WILLOW
I strained forward, reaching into the darkness before me and searching for something that I could not see. Nothing except the
black of pure night existed; the light behind me was something resembling a faded memory.
I drew in a deep breath as that light flickered, drawing my eyes to the vines that slithered along the floor to reach me. So close, and yet so far, I knew they wouldn’t touch me prior to my plunging myself into the darkness of death.
It was void of all life, a barren landscape of dry dirt and ash beneath my feet. The hairs rose on my arm as I took a single step forward, driven by the rattling of the bones around my neck. They sought out whatever awaited in that obscurity, letting it call them home.
The darkness whispered my name, the sounds so much more clear than they’d ever been before.
I took a step closer, as far as my elbow dipping into the ice of the dark. A thorough look through the darkness confirmed the hazy images of women standing in a line for me to see. Twelve women stood before me, starting at the left. The woman there wore clothing that was old-fashioned enough I knew who she must have been.
Charlotte’s daughter.
She looked so much like her mother, and the absence of the First Witch weighed heavy on my heart as I skimmed along the line. My aunt stood at the very end, her hand extended to welcome me home. “Come, Willow,” she said, her expression solemn as I faltered.
“I’m not ready,” I said, shaking my head. I wasn’t ready for death to engulf me, to become another one of the Hecate witches linked by bones.
Our line would die with me.
As much as I’d thought I wanted that when I’d awoken from my brief death, I remembered the chill of that darkness on my skin. I remembered the emptiness inside me that came with knowing I’d failed.
“You will never be ready,” she said, smiling sadly. “Do not allow him to make you into something you are not.” The faintest image of a murky path flashed behind her, the blurry form of green hedges drawing me closer like a trap.
Pausing, I considered her words and the strangeness that I felt in my body with every move I made. I was too quick, too strong, too everything to be the same as I once was.
As much as it terrified me, I also knew the one thing that mattered more than anything.
I’d come here to find Gray’s weakness. I’d come here to find the bones and use them to Unmake the Vessels and get justice for my aunt. I’d thought the Covenant was responsible for her death, but they weren’t.
My mission to Unmake the Vessels and avenge her were one and the same, and Gray had made a fatal mistake.
He’d given me His weakness.
I would make him live to regret it.
I woke with a start, my arm straining toward the ceiling as I let it fall to my side. Goosebumps dotted my skin, the physical remnant of the vision lingering to tell me it was real. The Hecate line had always blurred the lines between life and death, between what was real and what was only seen.
I sat slowly, wrapping my arms around my stomach and finding a simple silk black nightgown. Gray must have changed me when he returned me to his room, and I forced myself not to feel violated by the knowledge. It was nothing he hadn’t seen and touched only an hour before, anyway.
The disconnect from my flesh felt strange, as if I suddenly realized that my body was only that. Even if my soul had been separated from my form for a time, I’d still have been me in the period I’d had without it. My body was just a Vessel, all the same as Lucifer’s.
Was Hell the opposite of that dark place filled with cold and nothingness? Was it heat that burned his skin for every moment of his existence, a void filled with Hellfyre?
I shook off the thought, tossing back the covers and sliding my legs over the edge of the bed. I forced myself to move slowly, attempting to move in the way I thought I had before. It seemed painfully slow, like it took everything in me to ignore how much time I wasted.
I made my way to the bathroom, reaching into the shower to turn on the water. Tearing off the nightgown Gray had dressed me in, I watched it fall to the floor as I stepped into the shower. The water felt too warm on my skin in contrast to the cold of that hollow darkness. I let it wash over me, bringing me back from the brink of someplace I didn’t want to go just yet.
Once the Vessels were gone and the Coven was righted to the traditions that never should have petered out, I would wander into that darkness and accept my fate.
In doing so, I would free the ancestors who were trapped there, offering their power to the bones that powered me. They couldn’t truly move on until our line had fulfilled its destiny, and I felt that in my soul as the bones seemed to cool against my collarbone.
I held them against me, feeling the whisper of their desire for peace within me. I would give it to them when our work was done and Charlotte’s wrongs had been righted.
Finishing with my shower, I strode into the cool air of the bathroom and dried off before dressing. I couldn’t bear to pick up the forest green uniform that marked me as a Green, not when I felt so fragmented from that girl. The Green magic still pulsed within me, yet I felt disloyal to it when it warred with the black magic.
Rummaging through Gray’s drawers for something to wear, I was shocked when I opened one to find my clothes from my room. Every piece that he’d arranged to be brought to me when I first came to Crystal Hollow sat in his drawers, as if I’d moved in with the man who considered himself my husband.
But I hadn’t done it.
I donned my armor rather than fixating on the wrongness of the situation, slipping into what was familiar to me even before I’d become a Hecate witch in truth. My black jeans and combat boots made me feel more me, and I slipped a loose black sweater over my head to go with it, letting it hang off one of my shoulders before I went in search of the man who had taken everything from me.
Who knew what my life might have been if he’d never whispered plots of vengeance in my father’s ear.
I pulled the door to the bedroom open, glancing down at my feet when Jonathan meowed and curled himself around my ankles. Bending low, I scooped him up and cuddled him to my chest, letting him nuzzle my chin as I stepped out into the living area. He nipped at my skin, drawing a tiny wound of blood with the sharpness of his teeth.
“Greedy familiar,” I scolded, turning a swift, stern glance down to him as I headed into the living room.
One of the archdemons lingered in one of the chairs with his back to me, but I watched him raise a single hand to tap a long, black talon against his cheek once.
Leviathan.
