I flushed, my face warming with the heat of my embarrassment as I avoided his gaze and reached out to grasp his wing. He shuddered, a deep growl rumbling in his chest that forced me todrop it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I said, my face twisting with sympathy.
“Didn’t hurt,” he grunted, his fist grasping the blanket on top of the bed and squeezing. It bunched in his grip, making something unfamiliar tingle along the surface of my skin.
I swallowed, wetting my suddenly dry lips as I forced myself to gently grab his wing once more. He didn’t growl a second time, his entire body tense as I tried to touch him as little as possible.
Wiping the excess blood away with my fingertips, I slid the needle into his skin. I shoved down my nausea at the feeling of his flesh parting for the needle, focusing in on the wound and sealing it closed. The alternative was using sex to heal him, using my body to offer him pleasure and feeding on his, offering him pure, uninterrupted energy in exchange. I didn’t have that in me, couldn’t allow that to happen.
So I stabbed my way through his flesh, reaching around his wing to pull the needle back through to the other side, over and over again. I knitted his flesh, brought him pain, all the while knowing I could have made him feelgoodinstead. If only I were braver. If only I were less of a selfish coward.
But I wasn’t. I was just me.
11
MARGOT
My magic pulsed in time with the warmth of arousal that covered Beelzebub’s body, his skin pulsing with a tingle of awareness. I couldn’tnotfeel it with my fingers touching the surface of his wings, even as delicately as I could manage. I forced my way through my nerves, though, choosing to focus on the fact that he had yet to act on the desire I knew he felt. Choosing to focus on the hope that his self-control gave me.
All this physical contact would have deepened the call of my song and the pull he felt to me, but he still sat without harming me regardless of the fact that he’d fallen prey to the music others had used for evil. Centuries ago, Lucifer had given the same magic to a group of women who’d been thrown overboard in the sea just outside Greece. The legends of the sirens had prevailed, leaving behind myths that most convinced themselves came down to nothing more than a representation of the danger of the ocean, of the treacherous waves that would claim the lives of men who were brave enough to sail.
It was not lost on me that men explained away the circumstances where women took back the power that had been stripped from them. Used and abused and cast aside over the course of centuries, my Coven had become a refuge for women and formed a matriarchy where men were so often seen as less. Where they had to make the choice between procreation and the continuationof their family line, and the power that came along with keeping their magic.
We forced them to make the choice that so many of our sisters were forced to make in the world outside Crystal Hollow.
Children or a successful life outside the home. They could not have both.
Just as women so often found themselves at a disadvantage in their careers if they had children.
And if the men as a whole decided to simply stop having children, then we would have made our bed. We would have ended our own bloodlines, and we would have no one to blame but ourselves, no matter the reasoning behind the choice.
No matter if it had been for the very purpose of preventing Willow’s existence.
A pang of longing struck me in the chest, wondering if the choice would continue on now that her reality had come to pass. She’d already freed Lucifer from Hell, done what the Covenant had been so desperate to prevent. I couldn’t imagine my friend would be so willing to allow men to suffer in the same way she was intimately familiar with women being treated in the outside world.
She knew the reality of the human world far better than most of our Coven.
“You’re awfully quiet back there, songbird,” Beelzebub said, the soft murmur of his voice pulling me from my thoughts as I slid the needle through his flesh again. The tear in his wing had ripped through the fibrous center, but the part that felt more solid and ran through the top was undamaged, thankfully. I imagined he wouldn’t have been able to fly us out of harm’s way if that had been damaged, the structure oddly muscular.
“Do you think I’ll ever make it back home?” I asked, voicing the thought that I hadn’t dared to breathe. The thought of being unable to warn Willow of what Itan and the Tribunal had done was entirely unforgivable. The very notion that she might playright into their plans and I would remain helpless to prevent it was enough to make me rage.
After all they’d done, after all they’d sacrificed that wasn’t theirs to give…
They didn’t get to fucking win.
Beelzebub’s voice was tired as I finished the last stitch, tying off the strange thread that felt more like gel than actual string. “I’ll make sure of it,” he said. His voice held all the conviction I expected to hear, but there was a note of tiredness in his voice as he said it.
I didn’t fault him for it, not knowing what he’d given in order to get me to safety—the pain he must have endured flying with that injured wing. Whether it was a consequence of his hearing my song or his loyalty to Lucifer, and Willow by extension, I didn’t care to know. Either way, I knew not to let the gesture touchmetoo intimately, because when it all came down to it, the reality was it had nothing to do with me.
I was just a by-product of his actual goal.
Beelzebub lifted his wings, shifting his weight up the bed until he rested in the center. Laying his head atop the pillow, he watched me with an ease that spoke of how little he feared me. My song had made him feel safe, when I could just as easily gut him while he slept and be rid of him.
I didn’t. Wouldn’t.
“You should rest. It will help you heal faster,” I said, watching the gel of the thread shimmer within him. The gold light that radiated off the tattoos pulsed with magic, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask how they’d come to exist. In this place, all magic came from one source.
Lucifer.
“Stay close. You’re safe here with me. The lord of Purgatory is better than most, but I still can’t promise the same of him if you wander in his home,” Beelzebub said, his eyes drifting closed as exhaustion claimed him. I considered humming to help him passinto the realm of sleep more smoothly when he grunted in pain as he shifted his wing, but decided against it. I didn’t want to risk extending the amount of time he would spend drawn to me, not until I knew how long I would need him to keep me safe. I didn’t think I could use it intentionally even if I’d wanted to, even if it meant he would leave me there to rot when he no longer desired me.
