The Cursed (The Unearthly) (19 page)

Was she asking me? “Persephone’s mother kills everything off until she gets her daughter back.”

“After that,” Morta said. “What is the end result?”

“Persephone gets to live half the year on Earth and half the year in the Underworld.”

Morta took my arm once more. “That is the answer you seek,” she said.

“What does that mean?”

Lila gave my face another caress, and her burnt floral scent assaulted my nose. Her lips brushed my cheek. “It means that you will be a creature that can freely travel between Earth and Hell.”

With every step
Andre took, her scent got stronger. The smells of the damned seeped in along with it. Bran Castle had long been a place of pain. History knew the most public examples of it, but there were so many more that went unrecorded. Torture, rape, incest, murder
—
the place was saturated with it. Blood had fed the soil here. The place was stained with horror.

And somewhere in there Gabrielle was being held against her will. Silently Andre crept up the stairs to the entrance of the castle. His muscles twitched with the need to kick down the doors and unleash his fury, but he’d been in enough battles to know that brute force didn’t often win, especially when outnumbered.

But the element of surprise, that could turn the tables. So rather than kicking down the door, he turned the handle. When he met resistance, he gave a deft yank, breaking the lock.

He pushed the door open, and then he and Oliver were inside.

My back went
ramrod straight as a pulse of power thrummed along my skin. Andre was here.

But how? How had he found me when I had no clue where I was?

Morta gave me a yank. “Time to meet your destiny.”

“Who even says that?” I asked, walking forward, but my mind was distracted. Andre had found me!

Together we crossed the room and slipped through the door. The hallway was chillier than the room I’d been in, and familiar dread churned in my stomach.

“
No
.” I staggered and came to a stop.

“Move.” Morta shoved me forward, but I refused to budge.

This place couldn’t be real, but so help me God, somehow it was. I was back in the devil’s home.

Even with Andre’s soothing presence nearby, I began to shake, and my fangs descended. “Not here
—
I don’t want to die here!” My voice became frantic.

I tugged on my bindings again, and began to struggle to get away.

“I warned you what would happen if you tried to get away,” Morta said.

I couldn’t die here; I refused to.

Power built along with my panic. At first I thought it was my own, but as the ground began to rumble and the sensation lashed against my skin, I realized it wasn’t me at all.

Someone had officially pissed off my boyfriend.

As soon as
Andre stepped inside, the connection between him and Gabrielle flared like a live wire.

“What is this place?” Oliver whispered. “The hall of horrors?”

The smell of decay and dried blood hit his nostrils. It came from all around him. From the leathery map that hung on the wall to the stained furniture. A fire crackled in a nearby hearth, but instead of emitting heat, it seemed to drain it from the room.

He turned to Oliver and pushed him into a nearby alcove. “Stay here,” he said, his voice pitched low. He could hear the shuffling of feet in the distance.

“Not going to happen. Especially not next to this thing.” He pointed to the marble statue of a horned being situated in the alcove. It had lifelike, inlaid eyes, and dried blood ringed its lips.

“Oliver, you agreed to follow my orders once we were inside. This is one of them.”

“So you want me to stay here with this …
thing
?” Oliver eyed the statue with obvious disgust.

“Yes.”

“Fine, but I have a condition.”

He didn’t have time for this. “Whatever it is, it’s yours. Now stay here.”

“Deal.” The fairy smiled, which probably meant Andre had agreed to something ludicrous. Fucking fairies
—
you could always guarantee they’d take advantage of a situation.

“Oh, and if this thing eats me,” Oliver added, “it’s your ass I’m coming back to haunt.”

Andre nodded absently, already strategizing his next move.

“Who even says that?”

Andre’s head snapped up at the sound of Gabrielle’s voice. Relief coursed through him at her insolent tone. It was an act, but it meant that she was alright for the moment.

He began to move towards the voice, winding his way through the castle nearing what appeared to be a turret.

Two women held a bound and blindfolded Gabrielle.

A sweltering rage burned inside him. If he let it, it would consume him. He stepped into the shadows and stilled, waiting for the appropriate moment to attack.

“No,”
Gabrielle choked out.

Andre closed his eyes when he heard the fear in Gabrielle’s voice.
Don’t lose control,
he willed himself.
Not yet.

“Not here
—
I don’t want to die here!”
she begged.

As soon as he heard her desperate plea, Andre only had time to think of a single word before his rage consumed him.

Fuck
.

My captors stopped
walking.

