Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5) Read online

  I’d left him. He’d been weak, and I’d left him on the battlefield. The Institute could have found him. The demons could have torn into him.

  “Why did you not return to help my son?” She reached to take the coffee.

  “I…” I ran away. The truth lodged in my throat. “I had my own healing to do.”

  She lowered her gaze. “I also left him, just for a short while to search for sustenance. When I returned, he was no longer there. He left Kira-Kira behind. He would not do that.”

  “Any signs of a struggle?”

  “No.”

  I might have suspected the Institute, had I not already visited Adam. Stefan could have returned to the netherworld, but I didn’t think he’d risk it in a weakened state. The weak die quickly there. Where would he go? And if he didn’t go by choice, who would want him? “How did he seem to you? Demon or human?”

  “Human.” She answered quickly. “No demon would concern himself with your well being.”

  “Thanks.”

  “He said the destruction you wrought would either destroy you or rebuild you. He said Greed’s demise would have hurt you. Did it?”

  Wow, personal much? Yukki hadn’t yet learned the subtleties of social conversations and wouldn’t care for them even if she had. I tasted my coffee, hands clasped around the warm mug. “Yes.”

  She sniffed at her drink. “When immortal demons fall, something is very wrong with the way things are.” She tasted her coffee and licked her lips. Her eyes darted. “Mm… This, I like.”

  “Yukki, did Stefan say anything about wanting to go anywhere? Anything at all that might help?”

  “No. Only that he wanted to find you.” She turned her head and peered at my windows. Her waterfall of curled white hair spilled over her shoulder. Even dressed down, she would never pass as human. “I do not like this world. It is complicated. The humans, the rules, I do not understand any of it.”

  “Then why stay?”

  “I stayed to protect my son. He is my bloodspawn.” Her wide eyes regarded me almost with sympathy. “You do not know. He is my legacy. Besides ourselves, demons protect only our bloodkin. Will you help me find him?”

  I nodded. “Of course. But you need to lay low. Tone down the demon, okay?” I suspected she was the ice-demon who’d been making the headlines. “If you aren’t careful, the Institute will kill you. Or worse.”

  Her lip rippled. She’d been an Institute prisoner before, when she’d struck up a relationship with Adam. “What do you ask in return?”

  Once, I’d have helped her without strings attached, but times had changed. “I need to see Jerry, the King of Hell.”

  She fluttered her lashes and dropped her gaze. “I will see if Baal will grant an audience. It will not come without a price.”

  “I suspect he and I want the same things, namely the veil back in place, doing its job.” I didn’t mention how I intended to ask Jerry—Baal—how to get Akil back. Information like that was worth too much to the wrong demons.

  “There cannot be a return to the way things were.”

  “Have hope, Yukki. You’d be surprised how far hope will get you.”

  “Hope.” She echoed, her puzzled expression revealing her inability to understand a simple word that meant so much.

  * * *

  A rapid staccato of knocks on my front door woke me. The bedside alarm glowed 2:15am. My sleep-addled brain told me it was probably Yukki, and I buried my head under the covers. When the knocks came again, it occurred to me that Yukki didn’t need to knock. I’d already invited her in. She could come and go as she pleased.

  The only person who ever turned up unannounced at my door in the wee hours was Akil. My heart skipped, and then reality slapped it down. Warmth throbbed in my chest. I stumbled from the bed, threw on a robe, and drifted from the bedroom, through the living room, to the front door.

  “This had better be good.” I tugged open the door.

  Stefan leaned an arm against the frame. “Hey.”

  Sleep dulled my thoughts. “Hey, you’re okay?” When my demon senses started firing off alarm bells, the dregs of sleep muted them. When I should have asked him what the hell he was doing on my doorstep in the middle of the night, I was instead wondering why my thoughts dragged like syrup through my head. “Give me a sec, I just…” My vision swam, and a pounding sounded in my ears. I turned away and reached for the couch.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Sure, I…” Yeah, that was moment, right there, where the demon in me slapped me upside the head and told me to wake the fuck up because that thing outside my door wasn’t Stefan. He wore his leather coat, for one: the same coat I’d recently acquired, made my own, and even now draped over the couch in front of me. The slither of power currently licking up my exposed legs wasn’t anything like Stefan’s. Whoever it was, they had to be suicidal to consider elementally licking the Mother of Destruction, or they knew exactly what they were doing, which meant they didn’t fear me. I should be terrified of any demon not terrified of me.

