“I’m only human,” I said with a shrug.
“Yes, I guess we can't deny our nature or purpose,” he murmured.
The car slowed further as we approached a stone bridge arching over a babbling brook. Sunlight danced on the water's surface, the cheerful sparkle at odds with the cold dread pooling in my stomach. Bael was a being older than civilisations, and I was carrying his offspring. The absurdity of it all threatened to choke me.
As we crossed the bridge, the tyres humming against ancient stones, I caught sight of our destination in the distance. It was the only building in the vicinity—a manor constructed of weathered sandstone bricks with shimmering windows. My fingers tightened around the door handle, the brand on my finger pulsing in time with my quickening heartbeat.
Chapter 5
Lucia
The manor's entrance hall loomed around me, alien and intimately known, like a face seen in a dream. The walls should have been draped in emerald silk, not this sickly cornflower blue. The wrongness of it prickled at my skin. I peeked into the huge receiving room. I took one step when something caught my veil.
Bael stood behind me with his hand, pulling off my veil.
“What are you—”
He scooped me into his arms, squashing me against his chest, before his arms clamped around me.
“I have lost time to make up for,” he stated casually while I gawked at him slack-jawed.
He glanced down, frowning at me before he tugged at the cross around my neck. The chain dug into the back of my neck until the pressure caused it to snap. Bale threw it to one side. I watched the chain fly across the white polished marble.
“You are not married to thechurch,” he spat the words out with such revulsion that all I could do was stare at him while he carried me upstairs. “You are mine. Ineveryfucking life, Lucia.”
“Uh, sure, buddy,” I told the crazy demon while I looked around for an escape.
Doors pushed open, and he strode across the room to lay me on a bed. A hazy memory gripped me.
“Oh, you're so naughty, darling,” I giggled, my fingers tangling in Devon's sun-kissed hair as he carried me to bed. My new husband, my earthly god.
I brushed his hair away from his brow before I pulled him down. It was a different time—a different world.
“But you love it when I'm naughty.” He nipped at my neck.
He ripped the bodice of my dress, baring my flesh while his black, hungry eyes ate me up. I cupped my breasts, smoothing my fingers toward my nipples, inching the pink peaks before rolling them between my thumb and finger. Lust burned inside of me like an inferno.
“I need you, Devon,” I moaned. “I need you inside of me.”
My newlywed English gentleman vanished. A black and grey devil replaced him with twisted, thick horns that curved back like a serpent’s neck. The giant form wasn't human. His hands had claws as black as his eyes. Thick spikes embedded in his back stood tall. He tugged at his loincloth.
He was the fertility God. We made a pact. It wasn't one lifetime. It was every lifetime. Until—
My eyes snapped open—the past four deaths screaming through my veins like poison.
“I remember.” My fingers flew to my throat, tracing phantom scars. Four lifetimes of betrayal. Four moments of his claws sliding across my skin, his mouth on mine, even as he stole my last breath. “Y-you killed me.”
Bael loomed over me, his human disguise shedding away like burning parchment. His true form emerged—more terrible than my visions had shown.
Obsidian flesh cracked and glowed with hellfire between the fissures. Horns like gnarled oak roots thrusting from his skull, their ridges catching the dim light. And his eyes—six of them, each pupil a pulsing sigil that seared my soul as they stared.
“This time,” he purred, a claw trailing down the taut curve of my belly. “You give birth first.”
His thumb pressed into the brand on my finger. White-hot pain. The smell of my own burning flesh as the fifth and final mark seared into me.
“Then I'll kill you properly.”
I tried to scramble back, but my swollen body betrayed me. It was too heavy and too slow. His weight settled over me, the mattress groaning beneath me. Claws hooked into the neckline of my habit—a shredding tear as the fabric split down the middle, baring my stretched skin, the black veins writhing beneath.