“
Let her go,
” Andre’s voice was sweet music to my ears.

The ground trembled violently beneath us, and I could hear metal clattering and glass tinkling.

Morta cursed. “It seems the vampire king has come after his mate.”

Did they have no idea how close he was to losing it at the moment? They should be scared. Hell,
I
was scared, and I was his soulmate.

Air brushed against me, and the current between Andre and me throbbed; those were the only signs that Andre had moved.

Morta’s grip was wrenched from mine, and I felt the ground shake as Andre slammed her into the wall. “You will die for daring to hurt her.”

I didn’t waste the opportunity Andre had given me. My leg shot out, and I kicked Lila. She gasped, and her hold on me slipped.

I pulled my foot back, preparing for another kick. “You do not want to fight, vampire,” Lila said, glamour filling her words. “Gabrielle is in good hands.”

The tremors racking the building softened.

I opened my mouth. “Don’t listen to her,” I said, pulling the siren into my voice. Poor Andre was getting majorly mind-raped right now. “She wants to
—
”

Lila covered my mouth. “Leave this place, vampire.”

The trembling subsided, and I heard Morta suck in air. The current between Andre and I began to fade, which meant … he was leaving.

I tried to shake Lila’s hand from my mouth, but she held on. “Looks like your love is abandoning you,” she whispered into my ear.

I screamed against her hand and yanked my head away from her mouth. Hate filled me. She’d glamoured Andre into abandoning his rescue mission.

Using as much force as I could muster, I head-butted the cambion. Her hold loosened on me, and I jerked my arm free of her hold. I began to run, almost falling when I realized I was moving down stairs.

“You stupid, little fool!” Morta was yelling at me.

Someone plowed into my back, and the two of us lurched forward. I fell, my head cracking against the edge of the stairs. I felt an instant of pain, and then I blacked out.

“
Andre!” the fairy
hissed.

Andre ignored him, heading towards the front door.

“
What
are you doing?”

Once he passed across the threshold, his head cleared. Andre stopped, swiveled around, and locked eyes with Oliver.

That woman had glamoured him into leaving, and his only saving grace had been her vague wording. Otherwise, he would’ve left his soulmate to die.

The maps and antiques set on display began to shake.

“Uh, your hair’s lifting,” Oliver said.

“Give me your iPod.”

“Hot damn,” the fairy said, eyeing him, “are you going to blow?”

“
Now!
” Andre bellowed.

The fairy reached into his pocket and handed the iPod over.

Andre placed the earbuds in his ears and turned the music on, cranking the volume all the way up.

“Stay here, fairy.”

Oliver’s lips moved, but Andre heard nothing over the music. And if he couldn’t hear outside noise, then he couldn’t get glamoured.

Andre smiled grimly, walking back through the house. Now there’d be hell to pay.

I was jostled
awake by the trembling surface beneath me. I blinked once and tried to sit up, but found my arms bound over my head and my legs bound at my feet.

Had I … fallen and hit my head against the stairs? I frowned. It was suspiciously similar to the lie I’d told the coven during the trial, which probably meant it wasn’t coincidental at all.

And now I’d managed to sleep through getting untied and retied. Just my luck.

The blindfold had been removed, so I could finally take in my surroundings. Candlelight flickered throughout the cloistered room. The smell of soil, blood, and death clung to the walls, but it was overshadowed by the scents of at least a dozen supernaturals. They loomed over me, cloaks covering their faces and bodies.

To my left Morta chanted in some ancient language. I couldn’t see her face, but I’d recognize that voice from anywhere.

One of the shrouded figures caressed my cheek. I ground my teeth together. Lila.

My eyes darted about, and it only took a moment for me to truly understand my predicament. I wore a white dress and lay on a wooden slab. I was going to die just like those other women. Except my expression wouldn’t look peaceful like the others. Nope. Thanks to my immunity to glamour, mine would be contorted in agony and horror. No dignity for the dead.

The earth rocked again, but Morta’s voice never wavered.

“Help me,” I begged the cloaked figures, my skin flaring to life.

“Earplugs, lovely,” Lila said.

Morta talked over us, her voice filling the chamber. The candles flickered, and the incantation came to an end.

The group stirred, and I saw a flash of metal pass hands.

“No, please,” I said, thrashing in my bindings, “think about what you’re doing.”

“It’s going to be alright, Proserpine. We’re almost done.” Morta lifted my head, and I felt the brush of twine rope as it passed over my face and hair before coming to rest around my neck. I closed my eyes. A noose.

