiss. I plucked the dagger from his hand and pressed the edge of the blade under his chin, easing his head back. “Who put you up to this?”

“I do not—”

“Don’t bullshit me. You wouldn’t attempt this yourself. You’re too wily for that.”

“Wrath.” He growled.

“You mean the ex Prince of Wrath?” As far as I knew, Stefan still held the title. Samien had to mean the huge wolf demon Stefan had knocked off his pedestal.

Samien’s brown eyes widened. “He wants you dead so Asmodeus will have no further use for the Winter-King and will kill him.”

And ex-Wrath gets his title back.
I plucked the edge of the blade against Samien’s neck and watched blood bead. “I’m within my rights to kill you here and now.”

“You are weak—”

I jerked my knee up between his legs and smothered his body with mine. The sweet smell of burning demon flesh filled my nostrils. “I was weak. Once.” His eyes rolled back, showing me the white around his irises. Panic. Good. He deserved it. I nuzzled his neck and breathed in his scent. “I have you now. The kill is mine, and no beast here will stop me.” I felt the crowd at my back and knew where each demon stood by the heat alone. None cared for our scuffle in shadows. In fact, it was perfectly normal.

Samien opened his mouth to issue a cry. I smothered his mouth with a hand and pushed my face close to his. “You are mine. You will do as I say. I own you now. Or I rip out your throat and roast you carcass on the fire as an example to the others here who would think to attack me.” A slither of lust trickled down my spine. I’d do it too. Wetness sizzled dry on my leg. His piss. He nodded or tried to. I should have let him up, but for a few in-between moments, I didn’t move. I felt the race of his heart as it thumped in his chest. Blood throbbed through him. Where his demon skin met mine, his limited power skittered. For once, I was the predator, and I had my catch pinned beneath my claws. Bloodlust surged in place of reasonable thought. I wanted him dead. He’d have killed me. This was
just
. It was right. But it was stupid, pointless, and typically demon. The human half of me that Samien despised was the half that saved him.

I shoved back. “Do you still live here in the fortress?”

“Yes,” he croaked.

“I will come to you. Tell no beast.”

He ducked his chin and scuttled off. I raised the blade to my lips and licked its edge, drawing Samien’s scent and taste across my tongue.

My father’s demon eyes watched me over the heads of the bickering demons. He stood proud and devastating on the steps—wings spread, piercings aglow—and eyed me with a lascivious grin. I licked the blade.
Hello, Daddy dearest, just teaching a demon their place…
Satisfied, he turned his attention on the crowd, and I returned to my patrol.

S
amien stopped
short of dropping to his knees when I entered his bedchamber, but he was close to it, and that was good enough for me. “Do you work for Asmodeus in this fortress now?” I wasted no time in getting down to business. I certainly wasn’t there because I wanted to be.

“Yes, and the princes when the court is in session.” He bobbed his head up and down, up and down, uncertain whether to look me in the eye or look away from his new owner.

“How do they treat you?” I stopped in front of him, hand on hip, wing slightly spread, and sneered. He looked at me like it was a trick question. “Worse or better than Mammon?”

His gaze dipped, his reply stalling on his gnarled lips. Caught between a rock and hard place: to help me or tell my father everything.

“I have a proposition. I can return Mammon to his rightful place as your liege, but I need your help.”

“Mammon is dead,” Samien hissed.

“No, not quite.” I flashed sharp teeth. “Trust me, Samien. I want Mammon back, and I will make it happen. Until then, I need you to find me the key to the chains in the stalls below the fortress. Do you know the ones?”

He nodded.

“Say it.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Bring me the key, and when Mammon is restored, I will make sure you are rewarded with your freedom.”

He blinked, hands wringing. “Asmodeus will kill me should he discover—”

I had my element wrapped around the warmth inside him before he could finish his sentence. I put some heat into it, just a little shove. He dropped to his knees, coughing and spluttering.

“What do you think I’ll do?” I crouched down at eye level and pushed more inside. He buckled and collapsed onto his side, burning from the inside out. I let him squirm, even relished in it. “Fail me, and I’ll use your ashes for seasoning.”

He dipped his chin and mustered a nod. I yanked the heat back, released him, and tried not to think about how exactly like my father I’d sounded.

