1WILLOW
I gasped the moment those strange, glowing golden eyes found mine without hesitation, His stare latching on and pinning me to the spot. My hand trembled against His chest as I blinked back the sting of horrified tears.
What had I done?
I swallowed, pulling my gaze off His slowly and glancing to the archdemons watching our interaction with far more interest than I cared for. I tugged at my hand where it was still pressed against His chest, His skin crackling and peeling where it had burned against mine. Nausea stung the back of my throat at the scent as I tugged again, revealing raw red flesh in the shape of my hand.
The handprint was a vivid red against the gold of His skin. My breath shuddered in my lungs as I fought to pull free but didn’t dare to do so quickly. He watched me, His eerie golden stare assessing my every move as I tried to quell the panic in my body.
His hand moved quickly as I pulled away, tearing more of the burnt, charred skin from Him. He grasped me around the wrist, His grip solid as I struggled to get free. Moving slowly, He sat up in a smooth, fluid glide that didn’t betray a hint of how long His body had been vacant and neglected. I moved with Him as He left me no choice, slowly swinging His legs over the side of the cot. The archdemons had raised it up, laying it atop the arms of the Tethys throne so that He was level with me as I stood.
The cot didn’t shift as He moved despite the precarious position, His movement so carefully controlled that it was unnatural. His heated stare never left my face to look at the others in the room as His other hand lifted from his side, reaching beneath my free arm to settle at my waist. His fingers grasped the fabric of my top, bunching it against my skin as He jerked me forward to stand between His spread legs.
He held my stare, ignoring the trembling of my hand and bottom lip as He leaned forward, pressing His forehead against mine. A deep sigh left Him the moment our skin touched, His grip twitching against my wrist as His eyes finally drifted closed.
I swallowed, pulling back to glare up at Him. He ground His back teeth together as His hand dropped from my waist, and He raised it to slide it beneath the curtain of my hair and touch my jaw. Sweat slicked my skin at the contact, His body so warm it felt like it might burn me. It was such a contrast to the way His Vessel had felt, to that striking chill that had always permeated the air around him.
“Don’t look at me like that, Witchling,” He murmured softly, His grip tightening around the curve of my head when I tried to flinch away from His touch.
Those ethereal eyes hardened into a glare, glimmering like molten gold when I used His moment of distraction to tear my hand from His chest. I tried not to look at the perfect handprint that marred His skin, at the way it didn’t seem to show any sign of healing in the way I would have hoped.
He tilted His head to look at the mark, His lips tipping into a cruel smirk. “You marked me,” He said, gazing at me through His lashes with the hint of white teeth peeking through His parted lips. It was a look of smug satisfaction, purely dominant—a predator who had won His prey.
“I did everything you asked,” I said, shaking my head as I tried to pull away from His touch. He grasped my hand in His, raising it to stare at the burnt remains of flesh that clung to my skin. When He touched a single finger to it, I watched in horror as the remnants melted into blood, sliding away from my hand and dripping onto the floor at our feet. It was the same way He’d melted the new flesh off the Covenant’s bones to form Charlotte, and the memory was far too fresh in my mind.
“You did,” He agreed, trailing a finger through His blood and dragging it up to where my wrist peeked out from the sleeve of my sweater.
“So let me go. You have no use for me anymore,” I argued, keeping my voice quiet. His finger stopped that slow, traitorous trail over my skin, freezing in place as His nail seemed to elongate in the sudden anger that pulsed off Him in waves.
It pierced my skin, my own blood welling as I gasped at the sensation of the warmth of His slipping into the wound and entangling itself with my own. It shouldn’t have felt that way, shouldn’t have flooded my veins with tingling heat that set me aflame.
But it did.
“You want to leave me,” He said, slowly turning that animalistic gaze to my face once again. There was no warmth in the hardness of His rage, only anger I didn’t want to contemplate as I flinched back from Him.
“What reason would I have to stay?” I asked. His face fell immediately, the anger from a moment before disappearing so suddenly it gave me whiplash. Somehow, the vast emptiness and lack of all emotion on His features were worse than His anger.
He released me, allowing me to stumble over my own feet at my sudden freedom. I backed away another step as He stood smoothly, this form of Him so similar to the Vessel He’d occupied for centuries. But that had been a hollow imitation of the real man before me, of the dominant, masculine beauty that prowled toward me with slow confidence.
