No one responded. The walls of the room were beginning to glow red.
Raven’s lips parted. Her body tingled. Her blood began to hum.
“He’s coming.”
“We need to concentrate,” Astriel said, grasping her gently but firmly by her upper arms and turning her so that her attention was on him. She felt his power waver, shifting so that it was weaker elsewhere and stronger here. It encircled her, clearing her mind. “What could the symbols be calling for?” he asked, forcing her to look into his eyes.
Her mind spun through possibilities. “What if the last objects aren’t actually objects?” she said, thinking out loud.
“They’re people!” Summer said suddenly. Everyone looked at her. “Think about it! Raven, you’re a keeper of souls! Quite literally!”
Raven swallowed. She had a point. She nodded, more of those puzzle pieces sliding into place. “Yes… yes, I am. And Grolsch, you’re a source of physical strength. If that axe of yours and what you can do with it are any indication.” She turned to Summer. “And you, Summer, are a source of spiritual strength. You believed Haledon had sent us to help you. You believe he’s protecting you.”
Summer nodded, if hesitantly, and Raven could see that everyone was becoming excited. She could also see that the red in the walls was deepening. And she didn’t fail to notice the sweat along Astriel’s brow was more plentiful. He was about to lose the battle with Drake on the shield around them.
“Summer, put your hand in that one there.” She gestured to one of the hollows. “Grolsch, come over here and place your axe hand in this one here.”
Summer and Grolsch complied, leaving two empty depressions. Raven turned to Astriel. “We picked something up in Culling’s Eve after all,” she told him. “You. You’re the keeper of kingdoms. You rule over every fae realm, just as Drake rules over every circle in Hell.”
Astriel brushed past her to the indentation that called for a king, and placed his hand into the depression.
Raven nodded, inserted her hand into the final hollow, and almost immediately, there was a series of bright flashes. Fortunately, none of their hands disappeared as the objects placed onto the altar had. But when the four of them pulled their hands back out a moment later, the symbols were all lit up. All eight of them.
The ground shook, this time so hard that everyone was knocked to the ground. Astriel covered Summer’s body with his own as rocks crumbled. Loki grabbed his sword as he went down to one knee. Grolsch grasped the wall with one arm, and his axe handle with the other. Raven dropped painfully to her knees and reached out to the altar for support. When she did, her hand landed on top of something.
She grasped it instinctively and pulled it down in front of her face as a tremendous crashing mimicked thunder, and crushed rock went sailing in every direction. She recognized the object. But there was no time to do anything but cover her head.
And the world melted around her. First, its reds became bright pinks, then white so luminous, she was forced to close her eyes. From behind her closed lids, she could see the light become even brighter, and soon her eyelids were red with heat.
She gritted her teeth against it, placed her arm in front of her face, and ducked her head, unsure what was happening. She waited in this curled up position, clutching the object the altar had given her. It was a large natural ruby on a leather string. She held it in a tight fist, until the light and heat at last faded.
There was no noise beyond her tiny world of darkness. The thunder had gone, the crumbling rocks had all settled. There were no voices, there was no movement. There was nothing but the sound of her rapid breathing, the banging of her terrified heart – and the hollow echo of a pair of black boots stepping slowly toward her.
Raven held her breath, which sped up her heart even more. The boots stopped in front of her, less than a foot away. She waited.
Finally, she steeled her courage and looked up.
The underground chamber was gone. Her brother and companions were gone. In fact, all signs of the terran realm had vanished, leaving her alone on a vast, featureless plain of gray packed dirt – with the king of Hell.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
In all her life, she had never seen anyone or anything more striking than the man who stood before her now. He was the essence of power, the embodiment of darkness. Darkness and power were such beautiful things.
She sat back on her heels and stared up at the devil that ruled Abaddon. In that moment, a part of her separated from itself, disconnected in the reality that he’d caught up to her, she was alone with him, and there was no more running – because even if she could run, she wouldn’t. Not anymore.
Raven looked from him and his beautiful, sure smile to the hand he offered her. Slowly, surreally, she took it.
His fingers wrapped around hers, possessively and securely. He lifted gently, and she rose to her feet. They stood mere inches apart while the universe stopped what it was doing and watched. It listened.
“Drake –”
“Wait,” he said before she could go on. “Before you say anything else. Say that again, Raven. Just one more time. Say my name.”
Raven closed her eyes when his voice wrapped around her, culling her will, slicing it down like a field of wheat, ripe for the taking. “Drake.”
His hand cupped her cheek, his palm hot and soft. His fingers were deft and gentle as he brushed them through the hair at her temple. He leaned in and whispered in her ear. “Come with me, Raven. Leave it all and be my bride.”
Oh gods, moaned her inner voice. He was so warm, so tall, so strong. He hovered over her, a wall of solid, protective perfection that would never let her go.
But he has to.
It was a stronger voice that spoke within her now. It was the other part of her, that part that had separated the moment he’d arrived. It was her will – the will he hadn’t yet demolished.
He has to let you go. Because you have the Phylactery now. And you have to use it.