He rose slowly, towering as he filled the space with his height. I swallowed as he twisted to face me, leveling me with a glare that made me feel insignificant. He was the tallest of the archdemons, making the room feel small. He wore no shirt, as if they hadn’t been able to find one to fit the broad swell of muscles that strained his shoulders and biceps. His forearms were covered in faint, iridescent scales that half-blended into his skin. They sparkled lightly as the sun touched them when he moved, reminding me of a sea serpent. His eyes were the vivid blue of the Caribbean, set into an impossibly square face and a defined jaw. He’d pulled his shoulder-length dark hair back from his face, showing off the lines of his harsh features without hindrance.
“Consort,” he said, tilting his head to the side as I nodded and turned to make my way to the door. “He has requested that you stay in your rooms for the time being.”
“Please,” I said, stopping in my tracks and turning with a scoff. “He wouldn’t know how to make a request if his life depended on it.”
His mouth spread into a smile, his straight teeth perfect and white. It was only the length of his fangs that made that smile look anything but human, longer even than those of the Vessels. “I am glad to see you know him well enough to read between the lines.”
“I don’t know him at all really, though, do I?” I asked, scratching the back of Jonathan’s neck to bring myself comfort. It grounded me against the pain, against the turmoil inside of me.
I hadn’t wanted to know him before, even knowing it was the smart thing to do. I needed his weakness but didn’t want to know what made him human.
Now I realized how little he’d shared with me. The bits and pieces of his humanity were strategically shared to endear me to him, to serve his purpose, and to get me exactly where he wanted me.
In truth, even if I didn’t want to admit it, was it honestly so different from what human men did to the women they wanted to sleep with? Omitting the ugly truths in favor of sharing pretty lies felt like a standard part of the courting process from what I’d seen.
But most human men didn’t stab their dates and summon archdemons. “I suspect you know him better than you believe right now, Consort,” he
said, stepping forward to get between me and the door.
I swallowed back my ire, forcing out a quiet protest. “I have a name.” “Consort…”
My next reply was louder, firmer, as I stood my ground and remembered who I was. I did not cower in the face of pain, and it didn’t matter that the worst harm that had been done to me was to my emotions and not my body. “I. Have. A. Name,” I said, leaning forward. Jonathan jumped down from my hold, hissing at my feet when Leviathan was too close for his comfort. “I am more than just—”
“His wife?” Leviathan asked, finishing the sentence before I could. Wife would not have been my chosen word, but it hardly mattered. Even I couldn’t deny it now, not with our marks upon one another and the pulsating knowledge of him somewhere deep within me.
His rage was potent, fueling my own, even when I could not see him. “My name is Willow, and you will address me as such from this
moment on,” I ordered, feeling the bones press deeper into my skin. They agreed with my assertion, with my attempt to put distance between Gray and me, even if it was only an illusion that helped me sleep at night.
Leviathan smiled again, the expression softening the harsh lines of his face. “As you wish, Willow,” he said pointedly, giving a mocking bow without taking his eyes off me.
I waited until he paused in the deepest part of that bow, spinning and racing for the door as quickly as I could. Suddenly grateful for the inhuman speed, I pushed my body to the limits as I wrapped my fingers around the doorknob and twisted, pulling the door open.
Leviathan was just as fast, following behind me with a speed I hadn’t thought possible. His hand came down upon the wood above my head, the webbing between his fingers and those long nails consuming my vision as he shoved the door closed with a loud bang.
I fought to pull it open, groaning when I couldn’t and releasing a snarl of frustration. Spinning to face him, I raised my hand to his face and cupped his cheek. Pouring that black magic into my touch, I watched the tendrils of darkness spread over his skin. They radiated out from my hand, from my fingers, moving within the surface of his flesh like veins of death.
The bones rattled as I poured their magic into him, willing him to return to nothing.
The bastard grinned at me as the black lines sank deeper into his skin, fading from view and leaving me reeling.
“I am not made from mud, Little Necromancer,” he said, clearing his throat. He forced his smile to fade, adopting a serious expression as he corrected himself. “Willow.”
I fell back against the door at my spine, my hand colliding with the wood. The magic within me refused to let go, pouring through the room as those dark veins spread over the walls, searching for life. “You cannot just keep me locked up here forever!” I shouted.
My anger reverberated through the room, spreading out like a pulse. It slammed into the furniture like a shockwave, rocking it in its place. Something shattered as it clattered to the floor, the sound coming only a moment before the windows shattered where they overlooked the gardens, glass pouring out to fall down to the ground below.
I winced, squeezing my eyes closed. “What’s wrong with me?” I whispered, more of myself than the archdemon in front of me. He wasn’t the one who could and would provide answers.
“Nothing is wrong with you,” Leviathan said as he reached out, touching a single bone that hung around my neck. His touch was surprisingly gentle, his fingers working to avoid touching my skin as much as possible. The magic retreated into me once more, sealing itself inside the bones and making it feel like I could breathe again. “But believe it or not, he’s doing this to protect you. Some of the Coven have declared war on Lucifer. They blame him, but even more than that?” he asked, glaring down at me as if he dared me to try to escape again. “They blame his pretty wife for betraying her own kind.”
“I didn’t know what he was doing. I—”
“You know that, and I know that, but the Coven doesn’t know that. They aren’t exactly going to believe your side of the story, are they? They weren’t there to see what he did to you,” he said, his features softening as he took a step back. “Your safety is all that matters to Lucifer.”
“If that were true, he never would have hurt me in the first place,” I said, thinking of the burn of his blade when he’d shoved it into my stomach.
“You’re alive, aren’t you? He went through a great deal of trouble to keep you that way.”
“It’s not enough,” I mumbled, pushing away from the door and walking to the sofa. I dropped down onto it without finesse, my body feeling heavy with the realization that in spite of the stupid fucking bond between us, he intended to keep me prisoner, too.
“Then I suggest you decide exactly what will be enough. If you don’t even know, how the hell is he supposed to?”