He’d been beautiful before, more handsome than any human I’d seen, but now, in this form, He was somehow more. His hair was thicker and darker, a deep brown so close to black that only the lanterns overhead showed the difference. His bone structure was deeper somehow, more sharply tuned and distinctly masculine. His golden eyes seemed to sit deeper in the structure of His face, making His brow more pronounced. In spite of the delicate fullness of His mouth, the tense line of it was menacing and ruthless as He stared at me. He seemed bigger than before, not just His height but the width of Him. His muscles were carved into His lean form as if He were a sculpture that belonged in one of the churches in Rome.
Because they’d been based off Him.
Even His forearms and hands spoke of strength, of the ability to crack my spine in half if I looked at Him wrong. His very essence filled the room, plunging us into darkness as the air turned sickeningly warm, the taste of apples coating my tongue.
“I achieved what I came here to do and things I never would have wanted,” I said in an attempt to remind Him that I’d always had an agenda in coming to Crystal Hollow. In my ideal scenario, this town had always been a pit stop, if I managed to survive it anyway.
The latter seemed unlikely given the unfortunate turn of events.
Like being stabbed by the man I’d somehow allowed myself to fall for like the naive little girl he’d accused me of being.
Even I knew I stood no chance of fighting my way to freedom. My magic was distant, overused in the opening of the seal and with no earth nearby for me to call on. I glanced at the Madizza throne from the corner of my eye, the black-tinted rose petals fluttering in an invisible breeze as if they felt the faint call of my magic.
I stepped back once more, hoping to get just a little bit closer and avoid the death Lucifer promised in His stare. I bumped into something massive and hard at my back, tilting my head up to look at where Beelzebub stared down at me with disinterest—his leathery black wings twitching as they curled around his shoulders. He reached around the front of my body, capturing my chin with a hand as the other touched the back of my head.
The breath caught in my throat, the realization of what he intended flashing through me faster than I could react. Gray wouldn’t even give me the courtesy of killing me himself, allowing his minion to do his dirty work in the end.
Lucifer’s eyes widened, His expression turning horrified as His mouth opened suddenly. “No!” He commanded as Beelzebub snapped my head to the side sharply.
A crack resounded through my skull as Gray rushed forward, catching me as I fell. He stopped me from crumpling to the ground as my head hung at an unnatural angle that I couldn’t right, my lungs compressing as they expelled a final breath.
His hand slammed into my chest, an ache spreading from the heat of his touch when all that surrounded me was cold.
But inside, I burned.
2LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR
Willow dropped, her legs crumpling beneath her as her eyes glazed over. Beelzebub released her as if she’d burned him the moment I shouted my protest, as if that would be enough to undo what he’d done. My body moved more quickly than I remembered, leaving me to stumble slightly as I adjusted to the feeling of my own skin wrapped around my soul.
I caught Willow before she could hit the floor, sliding an arm beneath her to offer support. I winced at the odd angle of her neck, at the way it hung limply with nothing to support it. The shape of her reminded me of Susannah, of the grotesque way her death had clung to what remained of her even after Charlotte and I raised her from the grave.
No.
Her eyes rolled back in her head as her soul severed from her physical form, the ghost of her spirit rising from her chest in a faint mist.
“I’m sorry,” I murmured, even though I knew she was past hearing me. The Willow I knew could no longer sense those trying to reach her, her spirit lost to the call of Hell in her soul. What I would do would bring her pain, would torment her and likely make her hate me even more than she already did.
I pushed my hand through that mist leaking free from her heart, slamming my palm against the bare skin of her chest. Inky tendrils of dark, forbidden magic spread through the mist that could have brought her to peace if her soul hadn’t been damned by her ancestor’s actions, wrapping around what remained of Willow and clinging to her.
Her skin split beneath my hand, cracking open as if she were made of porcelain. Darkness spread over her skin like the vines she loved, creating a hollow in her body as I focused my magic on gripping every last wisp of her soul. I wouldn’t let any part of her escape me, wouldn’t let any bit of the woman I’d come to crave more than my own freedom sever from what made her her.
The tendrils latched on, caging her in a brutal, cruel embrace as her body shuddered in my arms. My free hand inched up her back, slipping beneath her top and touching the mark I’d put on her shoulder. The one that made her mine.
The one that enabled me to bind her to me in a desperate bid to save her.
Her back arched involuntarily as my nails sank into the center of the triangle I’d marked her with, elongating into black talons that pierced her flesh. I knew the pain she’d feel when she awoke would be crippling, that she’d remember bits and pieces of what had happened in the aches that plagued her body.
