All I needed to do was cut through them, even if it meant hurting Lucifer. He’d rather deal with the pain than be a mindless slave.
My eyes traced the crimson swirls over his body, up his muscular shoulders and over his torso, until I found a point where several of them converged right over his heart.
That’s where I would strike him as soon as I got the chance.
I realized he was staring back at me, his handsome face still carved in a deep frown. “What are you staring at?” he asked abruptly. “What’s going in that pretty little head of yours?”
I needed him off of me. My arm was pinned too tightly to reach the only knife that would cut deep enough to disrupt the soul-bond. Not flesh deep, but magically deep, cutting away the ties between them.
It was time for a new tactic. “You’re so beautiful,” I said, my voice toneless. I let my head fall back into a pile of ash, no longer resisting. “Maybe I was wrong.”
His head tilted as he looked over my face, examining every single feature like he could find the one little tic giving away my lie. “Wrong about what?”
“I think… this is you.” I carefully pulled on my dark fire, keeping it under my skin and forming a shield around my abdomen. The shield would have to be constant, and I’d need to keep as much magic in reserve as possible. “I just didn’t see it before.”
Lucifer was so painfully still, his expression impossible to read.
He leaned forward, bending down until our lips were only inches apart. There was a painful throb in my chest when I realized my muscles were automatically tensed to rise up and kiss him, but I wouldn’t kiss him when he was like this. He might look the same, but the idea of it was like betraying the real Lucifer.
“How stupid do you think I am?” he whispered.
I gazed up into those mercurial eyes, so flat and empty, and moved my fingers barely a centimeter at a time. He never looked away from me, a current of genuine frustration on his face.
“Well, when you’re like this, being your father’s mouthpiece… pretty fucking stupid, I have to admit.”
I gripped the hilt of the ebonite dagger and ripped it out of my belt, bringing my knee up at the same time and slamming into him right where it counted.
Lucifer rolled off me with a curse, but his hand snapped out and he grabbed my left arm, squeezing so tightly my bones ached.
I let the momentum of his roll carry me sideways. His weight pulled me up onto him and I lashed out with all my strength, anticipating that he’d be quick enough to stop me.
He was. He blocked me with his forearm at the last second, pushing back hard enough that I lost my grip on the dagger and it went flying.
But I didn’t need to sink it all the way into his chest. I’d just needed the blade to skate across the convergence of his soul-bond, cutting through his flesh to the muscle beneath, separating the lines swirling over his body.
Lucifer exhaled slowly, freezing in place. We both looked down at the blood spilling over his chest, shimmering with the rise and fall of his ribs.
The cut that bisected the convergence was wide open, the edges of his skin looking burned. A sick feeling flipped through my stomach.
The ebonite dagger had been strong enough to cut the soul-bond, but it was ebonite imbued with the power to kill angels and demons. Its entire purpose was to poison them.
My breath came harsh and fast as I put my hands over the wound, my fingers growing slick with blood, determined to keep Lucifer’s life where it belonged: firmly in his body.
But the tattoos were darkening. The pulses of crimson light grew erratic and faded, and the scarlet slowly began to turn black, starting right over the wound and spreading outwards.
I looked up at his face, and saw Lucifer staring back at me. The real Lucifer, whose eyes were full of terror.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he whispered. “You have to go.”
When would they learn that I would never leave them?
Blood pumped between my fingers. How was there so much blood from such a small wound? I hadn’t cut through to the heart beneath, not nearly that deep.
I lifted my hand. The soul-bond was gone for now, but thin red streaks emanated from the cut, curling beneath his skin.
“It’s poisoned you.” I whispered the words, closing my eyes and pressing down harder.
It kept bleeding. The ebonite, being the antithesis to his form, would keep the wound open.
I dared to use a speck of my healing white fire, letting it jump from my palms to his chest. Wiping away the blood, I watched hopefully as the skin began to knit together again.
The fire went out. The cut split wide open again, gushing even more blood.
“No, no, no.” I was barely aware that I was speaking out loud, or that Satan was making noises behind us, or that Lucifer’s blood-slick hands were covering mine.
His head dropped back, and he winced. “I’d rather be dead than bound. Get out of here, Melisande!”
He tried to push me off, but I squeezed tightly with my legs, refusing to be dislodged. “I’m not going anywhere without you. We can fly- the others are coming.”
Lucifer shook his head. When he opened his eyes, dark shadows had appeared under them, and the silver color was washed out to a nearly colorless white. “The Kur guard is coming for him. They’ll take you, too. Just fucking go.”
It was impossible for my heart to freeze over any more than it already was. I couldn’t leave Lucifer to be dragged away, to die here alone on this lonely mountain. He’d say they were coming before, and I’d forgotten it in the heat of the moment.
But I wasn’t leaving. If he went, we would go together.
I got up, gripping Lucifer’s arm and dragging him upright with me. He sucked in a breath as blood spilled down his front, and I saw the lines of ebonite poisoning spreading towards his shoulder.
“Come on.” If I sounded confident, maybe it would rub off on him. Maybe he wouldn’t notice the poison emanating from the wound until we were far from here and I could find a healer.
I hooked his arm over my shoulders and led him to the edge of the precipice, my wings fluttering in anticipation.
“God, it burns.” He looked down, saw the spreading streaks, and gave me a wry smile. “Not how I pictured going out.”
“This isn’t the time for levity, Lucifer,” I hissed. “We’re going together or not at all.”
He shook his head slowly and yanked me against him before pressing a quick kiss to my lips.
Then he pushed me off the shelf with a shouted “Go!”
I flapped hard, catching myself in midair before I tumbled down to the rocks below.
And someone grabbed the back of my neck, yanking me back to the ledge.
For a wild moment I thought it was Lucifer. That he’d changed his mind and decided to come with me, or that my effort to weaken the soul-bond hadn’t worked.
But he was kneeling on the ground. The ebonite dagger was buried several inches deep in his shoulder.
The man holding me by neck rotated me, a slow smile spreading across his handsome face. My feet dangled uselessly above the ground.
Nergal had been beautiful. And now that all that beauty belonged to Satan. Touches of oily pitch still lingered at the corners of his full lips. One of his eyes was bright blue, and the other was a muddled mix of blue and black.
Even as I watched in horror, the blue slowly washed the black away, becoming a brilliant sapphire.