This wasn’t how things were supposed to be. She wasn’t supposed to get hurt, not like this.
She was never supposed to die.
Every second that Rayven’s heart was still, mine broke a little more. I couldn’t stand it, staring down at her lifeless body, feeling the warmth seep from her skin. I could feel the life bleed from her. Her skin grew colder, and her lips were already turning a shade of pale blue—nearly identical to the color of my own flesh. Death came fast in the Nine Hells.
I summoned the magic that would revive her. The power danced over my fingertips, and I placed my palm gently against her chest. It was complicated arcana, a spell I hadn’t performed since Catherine’s string of suicides, but the magic stirred up, like it had been dwelling just beneath my skin this entire time, and vibrated through my being.
Her skin shimmered for a moment, a silver glow cast over her form before her soul slipped out of its mortal vessel. It swirled and materialized into a visage of her, standing over us with horror-filled eyes, her mouth hanging open.
“Well, this is fucking terrifying.” The voice wavered, and I met her worried gaze. It almost broke me to look away, my eyes falling back to her lifeless body in my arms.
“I’m going to fix everything,” I assured her. “I promise. A few minutes, and you’ll be fine.”
I knew things would be fine. I’d brought Catherine back from the dead so many times; this should have been a simple fix. However, the thought of her staying this way forever—still, cold, and lifeless—had my confidence unraveling at the seams.
What would happen if my magic didn’t work this time?
Sure, I’d have her soul forever, but it wouldn’t be the forever I’d imagined since I dragged her to Limbo. She wouldn’t be my living slave queen. I wouldn’t get to revel in the way her heart raced when I did filthy, depraved things to her. The way it fluttered when my lips brushed hers. The way it skipped a beat when I ordered her to her knees.
With a growl, I focused on my magic again, letting it pour out of the deepest pits of my being.
It wouldn’t have been nearly as complicated if it was just a matter of putting her soul back into the human body, but it was more than that. I had to fix her wound, reconnect the muscle, and revive her before her flesh began to waste away.
“Belial…” The voice of Rayven’s soul resounded through my skull, but I was too immersed in the task at hand to pay attention.
I could feel it working, the sinews of muscle stitching themselves back together, the hole in her chest slowly closing to conceal the precious organ it guarded.
“I'm going to fix this,” I said, barely aware I'd spoken. “You’ll be fine.”
I was reassuring myself more than her at this point, clinging to the thin veneer of calm that masked my panic.
Rayven’s soul softly replied, “I trust you.”
Trust. As though I deserved it after all this mess.
I was so lost in trying to heal Raven, I almost missed the rustle behind me. I craned my head around in time to see Belphegor rushing toward me.
In my panic to save Rayven, I’d forgotten all about the Lord of Gluttony.
“You deserve to fucking die with her, Belial!” he cried as his nails shifted into six-inch knives aimed straight for my chest.
I tensed, gently lowering Rayven’s corpse off my lap, preparing to rip Belphegor limb from limb for killing the only woman I'd ever loved. Rage burned through me, the flames in my eye sockets leaping high, and I braced myself.
When he was a few feet from me, nearly close enough to sink my claws into, Belphegor let out a pained wail, faltering and stumbling to the ground. He writhed, frantically reaching for his back until his movements slowed.
“You…bitch…”
When he slumped forward, I saw it: Catherine's dagger buried hilt deep between Belphegor's shoulders, just missing his spine.
Rayven's soul stood behind him, her mouth hardened into a line, her eyes full of hatred.
“That's what you get, you slimy fuck,” she gritted out.
I stared up at her in reverence as Belphegor twitched. He was a demon, so he wouldn’t die from a simple dagger strike to the back. Rayven seemed to understand this almost immediately and wrenched the blade from him, only to bury it in him again. And again. And again.
He collapsed to the ground, and she kept stabbing him. She moved to his head, burying the knife in his face until it was nothing but a shapeless, torn-up pile of gore. In my periphery, I could vaguely make out Catherine.
She’d woken and was sitting up, the smallest of smiles perched on her mouth as she watched Rayven brutalize the shapeshifter’s corpse.