T
he arrival
of the princes could be felt in the air and seen in the hunched shoulders and uttered grunts of the demons milling about the fortress. I’d woken, tasting anticipation on my lips. The elements teased and crowded, pooling in the furthest corner of the fortress where the throne room waited. What was left of the Princes of Hell would gather there. Envy was dead. Technically, so was Greed, although I still heard Akil’s whispers in my dreams and tasted the cinnamon and clove scent of him when I awoke. Stefan was apparently still the Prince of Wrath, if Samien’s pathetic assassination attempt was anything to go on. I ached to go to Stefan but couldn’t afford for my father to discover my lapse. Any sign of compassion would mark me as too human. If Samien did as he was told and found the key, I’d get Stefan out soon enough. That left Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, and Pride. Gluttony, I’d reduced to lava during the battle of Boston, but like all Princes, the bastard was immortal. He’d have come back from that, and he’d be pissed. Pride and Sloth, I’d seen only from a distance and knew nothing about. I was about to get a lesson in hell etiquette from the biggest, ugliest, most malicious and brutal demons stalking the netherworld. None would take kindly to a one-winged, half-blood whore sitting among their glorious, princely selves. At least my wits and claws were sharp.

My objective was clear: infiltrate their circle, learn all I could about their plans to destroy Jerry, and take it all to the King of Hell himself. Jerry would know what to do. He’d also know how to resurrect Akil. Everything was going to be fine. All I had to do was be utterly and unequivocally demon.

My internal pep talk crumbled and fell away when I entered the throne room. I made sure to fix my gaze somewhere in the middle distance and forced one foot in front of the other. Ethereal touches—the demon equivalent of a handshake—surged over me. Unseen elements whipped and lashed, vying for control. Ice, fire, water, earth, air. I didn’t know which element belonged to which demon and let them all lick over me. Only the touch of my father’s fire dared ease beneath my skin and explore deeper. A shiver tried to crawl up my spine. I burned it out with an internal blast of heat and set my veins aglow.
Might as well enter as I mean to go on
. I flared my wing outward and trickled fire across its ragged membrane. I didn’t falter. Didn’t hesitate. I stopped beside my father at the table. The two empty thrones loomed behind us.

Chin up, gaze locked off-center so as to avoid eye contact, I waited.

Gluttony stood opposite me, a deliberate move. He’d have chosen that spot. I knew it was him from the gravelly, shark-gray skin. He was considerably smaller than when he’d loomed giant-like on the battlefield, but he still towered over me, and he seethed. His gritty earth element crowded around but didn’t venture too close.

A demon further down the table growled low at the back of his throat. Besides that, nobody moved. I itched to speak or smile and crack a joke, anything to break the suffocating tension.

“She’s filth. You disrespect us, Lust—” The demon who’d spoken was a new voice to me—either Pride or Sloth. He trailed off with a few guttural-sounding foreign words. Gluttony grumbled a word I had no hope of deciphering. Then another voice chimed in until it became a gaggle of voices all grumbling and growling over one another. At least they weren’t lashing out. Yet.

My father stood perfectly still and quiet beside me. He observed his brethren with a blank look I could only assume was disinterest. I chanced a glance up at him, but he didn’t acknowledge me. I was on my own.

The first demon brave enough to approach trailed his feathered wings behind him like a cloak. His muscular, panther-black body blurred in and out of focus, as though his form was some kind of projection and not entirely there. A scar cut through his bottom lip, down his chin, and trailed down his neck to a broad chest. The scar was the only thing in focus. The rest of him blurred and churned like stormy midnight seas. Even his eyes clouded.

I raised a brow and looked at him sideways. When solid, he wasn’t as heavy as my father or Mammon, but he could easily knock me on my ass. I could probably outrun him. Those trailing wings would slow him down. Of course, he had flight on his side. In that department, I was sorely lacking.

He hooked a finger under my chin, his touch becoming solid at the last second, and turned my head toward him. “Mm…” His eyes didn’t have pupils, just swirling darkness. He could have been molded from the night itself. “The scent of Greed lingers on her.” He spoke British English clearly, as though he’d spent time practicing or time beyond the veil in the human realm.

I jerked my chin free. “Touch me again, and I’ll roast those pretty feathers of yours from your body and pick the meat from your bones like a Thanksgiving turkey.”

