Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5) (6 page)

“That’s very…practical of you.”

“I believe that you, like any prince, have your own motives for walking among us. If you are at all like your tutor, you will manipulate to your last breath to procure your desires.” Evidently, he knew Akil well. Li’el stopped inside my personal space and planted a hand against the wall beside my head. The light from the window illuminated a devastatingly beautiful face. Up close, the scar cut deeply. Ragged edges told me it had healed slowly. Considering how the immortal princes generally healed everything within seconds, I had to wonder what or who had given him that scar. And why.

“I will be on the winning side when the dust settles,” he said, head cocked. “You are not what you seem. One wing, half human, half demon. For all your faults, you are stronger.”

“And you are clearly more intelligent than I’d given you credit for. So where does that leave us?”

“Should the tide turn in your favor, I will stand beside you. Should you fail, I’ll draw the air from your lungs and suffocate you where you stand.” He leaned in so close I could smell his sweetness. Cheek to cheek, he turned his head so that I found myself peering into those swirling eyes. “Greed lingers about you still. So close, I almost hear him.”

“Greed is dead.”

“Mm, so I have been told.” He trailed a fingertip between my breasts and winced as my skin burned him. “I hear a great many things. You killed your owner. Da’mean, was it? An air elemental. I hear you carry his soul inside you.”

His information was out of date. “I do.”

“A heavy burden?”

“What’s your point?”

“I find your resilience and power highly agreeable.”

I’d gathered that from his state of arousal. Typically demon, my being a mass murderer turned him on. That was something I could definitely use. It wouldn’t hurt to have the Prince of Pride on my side. “Show me how to summon the blade.”

Lifting his chin, he stepped back and swept a hand low in a dramatic bow. “As you wish.” He smirked, and in the next step dropped the human suit for his insubstantial demon form. Wings unfurled behind him, feathers rustling. “The blade comes to those with precise control. This is why it is mostly in the hands of princes. But you already open and close the veil with ease, and the blade is made of the same forces as the veil. Control is something you must master.”

I arched a brow. “Control and I don’t get along. Besides, there must be more. Otherwise, you’d all be summoning it whenever you stepped on each others tails.”

He moved like smoke, drifting, coiling, creeping. One moment, I’d think I had him focused, and the next he’d dissolve and reappear a few feet to the side. It reminded me of ghost stories, and I wondered how many people he’d spooked in his immortal life.

He lifted a hand, and with a flick of his wrist, the blade appeared. Blue flame licked across the wide flank of the blade itself. It was a two-handed broadsword. Pride held it aloft as though it weighed no more than a bag of sugar. Considering it was about as long as I was tall, I’d likely struggle to lift it at all.

“Call it as you do your element. Reach out with all you are. If you are not worthy, it will not come.” He let it fall from his hand. I expected it to clatter to the floor, but it dissipated in silence almost immediately after he’d released it.

Pride’s body solidified and sharpened. “Try.”

I lifted a hand and mentally reached inside. The veil rippled gently in the background, much weaker than it should be. I probed at it and formed the image of the blade in my mind. Nothing happened.

Pride grinned, apparently taking great pleasure in my failure.

I tried again, rolled my shoulders, flexed my wing, and closed my eyes.
C’mon, how hard can it be if a handful of the netherworlds-most-crazy can do it?
Round two was another failure.

“Perhaps you do not know what you are.”

“Oh, I know what I am.”

“Do you?” He circled me. One moment solid, the next liquid smoke. “You have it in you to be great, but you shy away from your potential. The blade will not come to one so conflicted.”

“I’m part human. I’m always conflicted.”

“Perhaps. We will have to work on that.”

I reached with all the mental strength I had, and still nothing came. Pride’s wispy self drifted and spiraled. Every time I failed, anger and frustration plucked at my patience. Stefan was locked in the bowels of the fortress, and I was playing mind-games with the Prince of Pride. “Again,” Pride would say in that absurd accent. Again. Again.
I’ll give you again. When I summon this damn, blade I’m going to carve you a new cakehole.
Again. Time had marched on, and the netherworld air thinned. We could have been practicing for hours. Every second I failed was another second Stefan had to spend rotting in that stall, another second demons ran rampant and people died, another second closer to Asmodeus figuring out I was playing him.

