He growled against my lips. “I’m the King. I do as I please. The coronation will begin when we decide it begins.”
I pressed a hand against his chest, leaning back to meet his stormy gray eyes, and cocked a brow at him.
“Fine,” he conceded with a sigh. Blue magic crackled around him as he transformed into the Lord of Bones. The blue fire in his eye sockets flickered in the dim light, and his cloak fluttered before draping around his brawny frame.
“This wasyouridea,” I reminded him as one of his giant hands came around my waist to tug me close.
“I know, but after you’re crowned, that dress is coming off,” he said, a growl rumbling in his throat.
Chapter Forty
Rayven
We came to astop in front of a set of imposing doors, guarded on either side by a suit of armor. I recognized them immediately. It was the entrance to the throne room. These doors had been branded onto the backs of my eyelids since the masquerade ball.
The last time I’d been in that hall, I’d learned the truth about Belial being the Lord of Bones and the manipulative game he’d played. After getting my heart cleaved in two, I’d been chained to his throne and dragged across the hall in front of a crowd of masked spectators. Then, I’d met Belial’s brothers.
My heart rate lurched as the memories came flooding back, and I struggled to force air into my lungs. This wasn’t remotely the same thing. So much had changed since the ball, but it didn’t stop the panic sparking through my system.
“Breathe, my treasure,” the Lord of Bones rumbled beside me. “You don’t have anything to be afraid of.”
“My Lord,” squeaked one of the suits of armor before bowing with a rusty groan. The other suit of armor followed suit before they sprang to life and reached for the doorknobs.
I held my breath, feeling lightheaded as the doors slowly opened before me.
After everything I’d been through, it was amazing that I still feared anything at all. I’d seen the worst of what the nine realms had to offer, been tortured and even died, and I’d overcome it all.
Being crowned queen should have been a walk in the park.
Then why did my stomach still knot with anxiety the way it did, icy dread clinging to my spine?
The throne room beyond the doorway was more packed than it had been for the masquerade ball, hundreds of souls crammed into the space, shoulder to shoulder. This time, none of them wore masks, but they were still all elegantly dressed. A wide aisle carved a path down the middle of the room, leading straight to where the throne awaited.
No. Wheretwothrones waited.
A tiny gasp shoved a breath of relief into my lungs.
To the right of the Lord of Bones’ throne was a second made of bones:mythrone. The back of it stretched up and fanned out toward the ceiling, with nine severed heads speared on evenly spaced spikes.
Asmodeus—the rapist, Lord of flesh and suffering.
Vine—the demon who hadn’t lifted so much as a pinky to help me when I’d passed through his realm.
Leviathan—the envious snake demon who locked me in a cage and forced me to dance.
Mammon—the fire demon who tried to make me into hisroyal meat.
Baal and Paimon—the spider demon and the eyeball monster who showed up in full support of Mammon’s feast.
And Belphegor, the shapeshifter who’d topped all of them in cruelty.
Even from a distance, I knew Belial had repurposed the heads from the oar and placed them on my throne.
A smile tugged at my lips until I dragged my gaze away and scanned the crowded room. Every eye present was zeroed in on me, waiting expectantly.
As Belial’s enormous hand pressed against my lower back, urging me into the throne room, I steeled my nerves.
Maybe it wasn’t the notion of being queen that filled me with anxiety, but the idea of letting down everyone in this room, everyone who would be counting on me to do whatever a queen of Hell did. I thought of all the poor souls trapped in the lower layers of Hell, forced to live out the rest of their existence there. What would become of them? What would become of the souls languishing around Belial’s castle?