When I opened them, the group loomed over me. I felt the noose tighten, and I began to choke.

I glanced at the shadowed faces that watched me. I couldn’t see their eyes, but based on their smiles, they wouldn’t help. They were excited to witness my death.

Two knives lifted, one to my side, and the other directly above me. I knew enough from the previous victims to know what was to come. A slash to my neck and a stab to my heart.

I began to struggle in earnest, but even with my supernatural strength, I couldn’t break through my bonds.

Black dots began to smudge out my surroundings.
Losing consciousness.
My eyes completely clouded over, and I saw the knife above me start to move. In that second before I blacked out completely, I screamed.

I felt a slice of pain, and then nothing.

Andre descended the
stairs, his every step causing the earth to shudder beneath his feet. Bad techno music blared in his ears and somewhere below him he could sense magic building. The walls shivered, huge chunks of plaster raining down on him.

Dead. All who participated tonight, dead. He wasn’t going to make it quick either. It would be slow and messy, and they’d be begging for mercy just like she’d been. And he’d give them the same chance they gave her.

The earth rippled out from under his feet, the tremors getting increasingly severe. He left the stairs and stalked down the hall.

The cord connecting him to Gabrielle flared, tightening his chest almost painfully, and then … it was gone.

Chapter 26

I stood in
an empty bedroom.

I rubbed a hand over my neck. Had I died? Where was everyone? More importantly, where was I?

The same smells of blood and brimstone that had clung to the room I’d first found myself in lingered in this room as well, only here they were stronger.

Casting my hearing out, I listened for the sounds of my tormenters. Nothing. Not a single heartbeat. In the distance I thought I heard echoing screams, but nothing else seemed to stir in this place.

I eyed the bed, a hulking four-poster number carved with intricate designs. Skirting around it, I made my way to the window.

Outside I saw … the castle grounds. I placed my hand to the glass. Everything was covered in snow, just like it had been in my dreams.

“Evening, consort.”

My dress swished as I whipped around. Standing on the other side of the room, his hands in the pockets of his designer suit, was the devil.

Andre roared, uncaring
that the castle, which had survived centuries of attacks, was tearing apart from the shockwaves of his power. Anguish like he’d never experienced before now choked him.

He staggered, then fell to a knee. The world was red. Red with his bleeding heart, with his blood, with his tears. They dripped down his face, marring the ground in front of him.

The impossible had happened. Gabrielle,
gone
.

But she was his soulmate. She was supposed to live forever. With him. They were supposed to save each other.

He gripped his heart with his hand. Here was where he felt the cord most powerfully. But now, nothing.

They killed her.

Anger eclipsed his pain. He pushed himself to his feet, stepping over a rafter that had splintered and fallen.

He roared again, this time not in pain, but in rage, and the plastered walls running alongside him cracked. The entire castle seemed to scream in agony.

He could begin to smell the fear of the occupants trapped in the bowels of his place. They knew he was coming, which meant they knew they were never leaving.

They’d delivered Gabrielle to hell. Now it was his turn to give them a taste of it.

I blinked, and
the devil stood in front of me.

Reflexively, I threw my fist out, aiming for his jaw.

He caught it in his own. “Now that is no way to treat your spouse.”

“We are
not
married.”

“You’re right, we aren’t
—
not officially anyway.” The words were barely out of his mouth when he picked me up and tossed me onto the bed. I rolled across it and swung myself to my feet on the other side of it.

When I looked up, he again stood in front of me, smelling of brimstone and blood. I flinched. He’d moved faster than I could follow with my eyes. The devil’s almond-shaped eyes appraised me.

“You want me to have sex with you?” I asked incredulously.

“That does seem to be an integral part of marriage, so yes, I do.”

I tried to sidestep him, but he blocked me.

“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.

I pushed him away, coughing. It felt like I’d breathed in something sinister. The devil grabbed me, a hunger filling his eyes. This was going to end badly. He pushed me back onto the bed.

He lifted my leg … and pressed a kiss to my ankle. Was the devil being
gentle
? Hell had officially frozen over.

“
Wait
,” I gasped.

The devil dragged his eyes from my legs. “I’ve waited long enough, consort. You are mine.”

I gazed wide-eyed at where the devil touched me. “I-I want a tour of the house!”

“No you don’t. You’re just trying to distract me.”

“No really,” I practically cried as his hands slid up one of my calves, “it’s important to me that I know your home.”

“
Our
home,” he amended.