His barely-there lips twitched, and his wings ruffled, sending puffs of black dust into the air. I doubted he understood my reference, but he’d picked up on the tone. I blinked lazily. If he made a move, I’d throw down on the table right there. I’d beaten demons twice my size and three times as nasty by striking first. If he twitched in my direction, I’d bathe him in flame.

He studied me, the heavy trawl of his gaze as intimate as if he touched me with his hands.
Demons,
I silently grumbled. A smile darted across his lips. He
poofed
out of existence, leaving clouds of dust motes swirling in the spot he’d vacated. A moment later, his slippery whisper poured into my ear. “You are half a thing.”

I spun but found only air. My father gave a low warning growl. “Pride, enough. My daughter has earned her place. Challenge her if you wish, but you will fail, and we cannot afford to lose another of our kin.”

A whisper teased across my shoulder. “Would you like to be challenged, half blood?” Shivers trickled down my spine. The fire in my veins throbbed hotter. His words slid through me—over me—like a summer breeze.

I clamped my teeth together and bit back a reply. It was a game. Bait me, watch me snap, and see how easily he could crush my spine. Well, I wasn’t playing his games. I’d’ve poked my tongue out if I’d been sure he wouldn’t rip it out. Seconds dragged on, and when I didn’t respond in any way, Pride
poofed
back into existence beside Gluttony. Ruffling his wings like a rook settling in its roost, he tossed me a wide, hungry grin. I’d have to watch him. The smile didn’t fool me for a second.

The princes conversed in demon-English, punctuated with growls and snarls and then digressed into the old language, which I didn’t have a hope of understanding. When I did catch words, I assumed they discussed broken laws, and punishment, which appeared to be execution more often than anything else. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected, but politics wasn’t it.

“Baal is secured near Iezah,” Gluttony said, his words as abrasive as his skin. “If he succeeds in permanently restoring the veil, we will be trapped in this dying world. The human world is ripe, ready for our taking. They have no defense against chaos.”

I maintained a half-bored expression and concentrated on the rhythm of my breathing. Any spike of element would give me away. Pride angled his head. Those eyes without pupils made it almost impossible to see where he was looking, but the flutter of air across my skin left me in no doubt where he focused his element.

“He has fled inside the stones where his glyphs are at their strongest,” Asmodeus replied.

“Leave him. He can do nothing alone.” This from Pride.

“No.” My father straightened his back. His wings eased open. “He is weak. He will perish, and his strength will be ours. With Destruction’s help, we can overpower him, and with our combined elements, scatter him. He would never let us near, but Muse… Muse he will permit inside his sanctum. She can lure him out.”

Bored face. Keep it calm. Be demon. Be as cool as Stefan’s ice.
“Baal is no fool,” I said.

Asmodeus angled toward me, and the heat in his glare lapped against my skin. “He has lived too long in the human world. Like Greed, his mind has suffered. He will allow you close for his loyalty to Greed, if nothing else.”

Loyalty. It was a foreign concept for demons. Could a King of Hell appreciate loyalty? I hoped so because I was going to him with my heart on my sleeve. He was my last hope this whole mess could be fixed.

“And what am I to do when close to him?” Surrounded by the feared and revered Princes of Hell, I plastered a demon expression of mild interest on my face. And against all the odds, it worked. Akil would have been proud.

“Convince him to leave his sanctuary. Summon the blade, and cleave his element from his physical body. We will do the rest.”

I smiled, making sure to flash sharp teeth, while inside, my thoughts chased themselves in circles. “Convince him how?”

It was Asmodeus’s turn to smile, but his turned my bravado into mush. “You entertained Mammon for years. You have talents. Use them.” Asmodeus nodded toward Pride. “Pride will teach you to summon the blade.”

Oh joy, I got to spend time with
him
. I dipped my chin in acknowledgement and caught Pride’s sideways leer.

The meeting ended without incident. I’d rather hoped I might sharpen my claws on some demon hides. In fact, as I walked away from the throne room and through the fortress corridors, it felt too easy. The princes might not be as reckless as the other higher demons, but they were all Princes of Hell for a reason. At least one should have tested me. Only Pride had seemed inclined.

