He gave a big belly laugh. “Oh, I can help you now, queen”—my jaw clenched at the 'now' part, like he was trying to disrespect me—“but you know the rules. A fight with me and you can win any favor you desire.” His hands spread wide as he looked around, parading like a gladiator for his audience.
“That's what I was hoping for.” I crouched down low, shoved Wrath magic into my legs, and shot up into the air. I circled my legs around his neck, and he gasped in surprise, thinking I was going to wait for a ready, set, go. But I wanted to get this over with fast.
I clenched his neck really tight, almost cutting his circulation off before I dove down, the gravitational pull of my body making him bend back as I squeezed and locked my legs together. I flipped him around and used the momentum of my fall and the rest of the Wrath magic in my legs to hurl him into the ground so hard it made a crater.
He let out a pained growl as he started to get up, his nose bleeding rivulets down his face. He grinned at me with crazy eyes as he pointed at me. “You suckered me!”
I looked at my nails, digging out the dirt from underneath as I laughed. “You know the rules. You didn’t specify.”
He glared at me for a few seconds before he let out a cackle of a laugh that boomed across the airwaves. “Oh, Lillian, you are just as I remember.”
I looked up at him and stepped closer until I was in his face as I said, “No, Sath, I'm better than what you remember.” Then I winked at him as a smirk appeared on my face. I tried to radiate confidence and cunning, knowing these were the only things he respected, as he sneered at me.
“You got your ride, Queen. Come on, boys.” He motioned them forward.
“Wait, just like that?” Con asked, disbelief colored his words.
Sath just nodded. “Yep, just like that. It’s why Wrath is the purest sin, if you follow the rules. If you don't, you end up like them.” He pointed to the bodies in the red river.
Con gulped and grabbed onto his forearm as he shook his head at the scene.
War puffed up his chest as he walked up to Sath’s side. “When I was last here there was a fighting ring going on and I was ten demons away from fighting you.”
Sath eyed War up and down. “Oh! Were you the newcomer that everyone was talking about? What happened? Couldn’t handle the heat like a real man?”
I rolled my eyes at the overly macho banter that went back and forth before War complained, “Lucifer was a dirty cheat and grabbed me as soon as I won my last fight but if he didn’t, I know that you and I would’ve fought.” Pride slipped through his voice at the last part.
Sath winked at him. “Well now that you are here, mated to the queen,” he pointed to the mark on War’s forearm, “I’m sure you will have lots of time to come enter another tournament and fight me.” War nodded, excitement at the idea shining through his eyes as he inspected the rest of the wrath landscape. He grabbed us and winked, I'm sure wanting to get this all over with.
He dropped us off right outside of the last circle, Pride, with a slap on the ass for each of us, as well as a “good luck” and then winked away.
“So what's the deal with this one?” Death asked as he narrowed his eyes at the mirror wall, crossing his arms, looking up and down to see what we were going to face next.
“Just know that this is the circle of Pride, and the mirrors are meant to show you what you value most about yourself. After it shows you that, then it starts to either fade or be replaced with something you hate, magnifying all the things that are ugly and wrong with you until that's all you see, all you think of yourself for the rest of time. Moral of the story, don't look at yourself in the mirror. Just look down and follow my feet.”
Right before I pushed past the mirror wall, I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Have you ever looked into the mirrors?” Con’s soft and hesitant question floated to me, and I couldn't help the chill that ran down my spine.
“Yes. It's not something you forget.” I patted his hand and moved forward, letting his hand slide off me slowly. I enjoyed his comfort but knew we needed to press on. It was the last circle before home, and I knew a shortcut.
“Remember to keep your eyes to the ground and watch my feet to see which way to go and how fast.” I kept my face forward but made sure I didn’t allow my eyes to connect with any of the mirrors. They had this hypnotic way of catching your gaze and calling you in, whispering to you to come see, take a look. They wouldn't physically hurt you, but they would break your soul. They always did.
The air in here was both stagnant and fresh, like it couldn't decide what it wanted to be, and it always threw me off. I put on a brave face as I kept pushing forward, but I was desperate not to run into Leviathan, the Prince of Pride.
With his dark inky hair and equally dark eyes that called to my own, he was a hard one to say no to. He was the boyfriend I left behind when I ran away. It wasn't that he was bad or that I didn't care for him. He had a hard exterior but this incredibly soft inside that just melted away all my anger. He was the guy who taught me what it meant to be strong. He’d helped me figure out that I was more than just the future Queen of Hell. He was the one who took my virginity and opened up a whole new world of pleasure for me. I owed him a lot, and I would always and forever be thankful to him for everything, but he wasn't the love of my existence. I didn't have that soul-yearning need to be with him. And deep down inside, I wanted that.
My parents had had it, and I knew how scary and horrible it could turn out to be. That was why it was so hard for me to connect with people. At the same time, I knew there was a secret, deep-down-underneath-a-heavy-rock-in-the-very-bottom-of-my-being, part of me that wanted that kind of love, desperately.
Which was why I wanted to get through here as fast as we possibly could, because if I showed up with four mates, Levi was going to flip out. I just knew it. And it was never good for the Hellscape ecosystem when one of the princes flipped out. It took a lot of energy and effort to put it back into place, and it was very draining. I had seen it happen to my father.
Just as my Pride magic started to tingle, pushing underneath my skin at being in the circle for so long without use, I finally saw the mirror that had a chip in its frame, the one that was a direct connection to the devil’s mansion at the center of Hell. Since Levi—or any of the princes—couldn’t leave their circle, except for the one boardroom at the mansion, it was the only way I could sneak over to see him without letting my dad know. Now I needed to sneak out of the circle of Pride and back to the mansion. Oh, how the tides have changed.
“I see it. Almost there. You guys good?” I asked, really hoping that they’d taken my warning seriously. I would hate to have to spend all my time trying to prove to one of them that they were more than what they saw.
“Yes, little goddess. I have kept my head down, but instead of the floor, I’m watching your ass. Nothing could tempt me away from that.”
I hid the smile that I was sporting as I kept my face forward because that was kinda cute in a beastly way.