“You’re the one who made the Phylactery,” she said, her voice soft, her words whispering across his neck because he was so close… just like he’d been in her dream. If she’d wanted to, she could have released her fangs and taken him then and there.
She could have tasted him.
Oh gods!
“Yes,” he admitted easily. He was in control. The scent of his leather, of magic and night – of him – engulfed her just as his voice did. His very nearness was a powerful spell, and her resistance was faltering.
But Raven knew why the rolled up map she’d seen him with in the last two visions of his past had seemed familiar to her. It was the Hunter’s Map. He’d been working on it. He’d been creating it. It was practically named after him: the Hunter. That was why its magic had been as strong as his in Phlegathos. It came from his magic.
But the Hunter’s Map lead to only one thing. That meant that Drake was the creator of both the map, and the Phylactery. No wonder the altar had been inscribed in Abaddonian.
“Why?” she asked. Her gums ached, and his grip in the hair at the back of her head tightened just enough to indicate that his need was growing as much as her own.
“There were things I wanted to change,” he told her. His tone was tighter now too, a touch impatient.
She could imagine there were things he’d wanted to change. How could she not have known? He’d been born the son of Asmodeus. His birth mother had died bringing him life. And then he’d split himself in two and grown up in a horrible world where his adoptive father raped his adoptive mother and Drake had been forced to kill at a tender age. Of course he’d wanted to go back. Make it right.
“But I failed in the spell,” he continued. “So I hid the ruby and map away. Magus would find them, the meddling god.” There was a short pause before his tone changed.
“You can’t use the Phylactery, Raven.” This was a command. It was also a plea, but a command most certainly. “It isn’t safe.” He pulled back just enough that Raven felt
the sudden urge to reach out and stop him. Then he placed a gentle kiss upon her throat, right over her pulse.
That pulse jumped, and her breath caught.
Raven’s mind flashed. It isn’t safe.
So very many things were not safe. But that willful bit of Raven was still separate from her body, which was fast developing a fever. She remembered Drake in the vision, handing the ruby pendant and the map to the hunter, Ian. She remembered Drake had called it a “failed attempt.”
Why wasn’t it safe?
“Why?” she managed. But it was only a whisper. Her fangs were extending now, fighting to come all the way through; she hadn’t even noticed them growing, but now they ached and yearned. She forced them back with brute internal strength.
“It requires a sacrifice to work…. It requires a soul.”
She tried to understand what he was saying, to fully comprehend it, but his hand slid down through her hair, slowly and inexorably, until his fingers brushed the back of her neck. All at once, a pleasure so intense it was painful shot through her. She inhaled sharply and arched against him as it coursed its wicked way through her in ripples of agony-bliss.
Drake’s arm slid around her waist to hold her fast, supporting her fully as the mark on the back of her neck lit up like fire. His mark. She’d forgotten about it. How could she have forgotten? That fire spread through every nerve ending in her body, burning it in white-hot possession.
“You’re mine, Raven. Let it all go right now and join me.”
She was his. Drake had left her branded with his kiss just before the clock struck midnight on the night he’d taken the throne. He’d claimed her with that brand.
But… Drake had. Not Darken. Darken hadn’t yet taken control of him when he’d kissed her. He’d joined Drake’s soul moments after.
They had not always been tied to the same body. They had been separate once.
An idea swam in the miasma of pleasure and pain he had trapped her in. But her will called to it, and it swam closer. And closer.
What was it he was wanting her to let go? The Phylactery? Why didn’t he just take it out of her hand?
She tried to talk. She was fairly sure he couldn’t take the Phylactery from her physically. She was the finder. It was hers. She wanted to ask him if that was so, but her lungs wouldn’t work. She was caught in the grips of something horrendously wonderful, and talking was impossible now. A fraction of coherent thought was all she could manage.
The Phylactery pulsed in her hand. It was waiting for its sacrifice, and then it would do anything she wanted it to. It would even turn back time. Like all good spells, it just needed something first. That was what Drake was trying to save her from. He didn’t want her to give up her soul.
Raven felt the many souls within her own body. By this point in her life, she’d grown accustomed to the different presences; they were one now, existing symbiotically and in their own spaces in time. She could not separate any of them out for a sacrifice, and she would not anyway. That was not her choice to make. It was not her soul to give.
And she could not offer up the “chosen soul” that encompassed all those past lives. She could not sacrifice them all. If she did, she wouldn’t be giving only of herself, but of countless other lives, lives that had been lived and lost. Each one was precious.
So if she couldn’t give this up, why was she the only one who could handle the Phylactery? Magus had informed her that she was the sole individual who could make it work. Why?
Because….
“Listen to me, Raven,” Drake insisted, his tone darker now, more intense. The sound of it had already wrapped around her, but now it squeezed a little, taking more of her breath. “Drop the Phylactery. Forget this now.” His hand fisted at the back of her head, and he pulled, forcing her to bear her throat to him. “Join me.”