I waved my hands in the air. “Yes, yes
—
whatever.” I’d do just about anything so long as he stopped touching me. And acting normal-ish. He needed to act thoroughly evil.

You want him cruel, he’ll be cruel. You want his kindness, think of him as capable of it.
Morta’s words echoed in my head.

Please be capable of good,
I silently begged him.

The devil’s hands paused on my leg, and his mouth curved into a wicked smile. “You cannot outmaneuver me, consort. There is a reason I am known as the Deceiver.”

That made me swallow. “Please,” I repeated.

He stared at me, and I got the distinct impression he was weighing the benefits and the drawbacks of my request. “Why would I stop now when I have you on my bed, and I am minutes away from consummating this?” As he spoke, his hands drifted up my knee and began to caress my upper thigh.

I squirmed beneath him. “Because I am not leaving here anytime soon. Why rush what can be savored?”

The hungry look in his eyes deepened, and his hands stroked my skin.

I winced. It had been the wrong thing to say, but in all fairness, I hadn’t practiced how I’d outwit the devil. Nope, I’d spent all that time with Andre learning how to physically defend myself against him.

I should’ve known that all the fighting in the world wouldn’t save me from him.

And yet, the most surprising thing about this moment was the distinct lack of violence. “Why are you treating me so kindly?” I whispered.

He caressed my thigh again, and I shivered as my skin grew cold under his touch. His eyes drifted to my lips. “Perhaps I don’t want my wife broken. I reign over enough mad souls as it is. Perhaps I want her fully lucid for all eternity.”

I shuddered. Madness might be better than lucidity when it came to the devil.

“You’re lying,” I accused. Because if he was telling the truth, then that meant he wouldn’t be violent with me. At least not to the point where I snapped. And that was definitely not the devil’s style.

He smiled slyly, and his expression was full of wickedness. “Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not.”

I stared at him, brows furrowed, until his hands began moving once more, caressing and kneading my thighs.

I gasped. No, this couldn’t happen. I grabbed his hands. Fighting might not save me from the devil, but acting might.

“I want to see my room,” I demanded.

“This is your room.”

I raised my eyebrows. “If this is my room, then where are my things?” It took a lot of effort to keep my voice from shaking. To act entitled instead of scared. “I’d imagine that the devil’s consort gets to have everything her heart desires?”

The devil’s gaze narrowed. He knew I was up to something. “You will want for nothing.”

“Then where are my clothes? And my shoes? And my makeup?”

“You will get all that and more, once you accept my wedding gift,” he replied, a smile forming along his lips. He should not be amused. That usually was a sign that I was totally and completely screwed.

“Wedding gift?” I repeated, confused.

The devil studied my expression. His hands released their hold on my leg, leaving my own hands empty. I exhaled. “Yes, perhaps I’ll give you my wedding gift before you give me yours.”

I suppressed a cringe at the “wedding gift” he’d been planning on taking from me. He pushed himself off the bed and held out a hand for me.

Ignoring the proffered hand, I rose from the bed.

The devil captured my chin in his hand, forcing me to stare at him. “This is a warning, consort: I am the most dangerous creature to ever exist. I am the thing that monsters cower from, and I will not tolerate your insolence. So in the future, take my goddamned hand unless you want to see my darker side.”

My body was racked with shivers as his eyes flashed, and I felt evil closing in on me. I hadn’t realized until now that he’d kept the darkness at bay. But now, with his anger, I felt it seep into me. How long before I’d lose myself in it? What would it do to me? The devil said he didn’t want to break me, but how could he not if I was forced to always feel this?

I nodded and swallowed at the devil, not even pretending to be meek. The devil scared the courage out of me. His fingers lifted from my chin. They trailed up my cheek, and the malice drained from the devil’s eyes. He was in control once more. “You wanted a tour of the house?” he said. “I can give you one on our way to your wedding present. Would you like that?”

“Yes,” I whispered, my voice hoarse.

A smile touched his face. “Then so it shall be.”

He steered me out of the room, and I almost sighed in relief. Anything would be better than what we were about to do.

I just hate it when I’m wrong.

Andre turned in
time to see Oliver taking in the scene before him. His eyebrows hiked up at the carnage, and then he caught sight of Gabrielle. Oliver staggered and grabbed the doorframe. His mouth moved, but over the music blaring in Andre’s ears, he couldn’t hear the fairy’s words.

But he could see the fairy’s grief. Oliver must’ve seen the blood or felt the death that clung to her body. Andre saw the ragged sob that came from the fairy’s lips.