Speak of the devil…

The sight of a delicious, black-skinned human male in my bedchamber, sprawled naked on my bed of furs, interrupted my thoughts and tripped my stride. Demon I might have been, but I wasn’t immune to blatant displays of raw masculinity. He wore human skin as well as Akil had, but Pride’s was so dark, he practically absorbed the light pooling in the valleys and ripples of toned muscle. I skipped my gaze away and attempted to ignore him, but he’d already seen my jaw drop and my eyes widen. Damn.
Points to him for the surprise factor.
While I couldn’t blush, fiery embers did trace through my veins as my heart rate increased.

“Girl, bring that fine demon ass over here, and let us get down and dirty.”

My mouth fell open. If the display hadn’t been enough, his contemporary speech did me in. I had no idea what to say.

“I have been informed you prefer the human appearance.” And just like that, he’d switched to perfectly precise British English. No hint of a growl. He easily could have been a news anchor with that accent.

Eventually, my thoughts reassembled themselves into a coherent order, and I could speak again. “W-why are you here?” I strode toward the cold fireplace, keeping him in the corner of my eye. He rolled onto his side, propped his head on a hand, and stretched out lean, toned limbs.

“The blade.” He admired his sharp, claw-like human nails. “Mm, such fragile skin… It is a wonder they do not spend their entire lives bleeding.”

Ah, the ethereal blade. The weapon I was supposed to use to debilitate Jerry. I was having trouble getting my head round a Prince of Hell who could switch accents the way I switched expressions and looked delicious enough to eat. If I asked him to cover up, he’d assume his nakedness unsettled me and would probably turn an inconvenience into something worse. Demons didn’t do clothing. They didn’t really
do
human either. Pride did human too well.

He caught me watching him and smiled the kind of knowing smile that said he was drop-dead sexy, and he knew it.
That’s Pride for you.
The expression tugged a little on the scar beginning at his lip. “You do like this form. Interesting. Was this how Greed distracted you?” He propped his head onto a hand and arched a leg.

I suddenly found the view beyond the window extremely interesting. “Please,” I blustered. “I preferred you demon.”

“Your scent reveals otherwise. I have rucked with humans, both male and female, and found it complicated. You are demon. Things are far more straightforward.” He raked his gaze from my wing tip to my toes. “You are Lust’s daughter. Color me intrigued.”

“No.” My tone shut him down. He pouted. I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The Prince of Pride, an immortal chaos demon, pouted. I somehow worked my mouth around a smile and swallowed back a bubble of laughter. “When were you with human men and women?”

“I’ve spent some time in their settlement called Holly Wood.”

“Hollywood, Los Angeles?”

“The City of Angels. Ironic. Don’t you think?”

I leaned my rump against the wall beside the window and snaked my arms crossed. Akil had once told me that the devil was in Hollywood. I’d thought he’d been joking. Did that mean the demon currently on my bed was Satan?
The
Satan. “Do you have a name, besides Pride?”

“’Li’el.” He pronounced it
lee-ell
.
“But you’d recognize me by my more infamous names.”

Okay then.
Satan was sprawled on my bed. Lacy would throw a squealing fit. “What does the Prince of Pride do in Hollywood?”

“Much debauchery.” His all black eyes swirled, and his lips tucked into his cheeks, producing a smile that could win an Oscar.

Yes, I would have to watch this one. He clearly knew more than the sheltered demons from the netherworld. He certainly knew how to unsettle me. “This is not normal princely behavior. You should be threatening to peel my skin from my bones. Growling, drooling, and brandishing a blade.”

He flourished a hand to encompass the length of his body. “I am unarmed.”

His mind was sharp though. “I can clearly see that.”

“I wanted to converse with you about a number of things.” He pushed himself upright and stood, making a deliberate show of his perfect male form. I refused to look away and pinched my lips closed. He stalked forward like a model on a catwalk.
I’m sexy, and I know it.
Hell, help me. “I believe you to be an opportunist. In that, we are alike. In Boston, I witnessed you burn thousands of my kin in the time it took to draw breath and flee. I do not doubt your talents. No demon who had witnessed such a display would ever doubt the Mother of Destruction. Unlike Asmodeus, I do not believe you can be controlled. I’d like to keep this handsome vessel unburned.”