“You’re so fucking beautiful, Isabella.” And through his eyes, I didn’t doubt that I was. There was something intense about the way he made me feel just by looking at me. “Tell me truthfully, witch, you cast some sort of spell on me the moment we met, didn’t you?”
His tone was playful, which made me smile. “If I did, then I cast the same spell on myself.”
“Do you want me to keep you?” His eyes were heavy with lust but beneath that lay a lot more. So much more.
“I know that I want to keep you.” I laughed slightly, feeling giddy along with Sebastian who seemed just as pleased as I was.
Flapping noises grew near. My smiled slipped as I listened. They were overhead the house now. Sebastian straightened his back and looked up. “What is that?” I asked him.
“One of the dragons,” he told me right before he stood. A piercing cry roared from above the house and I raised to a sitting position in the tub. “Don’t get out,” he said, looking down at me. “It might be mating season for them. I’ll check to make sure, so don’t worry.”
I moved to get out. “I’ll still go.” He stopped me. “I’ll feel better if I stay close to you.”
He must have seen something in my expression because he nodded. “Walk outside when you’re dressed.”
I nodded, then felt the emptiness in the bathroom the moment he faded outside. The space his absence left in the bathroom was vast and unnerving. I just wanted to hurry. The unease I felt of having him away from me, even if only a small distance, felt strangely terrifying.
And I knew why the moment I tried to get out of the tub. I recognized a clothed leg stretched out around my legs in the water, and my stomach churned with acid. A pale arm hung out of the tub, bouncing to the twisted hum falling from his lips, and the air in the room reached freezing levels. I slowly lifted my gaze to meet the green soulless expression of the monster I spent so much time running from. His red hair was blazing with flames as he blatantly gazed at my nakedness.
I bolted out of the water, but his hands were against my neck, crushing my windpipe before I even got the chance to lift my ass off the bottom of the tub. The water splashed in the tub and I felt his weight pressing down on me even though all my senses told me he wasn’t really here.
“You’re not really here,” I gritted out. When he released my neck, I gasped for air as he leaned back against the tub watching me. Leave it to Julius to be able to still look utterly capable and terrifying even when cramped into a tub with his legs so tightly restricted around my body, there was no room whatsoever.
“You’re right.” He grinned. “But I don’t have to be when I’m right here.” He tapped his head, and I scowled at him.
“Sebas—” My mouth closed shut against my will.
“Think I’d let you call for him?” He chuckled, and anger burned through me. “Didn’t I say not to get close to the sloth?” He sighed, his eyes darkening over me. “You wasted time.”
I lifted my arms, and he started laughing again. “Nice try.” I understood what he meant when my magic died out at my fingertips, and the darkness hissed in my ears until I cupped them and squeezed my eyes shut to tolerate the pain. “You already know what I did. I made sure to inject you with more of my harvest through the gremlin. See, what was already inside you was growing tame and it stopped trying as hard to seek me out, even finding something in the sloth that they craved just as much as my darkness.”
My arms trembled as I lowered my hands from my ears. The vile that threatened to spill from my stomach at his nearness spoke enough. Horrified and angry—I didn’t know which I was more—I locked glares with the man that made me so completely helpless. I had no control over myself, even when it felt like I was. One little command from him… and I was gone from the inside.
“He’s going to stop this,” I told Julius, eyeing the door and counting hopes once more. I prayed Sebastian came for me when he saw that I wasn’t coming outside. “He’s going to stop you, and he’s going to always be there to stop me.”
“You think just because the sloth’s been inside your body a couple of times that he can stop us?”Us?There was nous. Thedarkness controlled me. It took my will, my thoughts, my hopes, and dreams and ran away with them. “Just know, no matter how much you give him, there’s no way he’s ever going to be inside you the way I am.”
“I fucking hate you,” I seethed. “I hope they kill me before they let you do whatever it is you’re trying to do!”
“Oh, Isabella, don’t you remember?” Julius asked me, and I frowned at him. “I’ve told you once before, your fate and mine.”
“What are you talking about?” I hissed.
“You’re the key to Armageddon.” He moved his hand up to his neck, and horrified, I watched as my hand did the same to my own neck. “You will bring upon the end of time, and with it, I’ll make sure that it’s me who claims both worlds, human and Underworld.” Hoping my hatred bled through, I glared as he exhaled. “I’ll take what the Devil so desperately wants. This world was made to be his prison, by the time I’m in control, I’ll make it so that he has nothing but what I leave him.”
“You’ve lost your mind,” I shook my head and hissed.
“I believe you’re referring to my sanity, and in that case, you should know that I’ve never had such a troublesome thing.” He gripped his neck and I did the same. I was choking. “Time to put my plan into action.”
“Stop!”
He pressed me underneath the water. I fought and kicked in the water, but I knew it was a futile effort because the monster I was fighting with wasn’t even there. I raged a war within myself, and it was one I stood no chance of winning.
I sucked in water when it should have been air. I was choking. I was drowning, then I heard his humming.
Seven hopeful mentions,
Within seven deadly sins.