“You’re angry,” Pride said after I’d failed yet again to summon the blade and blasted the fireplace with a burst of flame instead.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Angry. Confused. Grief stricken. Guilt surrounds you like a fog. I’m surprised you can function at all with all those emotions distracting you. Your humanity weakens you.”

“Fuck you.”

“Please.”

Ugh.
I slumped on the end of the bed and ran my hands over my face, up my horns, and down the back of my neck, dislodging ash and embers. The blade wasn’t coming because I wasn’t ready.

“There’s an easier way.” Pride solidified a few feet in front of me and crouched down to eye level. Looking into his eyes was like looking into forever. “Be demon.”

“I am,” I growled. I couldn’t be any more demon. I’d poured lust into Stefan. I’d slaughtered thousands of my kin. I had demon thoughts merrily prancing around my head telling me to shred Pride’s dark chocolate skin and gobble him up.

“You’re both. You’re human and demon. While frankly remarkable, your humanity can’t help you here. The blade is elemental. You are in the netherworld. You’re surrounded by immortal elementals. Forget your emotions. I think you’ll find it liberating.”

His haughty Englishness began to grate. “I don’t want it to be liberating. I just want the blade so I can end the King of Hell and please my father.”

Pride’s eyes narrowed, and a slippery smile crawled across his lips. “You lie the way he did: with a measure of truth.”

I blinked. He could only mean Mammon. “I’m not lying.” How the hell did he know?

He reached out a hand. I jerked my head away and snarled a warning. “Your human expressions are bleeding through your demon face. My brethren don’t recognize them, but I do.”

I batted his hand back, stood, and stalked to the fireplace. “Again.”

He dispersed into a cloud of dust and then reformed facing me. “I enjoy masochism as much as the next demon, but I have better things to do with my infinite time than watch you fret over your human feelings. Summon me when you are ready to let go of your emotional baggage.” He
poofed
out of my chamber. I spat then added a string of colorful curses. This was too slow. I had to do more. I needed the key, the blade, to get to Jerry, to bring Akil back. I needed to get the hell away from this nightmare.
I want to go home.
I had to get out of these black walls and away from these wretched demons. Another second in that damned chamber and I’d explode.

I flung open the chamber door and strode down the halls, out into the courtyard, and through the battlements, into the night gardens, which hugged the fortress boundaries. Demon howls barreled through the thick night air. I dragged that sickly air through my teeth and gulped it down.
Bring it on, netherworld. You wanna fuck with me? Here I am.
I broke into a loping run and then a sprint and tore through the undergrowth. I didn’t care where I was going or that there were things out here that would devour me in one bite.
I couldn’t stay in Mammon’s fortress a moment longer.

Fire pulsed in my chest and lapped up my wing.

The foliage spat me out on a rocky outcrop. I skidded to a halt on a large flat rock. In the gorge below, lessers squabbled for scraps. Above, hunters circled, cawing to one another. Lightening scored the sky, but no thunder followed—the netherworld in all of its ugly beauty. Breaths sawed through my teeth. My demon heart hammered. At least the netherworld was honest. It was what it was.

Is this what awaited Boston?

“It is yours.”

Panic slammed through my thoughts before I could stop it. Asmodeus stood so close his heat sizzled against my wing. At least I could blame my thundering heart on the sprint. He trailed his hand up the rise of my wing.
Oh, god, no.
My skin quivered and muscles twitched. I had nowhere to go. Ahead, there was a several-hundred-foot drop into the gorge. At least with my back to him, he couldn’t see my lips curl.

“You could destroy it all. There is no greater power.”

I fluttered my eyes closed and thought about anything else besides the press of his body against mine.

“Do you feel it?” His hot breath seared my shoulder. He trailed a hand down my side, my hip, and spread his fingers across my stomach, pulling my body back against his. “The lust for the hunt? The ravaging need to own and claim. After your success with Wrath, you must feel the thirst for more.”

Be demon. Be fucking demon. This is Daddy dearest, and if I’m going to convince him I’m entirely his, I must be his daughter. The daughter of lust….

“Are you mine, daughter?” The smell of scorched flesh swirled in the air.

“Yes.” I couldn’t say anymore. Bile choked my throat. I gagged and opened my eyes. Asmodeus struck, biting into my shoulder. I bucked, but he clasped me tight against him. My mouth tore open, but I buried the scream inside. He growled into the bite and sank his fangs in deeper.