  With my back to my demon intruder, I said, “We can do this one of two ways.” The quiet in the room swallowed my voice. No traffic murmur from outside, no distant siren wails. The quiet was so thick I could taste it. A netherworld quiet, or a dream one. “One, we drop the theatrics and talk about this like civilized creatures. Or two, we go at it like demons, and considering I can turn your insides to charcoal in the time it takes you to curse the day you were born, I’d recommend option one.”

  A purely masculine chuckle rippled the quiet. I recognized it. At least, I’d heard it before, many times, but it wasn’t Stefan. I flicked my fingers out and turned slowly on the spot. The lazy stride of his athletic physique, the ruffled platinum blond locks of hair licking about his jaw—he looked like Stefan, even sounded like him, but the demon inside my apartment was not Stefan.

  “Who are you?”

  “You know me,” not-Stefan said.

  The element was wrong. “Why are you here?” I caught it then, the scent of burned flesh. Stefan’s scent was clean, fresh. This was the scent I’d breathed in while clutched against my father’s chest.

  “You are—” he began.

  “If you say magnificent, I’ll turn you into demon jerky.”

  “It is said you captured and tortured your bloodkin, Valenti. He witnessed the rise and fall of the netherworld. He was…gloriously demon.” Not-Stefan’s voice fragmented and crumbled, replaced by a demon brogue so abrasive it set my teeth on edge. “You destroyed thousands of your kin. You shaped the Prince of Greed into a creature of flame, a creature you yourself became to best an immortal prince.”

  “I can also whip up one hell of an omelet. What’s your point?”

  “Your place is by my side.” He took a single step forward, bringing him into the wash of light flowing through the living room windows. His Stefan act wouldn’t have fooled me for long. The face was too harsh, the lips too tight, eyes too flat. Stefan was bright, and alive, even when battling with himself.

  Not-Stefan gestured at himself. “This camouflage ensured you would not attack.”

  “You have no such guarantees now.” My heart fluttered. With every word, the certainty of who he was chipped away at my confidence. I’d invited him in. He was linked to me. My father. Asmodeus. The demon with enough clout to bend all others to his will. Even now, he manipulated my mind. The room might not even be real. And I stood virtually naked—but not vulnerable, never that—in front of him. “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  My focus rippled, the room tilted, and threads of reality unraveled, spilling open to reveal the terrifying truth of my father. His skin glistened a deep red. The Crimson Lord. Heat poured off him in relentless waves. Each of the countless hoop piercings riddling his vast, angular wings glowed white hot and sizzled against his flesh. Spiral horns twisted from a dramatic face made up of sharp cheekbones and a jutting jawline.

  I lifted my human gaze to meet his. Humans can
not look upon the princes of hell for long. Tears fell from my eyes in a steady stream and promptly evaporated on my hot cheeks.

  Asmodeus reached out a hand. Obsidian claws clicked together. “Come. Refuse, and I will ravage your human mind.”

  I didn’t doubt his words, but I did doubt he could ruin my mind before I brought the fire. If I attacked, he wouldn’t pull his punches. The resulting battle would likely bring down my apartment building and all the people in it. Lacy slept down the hall. Jonesy was curled up on my bed. This was not the place to throw down with my father. I could fight him, but it wouldn’t accomplish anything. Until I knew the stakes, I was better off playing his game. I was the Mother of Destruction. I didn’t need to fight the Prince of Lust. As far as he knew, I was one badass demon-killing machine.

  I spilled my demon into my flesh. Between one breath and the next, ember-dashed skin consumed pink human flesh. Heat burned fear from my veins. My one ruined wing burst free. Finally, I witnessed my father through demon eyes. Superheated vapor spiraled around him, lending him a liquid aura of heat. He was the most terrifying—and yet the most wonderful—demon I’d ever seen. My father.

