The Bowels of Devil’s Head Mountain - Past
Even in the kind of life I lead, there are small mercies.
In the following weeks, my sister’s pregnancy grew complicated. The king spared his most skillful healers and an oracle to aid in the pregnancy. Better yet, we were allowed to see out the pregnancy in our old home in the caverns beneath Devil’s Head Mountain, and thankfully, Abaddon wanted no part in it.
I wasn’t sure of my ability to stay strong for my sister if my new “mate” had insisted he accompany me.
I didn’t want him to see the place I’d once called home. I didn’t want him to have any other part of me from which he hadn’t already forcibly claimed.
It’s not like we were true mates. There was no mating bond between us. My beast did not resonate with his on any level. Therefore there was no thread connecting us. He left no mating mark, save for the gaping wound where my pride had once been.
When he’d let me go be with my sister to see to the birth, I had let myself believe that maybe he’d already grown bored of me. But that hope was quickly thrashed like wheat in the wind when he said,“I’ll give you three days with her. If you do not return after three days, I’ll hunt you down.”
Then we parted on a kiss, which felt more like a brand.
I had every intention of making my escape once I was sure Nyx and her baby were safe. Abaddon had sent his healers and oracles with me, and I knew this was mostly as a way to keep an eye on me, but I was still grateful for their help. Without them, Nyx’s chances of survival were slim.
As it turned out, she was carrying triplets.
According to the oracle, they weren’t normal triplets either. Since their father had been an archdemon, Nyx had born three powerful infants with potential magical abilities. No normal woman would be able to withstand that. Thankfully, my sister wasn’t an ordinary woman.
“She will survive,” the oracle assured me for the dozenth time, his bronze-colored scales covered in bones, fur, and paint gleaming in the dim firelight that bathed the small cavern in gold.He had been kind to us.
I pressed a smile. “I hope you’re not just saying that to keep me calm.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you, My Queen.”
Nyx’s screams filled the space, bouncing off the rock walls and sinking right to my bones.
My sister was all I had in this life. If I lost her, I’d have nothing except for my hate and my grief.
She was lying at the center of our cave on a stone slab that, judging by the dark bloodstains that had seeped into the rock over the years, I was sure had been used for ancient, evil rituals over the eons. Most recently, however, it was covered in berry juice, since these days it served as our dining table.
Nyx was still in her demon form, at the behest of the healers. Her lavender scales were covered in a thin sheen of sweat, her legs spread and blocked out by the female healer crouched before her muttering prayers that were drowned out by my sister’s ragged screeches of pain.
When they first began praying, I wondered why they cared at all for my sister’s health. They were demons from the upper floors, so why would they care about a claimed demoness who’d been abandoned by her own mate?
So when I asked the oracle for who they prayed, the answer stunned me.
“The babies,” he’d said.
At first, the news made me ill.Triplets.How in hell were we supposed to feed three more mouths when we could barely feed ourselves? The Eighth Circle wasn’t exactly teeming with game. Sometimes we had to hunt weaker demons to feed ourselves, and imp wasn’t exactly the ideal diet plan for three infants. But the frets of a worried aunt temporarily turned to laughter, laughter of all things, when the oracle told me the babes were to be the new gods of this realm.
My sister was giving birth to gods.Right.I needed that laugh after the last few days I had. But as ridiculous as it was, the atmosphere was charged with something almost... magical. The air smelled of cinder, sweat, and electricity. As if a storm was brewing right in this very cavern.
I didn’t believe for a second that my sister was about to give birth to gods. Archdemon or not, I had met Erebus. There was no way gods could come from that male’s dick.
But even I could admit something strange was about to happen. I could feel it in my blood, my bones, the pounding of my heart and the quaking cries of my sister’s labored, fatigued pleas to the surface god.
My fists clenched, skin stretching tight over my knuckles.
He wouldn’t hear her down here. And even if he could, he wouldn’t answer.
Miracles didn’t happen in the Eighth Circle, but oh, the things I’d give for one right about now.
“Lil...” my sister’s voice choked out, frayed from her screams. She held a hand out to me, and I grasped it, lacing my shaking fingers through hers. “I’m so sorry about what happened to you. Sorry I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”
I gave her a weak smile. It was just like Nyx to always put me first, even when she was about to push three screaming demons through her pelvis.