Get away. Get away!

Be demon. This is demon.

Don’t let him do this.

It’s just a bite. Just a bite… Let the fucker get it out of his system.

I can’t. I need to get away.

You’ve had worse. Suck it up. Be his daughter, or he’ll never believe you.

The slick skin of his vast chest pushed against my back and wing. Crimson wings closed around me, burying me in my father’s touch and scent. He jerked and twitched.
Destroy him. Destroy him now.
A switch clicked in my head. Fear and disgust shattered and fell away. Demon. I am demon. This is demon. My racing heart slowed, my breathing leveled, and I watched the bruised purple skies of the netherworld broil as my father got his demon kicks. Demon was simple.

Demon was easy.

“
A
gain
.”

Pride noticed the bite mark the second he’d
poofed
into my chamber. His nostrils had flared, drawing my scent into him, and he’d said, “You are his.”

I’d given him the finger. And so the lessons on how to summon the blade began all over again. I’d thought it would come, given how I’d demoned-up to survive my father’s fucked-up brand of familial love, but the blade proved as elusive as before.

“You cannot hope to subdue Baal without the blade, half-blood.”

I didn’t give a damn about the blade. I didn’t want to subdue Baal. I just needed Pride to sign off on my training so my father would tell me where to find the King of Hell and finally let me go. There were other ways. Pride could be bought, but I’d had enough of my share of lust to last a lifetime. Whoring myself out was a last resort, although it would be the demon thing to do. Seduce Pride, get my info, get Stefan, and get the hell away from the monsters. I had hoped I’d survive the netherworld relatively unscathed. Now I realized how foolish a hope that was. I was playing with the biggest, baddest demons who’d ever existed. They weren’t going to be bought by a half-blood’s sweet smile and smooth lies.

“I am destruction, not half a thing. Call me half-blood again, and I’ll vaporize your vessel.”

Pride ruffled his wings. “Again.”

Every time I reached for the veil to summon the sword, it reminded me how Boston was just a mental swipe away. So close. Too close. My city was vulnerable, my friends in trouble, and I was failing.

“There is fire in your soul.”

I slid my gaze to where Pride stood beside the fireplace and had a sudden image of Akil standing the exact same way. Naked, powerful. I blinked, and the image vanished, replaced by Pride’s darker-than-night glare. “I am fire,” I grumbled.

“I see why Asmodeus covets you. Should you stand beside him, the two of you would be unstoppable. You’d bring about the end of all things.”

I flicked out my wing and grinned maniacally. “Happy days.”

A knock at the door brought an abrupt end to my training session. Samien entered and froze like a rabbit caught in the pasture with no place to run. “Samien,” I hissed. Did he have the key?

He flicked his gaze to me, but it bounced right back to Li’el, then he dropped to his knees and spouted strings of old words. I had him by the throat, my fingers choking off his words before he could say anymore, but by the fear in his eyes, I saw he’d already spilled enough.

“Oh, that is interesting,” Pride purred.

Damnit. “You runt.” I sneered, still choking him. “What did you say?”

“Asmodeus has the Prince of Wrath inside the fortress walls,” Li’el recited. “A veritable half-blood reunion.”

I swore at Samien and threw him to the floor. My expression left him in no doubt what I had planned for him. I tugged at his heat just enough to spook him. His sharp face blanched.

“I knew, Muse,” Pride said. “I told you. I hear a great many things. I am air and everywhere.” Li’el’s teeth gleamed white against the darkness of his skin. “Samien also said he has retrieved a key.”

Samien produced a simple iron key and held it out in a trembling hand. “I’ve done enough. Let me go, and I will not speak of this to Asmodeus.”

“No,” I growled, snatching the key from him. “You come with me. If this key doesn’t fit, you’re in for a whole new world of pain.” Lifting my wing, I turned to Li’el. “Well? Will you drift off and tell Asmodeus that I plan to release the Prince of Wrath?” I readied my element. I’d destroyed my air elemental owner. If necessary, I’d turn Li’el’s vessel into ash. He’d already admitted he’d rather avoid my fiery touch.

He dipped his chin and looked at me with clouded eyes. “No. If you allow me to join you.”