Cradling her in my arms, I leaned forward and touched my forehead to hers, holding her in position as I shifted my hand on her chest, sinking my fingers between the cracks I’d created in her skin.
The dark magic I’d used to trap her soul here returned to me, surrounding my skin and tugging her back into her body. Only when her soul had returned to her, wrapping around her heart and making itself at home in the useless, dead flesh of her body, did I pull my fingers free and stare down at where the mist tinted with the slightest green and black wisps swirled inside the crevice I’d made.
She hung limply as I pulled back, holding up my forearm to Beelzebub, who stared at it and swallowed. “Lucifer…” he said, his voice trailing off as he looked between me and my wife.
“Do it now,” I commanded, watching as he unsheathed his favored dagger from the strap crossed over his chest. He pressed it into the vulnerable underside of my wrist, dragging it up my vein until he reached the inner part of my elbow. What I aimed to do would require far more blood than any mortal could easily give, only the true immortality of my form offering her salvation.
Blood flowed freely over my skin, dripping onto the floor beneath me as I shifted to place it over Willow’s mouth. She was unresponsive as I pressed it to her lips, smearing her lips and skin with my blood and allowing it to pool in her mouth. The archdemons were silent as we waited for it to drip down the back of her throat, for her body to consume what would fix the wrong done to her mortal form.
A ragged breath filled her lungs, her neck shifting and snapping back into place as the bones mended. I hung my head forward, pulling her tighter into me and drawing comfort from the rise and fall of her chest in an even, natural rhythm. It was the same one she had when I watched her sleep, the same heartbeat that echoed with her breaths.
My blood dripped onto the floor as my flesh worked to knit itself back together, straining as I stood with Willow in my arms and headed for the door. Her screams of pain began, tearing through my eardrums and making me wince. The pain in that sound was unimaginable; to think of what she must have been feeling to make noises like that even in the depths of sleep …
“Lucifer, we need to know what you want us to do. The plans have clearly changed,” Asmodeus called behind me.
“The plans can fucking wait,” I snarled, leaving the archdemons to wreak whatever havoc they wished upon the Coven. None of them mattered. None of it mattered.
Only the witch in my arms.
3WILLOW
One moment, there was only darkness. Only a hollow where light had once been. The vague vestiges of flames burned the backs of my eyelids, taunting and teasing me as if my spirit readied itself for the pyre.
Then there was air, sharp and painful as it filled my lungs. My eyes flung open as I drew in a ragged gasp, sitting up so suddenly that my vision swam with dizziness. My lungs burned with the air that filled them, as if they’d been frozen in time, waiting for me to wake.
My mind was a mess, a maze I couldn’t find my way out of. My chest heaved with exertion as if I’d just run a mile, my breathing labored in the panic that consumed me. My hand crept toward my throat, grasping the skin there as I fought to remember how I’d come to be in Gray’s bed.
The moment my fingers touched my skin, the crack of my neck snapping burst through my memory. The darkness that came after and then the complete and blinding pain that overwhelmed my body.
I scrambled from the bed, getting tangled in the blankets as I flung my legs over the edge. Falling to the floor with a thump, I fought to free myself from the distinctive mess of them in my panic. Kicking and clawing at them as I shook my head from side to side, I crawled toward the bathroom on the other side of Gray’s room.
“Willow!” he yelled, but I couldn’t bear to turn my eyes to him. I couldn’t stand to look at him even as I felt him step into the open doorway to his private living area. I grimaced as I tried to stand, resisting the urge to scream when I couldn’t seem to get my legs out of the fucking blanket.
My chest throbbed with pain, and I touched my palm to it as a strangled noise clawed its way up my throat.
Gray moved, carefully avoiding my legs as he pulled the blanket free and dropped it on the bed. My legs were bare, only a black nightgown covering my intimate areas as I squeezed my thighs together. He lowered himself beside me, sitting on his haunches as his face came into view. “You’re all right,” he said softly, his voice deceptive and soothing. It called to me like the softest melody, a teasing taunt of magic that hadn’t been there in his Vessel form.
Sin wrapped up in skin, a body meant for luring humans to a place of endless suffering.
Tears stung my eyes at the notes of it that still reminded me of the man I’d known, of the one I’d somehow, foolishly, allowed to deceive me into falling in love with him.
The man who had never even existed in the first place.
I wrapped my arms around my stomach, my mind a whirlwind. I couldn’t make sense of all that had happened. I couldn’t understand the implications of what he’d done, of how long he’d been planning this.
Copyright © 2023 by Harper L. Woods