“Lily Rothschild, Goddess of the Underworld.” My hand made a fist, and I placed it against my chest. “You serve me now.” I stared into the sea of faces, searching for resistance and dissent, but not finding any. “Lead me to the Covenant.”
At that moment, there was another mighty sound in the distance, the sound of iron twisting on itself, and then there was a ripple in my sight…like the world I saw had started to fade.
“We don’t have much time left,” Callum said.
Then a cacophony of high-pitched screams pierced the sky, coming from every direction around the castle. The sound of thousands of voices turned into a single venomous growl.
Then they appeared out of the abyss, the three demon lords of the Covenant.
And they were much different from Leviathan.
One had twelve horns on his head and five layers of teeth in his open jaw, his head sporting red eyes. Two enormous swords were visible over his shoulders, and he was covered in pitch-black armor on his huge body. He also had two sets of arms, hence the two blades.
The other looked like a living skeleton, his head a skull, while his eyes were filled with an intense blue. But his bones were large, and he was tall, the openings in his armor showing the bones underneath.
The third was so formidable and strange, I couldn’t even describe him. His eyes were too big for his wolf-shaped head, and they were solid white, like he didn’t have pupils. With powerful legs and claws with nails that looked like individual daggers, he was the tallest and the biggest…and seemed to be the leader of the three.
“Wrath.” The one in the center addressed Callum, even though it was unclear where his stare landed. “You killed your successor, and now you’ve turned your ambitious sights on us, the beings who extended your wife’s life when she should have perished early in her youth—and this is how you repay our kindness?”
“The deal was unfair, and you know it. My misery fueled you for hundreds of years, my soul slowly cracking under the weight of despair,” he said as he stepped forward, a line of black blood down the side of his face. “Now you try to take the woman I love. Try to claim the world that is meant to be free of your heinous touch.”
“We can’t take what is rightfully ours, Wrath,” he said. “She made a deal. Your freedom for her soul. Rothschilds have a habit of not paying their debts—and that ends now.”
“Or you end now,” Callum said as he cocked his head. “I like that option better.”
The first one with the red eyes started to chuckle, his voice so deep it hurt my ears to listen to it. “Gods can be killed and replaced. Servants and monsters can be used for their services. But demon lords are eternal. No mortal or vampire can touch us.”
I didn’t have the same confidence as I’d had with Leviathan. These demons were a different species, a different level of power, so ancient that time itself seemed to fuel their veins.
I was scared that we were all about to be killed.
My dad…my brother…the man I loved.
I’d never been more unsure of myself than I was then, painfully aware that this was a major mistake.
The one with the red eyes and double arms stepped forward and removed both of his blades from his scabbards, holding one on each side of his body.
Oh fuck.
“We will use your souls to destroy what remains of the barrier,” he said as he moved forward, every step from his heavy body audible. “And Lily Rothschild’s soul will make us powerful beyond imagination.”
Callum turned to me and spoke in a quiet voice. “Their strength is weakened.”
“You’re sure? Because that’s not what I see.”
He must have seen the terror in my face because his gaze hardened. “Xivin, you can do this.”
“I really don’t think I can.” I was scared, the most scared I’d ever been in my life. When that demon came closer to me, he would snap my neck then rip it off my shoulders.
“One at a time,” he said. “We’ll distract the other two.”
“We’re all about to be killed.”
“Lily.” He suddenly grabbed me by the arm and gripped me with his stare. “I know you can do this.”
We had but a moment together before the demon came for me, but Callum stared at me like we had all the time in the world. Stared at me like he wouldn’t let me go until I was ready.
I felt my lungs work to draw in the air I needed, to dispel the anxiety that drowned me. I finally gave a nod.