  “Stand beside me, daughter, and revel in the glory of two conquered worlds.” His voice resonated as though double-exposed.

  I lifted my clawed hand—dainty in comparison—and placed it inside his palm.

  His magnificence silenced my panicked thoughts. There was no choice here. The veil had to be restored and the demons once again locked away behind it. Whether Asmodeus was the answer or Jerry was, I had to find a way. I couldn’t run from what I had to do or from my father. I’d come too far. Changed too much. The solution was in the netherworld, not in Boston. I had to go back.

  He closed his hand around mine. Heat swelled. Our elements combined. We were bloodkin. The lava in my veins flowed from his source.

  His lips peeled back in a broad shark-like grin. “Amanat, Daughter.”

  From one liquid moment to the next, he shifted us from my modest apartment to a place that smelled of pine and wood mulch. Not the netherworld. Not yet. Not Boston either. Stars swirled in the night sky as I sought to steady myself. Asmodeus released my hand and strode toward a ragged outline of a house hunched in the dark. His great wings fanned outward, glowing white along their trailing edges. The musculature of his back rippled under the weight of those wings. Among demons, wings were a sign of status, of power. Whether consciously or not, his display told me not to fuck with him.

  As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I recognized Blackstone’s luxury decor strewn about the once-manicured grounds as though a tornado had torn through the house, gobbled up Akil’s opulence, and spat it back out. The windows and doors hung open, funneling a cold wind through the building. I’d expected it to be bad, but not like this. Sharp wind hissed through the trees and blazed the embers dancing across my skin. Head and wing held high, I followed in my father’s footsteps. At least there wasn’t any sign of the thousands of demons who had made Blackstone their temporary home. They’d fought for Akil, against their own kin, and I’d probably killed them all when I’d burned the battlefield clean of anything demon.

  Asmodeus didn’t venture inside Akil’s house but stopped on the deck, wings spread, and turned.

  I burned to ask him why we were there. But until I knew what I was dealing with, I opted for silence. I watched, listened, and studied.

  “Open the veil,” he ordered, his deep voice a bass growl. He could do that himself just as easily, but I obliged with a flick of a mental switch. It hadn’t always been so easy to cut open the veil, and it shouldn’t have been. One day—soon, if I had my way—it would be difficult once more.

  To my right, smudges of blue, green, and violet licked and twitched.

  “Home.” The colors of the veil danced in his ochre eyes. “Go.”

  There had been a time the netherworld had chewed me up and spat me out, a time I’d run from everything out to kill me, a time when the netherworld would have destroyed me had I stopped hoping for a better future. If you ceased fighting your other half, you’d have your answer. Akil had been so damn right about so much. Well, I no longer held back, not any more. My demon was me and I her.

  I stepped through the veil onto a carpet of writhing foliage. My veins throbbed with fire and pulsed, aglow. Ash rained from my fingertips. I flexed my wing, drew the sickly netherworld air into my lungs, and bared my fangs.

  “Momma’s back…” I purred.

  Thunder rumbled, or perhaps it was the groan of some monstrous demon. The sound snagged my attention, drawing my gaze to where a battlement embraced the outer fringes of a sprawling castle hewn precisely from black rock. Only this fortress was bigger, so large in fact, I couldn’t see it all from outside the walls. Akil—Mammon’s fortress. I’d recognize it blind. As the lessers howled and chittered in the night, I devoured the sight of Mammon’s home. I hadn’t been back since the night he’d saved me. This was why my father had taken me to Blackstone. Akil’s house overlaid the same location as his netherworld fortress.

  Asmodeus’s heat pushed at my back. My element instinctively reached for his, exploring, entwining.

  “It seems only fitting you should claim his throne. No?”

  Hell, no. I didn’t want to claim anything of Akil’s. I certainly didn’t want his netherworld fortress or to be anywhere near the Dark Court, if I could help it. I locked my expression down and internally trampled on the panic nipping at my thoughts. “I already have one title. I don’t need another.”