She hissed as his teeth grazed her own pulse, and she knew her time was short. If he bit down, if he took of her the way she so badly wanted to take of him, she would lose what little of herself remained under her own control.
She begged her mind to focus. Focus! Concentrate!
Why was she the only one who could use the Phylactery? Because….
Because….
Because my body is the only one in history to house more than one soul. It’s prepared to hold more. It’s the only one that could take the joining. I’ve already had the practice.
Suddenly, brilliantly, she knew what she had to do. The Phylactery also knew what she had to do. It had known since its inception. It was a device for changing time, and hence it knew time, backward and forward. It had known the future, that she would one day come along, and it decided she would be the one who could use it – to do what she had to do now.
I’m ready.
Raven allowed her fangs to extend. As if he knew the very moment of her surrender, Drake released her hair. She lowered her head, placed her lips to his waiting throat, and felt the throb of his pulse beneath them.
Chapter Forty
For the love of Abaddon, let me succeed….
It was the final thought she experienced before she sank her fangs into Drake of Tanith’s throat.
From a cloudless sky, lightning crashed into the ground so thick, it formed a complete circle of electricity around them. The purple-white light thundered like the end of time and separated them from space, making them the center of the world. At once, Raven pulled, and Drake’s blessed blood answered her call.
But his blood was not the only thing to heed her call.
Drake’s arms came around her, pulling her body painfully hard against his as the Cosmos exploded in her mind, in her heart, and all around them. Her body throbbed, her heart came alive. She’d been so weakened by the events of the last few days, but his blood refilled the deepest shadows of her emptiness, refueling her with magic. She was in heaven… with the ruler of Hell.
And then she felt it – that tugging release that would separate one soul from the other. She focused on that, trying not to lose herself in the bliss of him. That was the important thing.
With all her might, with all the will that made her the rightful queen, with all the power she had saved in her lifetime, with every spell she’d ever held back or never even learned – with all of that – and with what she now knew was bone-deep, end-of-time love, Raven pulled Drake’s soul to her own.
She summoned it, called to it, and when Drake moaned low, and his fingers curled into her flesh, and his body began to quake against hers, she offered her hand to that soul, just as Drake had offered her his.
The soul at once understood her plan. Drake always had been brilliantly quick.
His soul came willingly, parting from the deeper darkness that had hounded and tainted it since the beginning of its existence. In that moment, Raven managed what years worth of magical practice and one extremely powerful spell could not. She separated Drake from Darken, taking the former safely into herself.
But as Raven pulled and swallowed, and her soul was joined by another, and her body sang and her spirit soared, she heard a low growl.
Her eyes opened, her body stiffening. Slowly, carefully, she withdrew her fangs, even while her entire body begged her not to. She was burning up, aching everywhere, dying for a completion to the feast she had begun. But now was not the time.
His grip on her loosened, just enough for her to pull away. His eyes met hers at once; lightning flashed in their depths. “What are you doing, Raven?”
His voice was different now, more hollow and cruel. But it would be. It was Lord Darken who stood before her now, not Drake. Drake’s soul was no longer in that body. It was in hers.
Raven’s breath was ragged, her heart racing, her nerve endings crackling. Darken stood tall and still, and undeniably mean. She had the impression in that moment that he was in absolute control of the entire universe, and stood at its center, tipping the scales of time and space however he deemed fit.
She licked her lips, feeling the scrape of her fangs a
gainst her tongue, tasting the remnants of his beautiful, powerful blood. A shiver went through her, and she pulled away further, hugging herself as she took a step back, putting precious distance between them.
His silver eyes mocked her, and the corner of his mouth turned up. He knew she was suffering, and he was happy about it. It was the ace up his sleeve. And it made her hate him even more.
“What I have to,” she told him, her voice quaking.
He lifted his chin, confident and calm. “Is that so? You feel you have to fight me even now?” He stepped toward her, filling the gap she’d created.
Again, she moved back. But his power reached out for her, slowing her down, and her retreat was halved in distance.
Fight him.
A voice sounded in the hallways of her mind, deep and echoing, and re-filled her with the strength Darken was sapping from her. She gritted her teeth, fueled anew. “If needed,” she hissed, “I would fight you for all time.”
“But you needn’t,” he responded easily, closing the space between them once more.
Raven shook her head, shutting her eyes for just a moment to clear her thoughts, but Darken’s hand cupped her cheek, and more of his insidious magic flooded her.
“You are mine, Raven Winter.” His thumb brushed her lips, sending rivulets of need coursing through her. He said her name like a spell, and that was how it acted upon her, forcing her thoughts into spiraling confusion. “You must accept that. You are my queen, and there is nowhere in the realms you can go to escape this absolute truth.”
She opened her eyes to look up at him. He smiled and shook his gorgeous head. “I know what you’re doing. I know why you separated us. But there is no need to fight me any longer. There is no need for anyone to fight. The war can end here and now – if you join me.” He paused, letting the implications of his offer, of his threat, sink in. Then he leaned in, and whispered his next words across her lips. “I thought I’d made my intentions clear.”
Oh gods, help me. I’m losing.