  My father drew up alongside me, his wing curled around behind, embracing me without touching. He lifted his protruding chin. His eyes narrowed before he glided his attention down to me. “You reduced Gluttony to lava. You assisted in the infinite destruction of Envy. Greed stood by your side, and perished. Your mistake is believing you have a choice. You belong among the Dark Court.”

  Where better to meet with Jerry? To ascertain what the princes were planning? To figure out how to restore Akil and the veil? I’d be at the top of the demon food chain. The demon part of me curled a smile across my lips. A half-blood Princess of Hell. Oh, yes, that would do nicely. But I swallowed back the purr of agreement. “You didn’t bring me here for my benefit. What do you want from me?”

  Asmodeus’s lips hooked into a sly grin. “Baal seeks to restore the veil. The Dark Court is not in agreement. You will assist in his destruction.”

  I managed to maintain my smile. It was the demon thing to do. But inside, I recoiled. The court wanted me to help destroy Jerry, the King of Hell? Human loyalties screamed refusals. But this was the netherworld. Loyalty played no part there.

  Asmodeus waited for my reply. The longer I delayed, the less likely he would be to believe me. I needed to get inside the court. Perhaps I could help Jerry from inside their ranks. At the very least, I’d be able to study my enemies. There were too many unknowns. To many ifs, buts, and maybes. Asmodeus was right. I didn’t have a choice. “Very well. But I will not adopt Greed’s title. I have my own.”

  Light slid along his sharp teeth. “Agreed.”

  Chapter 5

  Mammon’s fortress crawled with demons. Most were of the lesser variety. They clung to the polished stone walls, nestled around exposed beams, and generally filled every nook and crevice. All eyed me warily, ducking leathery heads low. Hisses slipped through clenched teeth. Armored skin rattled. They no more liked me than I liked them. Higher demons had made the fortress their home, and the battlements enclosed a settlement of sorts. Those demons eyed me as they might their next meal. Unlike their lesser brethren, the higher demons saw only a one-winged half-blood whore. Never mind what the Mother of Destruction had reportedly done in the human realm. The netherworld would need proof by way of spilled blood. One, or many, would try to kill me and soon. My skin itched with anticipation. Let them bring it. I’d cremate any demon who tried.

  Asmodeus left me to wander the fortress. I roamed the halls, as I had once as a naïve half-blood. D
espite my missing wing, I threw off enough heat to project a formidable presence. I oozed control, while inside, panic pulled on frayed nerves. Sure, I could bluff my father to a point, but the truth was, I had no idea how to manipulate him or the court. Akil had told me he’d manipulated the princes for years, but he’d never imparted any of that useful skill to me. I was going to have to wing it, so to speak. Not a particularly comforting thought. First things first: gauge how deeply in the shit I was, meet the court, and feel out their plans. Find out how to bring Akil back, and when I was armed with the facts and hopefully with Akil by my side, we’d make for Jerry and tell him everything. If all went well, he’d know how to restore the veil. If I couldn’t find the information beforehand, he’d definitely know how to resurrect Akil, and given how they’d been buddies, I could trust his words. Asmodeus had already admitted Jerry wanted the demons back where they belonged. I was on Team Jerry. Together, we’d figure this out. And all the humans would live happily ever after—as happy as humanity could ever be. Sounded easy. Maybe it would be. And maybe lesser demons could knit.

  I found my way to the throne room. Protective anti-elemental symbols throbbed inside walls adorned by monstrous demon-head trophies. The cathedral-like proportions swamped my puny body. Behind a vast black granite table on a raised ornately carved dais, stood two empty thrones. I’d seen this hall once before almost seventeen years ago. As a young half-blood fresh from the killing pit in the bowels of the fortress, I’d roamed the halls much as I did now, and I’d stumbled across the Dark Court in session. The Seven Princes of Hell had been engaged in a heated discussion around that very table. To my sheltered half-blood mind, they’d all been beautiful and terrifying in their demon glory. Peeking through the door, I’d seen my father for the first time. Mammon had been there. Leviathan too. How things had changed.