He smirked, catching his bottom lip between his teeth as he shifted his attention to the space behind me. It left me no choice but to drop my grip on my scythe, turning to find Amelia andMargot arm in arm at the top of the stairs. Amelia had paused there, a smile across her face as she spoke to Margot. I saw it from the periphery of my vision as my stare narrowed in on Margot, my gaze sweeping from head to toe and back again.
Her hair was freshly styled, free from sweat and sand from our journey. Whatever Amelia had done to it, the loose curls framed her stunning face perfectly, accentuating the natural brown hues of the makeup she wore. She wore less than Amelia, and yet what was there brought out her natural beauty.
Amelia pulled her arm out from Margot’s after patting the other woman reassuringly, descending the staircase with the grace she’d learned after centuries of life in this twisted court. I let my gaze drift from Margot for a brief moment, for the first time noticing the similarities between their faces. While Amelia had dark hair and light eyes, she was Margot’s opposite in most ways but the angles of their faces, the softness of their features and delicate femininity to the curve of their jaws and the shape of their noses were all the same. Nearly identical, even.
That was where the similarities ended. Amelia was taller, more willowy, where Margot was an hourglass. She was much taller than Willow and most of her other friends, but curves were packed onto her frame, making her look like walking sin. The dress Amelia had given her, fitted in her waist and hugging her hips, brought out each of those curves as she started a slow, meticulous descent down the stairs when Amelia reached the bottom and turned to hold out a hand for her.
I was horrifically aware of the silence in the room, of the moans that had stopped and the breathing that had quieted to watch her. I couldn’t separate my own desire from the need pulsing in the room, the power of lust coating my skin and strengthening the natural attraction that pulsed between Margot and I like a tangible, breathing thing. As much as it pained me to admit, even without having heard her song and feeling the call to her, I would have known Margot was breathtaking and wanted her.
Her eyes came to me, her chest rising with her nerves. I forced myself to still, to try to give her a safe place to land as I approached the bottom of the stairs to wait for her.
But attraction didn’t explain the way my breathing hitched. It didn’t explain the very way my heart beat for her. That part was just the call of her song.
It had to be.
I couldn’t stop my gaze from leaving hers, from taking in the lines of her body, the swells of her breasts as they spilled out the top of her low-cut dress. The red fabric hugged them, the faintest hint of her nipples visible through the fabric. Everything in me went solid at the sight, my cock thickening in spite of my best intentions as I took in the clear sign of the very last thing I’d expected to find on my songbird’s body. On either side of her nipple was another, smaller mark.
She waspierced.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry as my gaze rose back to hers. Her lips pressed together, understanding lighting her eyes as she wet her mouth with her tongue. She moved with more sway than I was used to, her hips moving from side to side as she came down those stairs. As if her usual control had already been shed, her body lost to the magic of the circle and releasing her from her inhibitions. As a Red witch, she was more susceptible to the magic here than most, her body complying with the sin that owned her without regard for what her mind wanted.
If that was the case, this night would test every bit of my control. I wouldn’t allow her to make choices that would not be entirely her own, wouldn’t allow her to give me parts of her I hadn’t yet earned, and it shocked me just how fervently Iwantedto earn them. No matter how much I may have wanted to take them, to take them and claim them and use them as a reminder when she tried to change her mind when we left the next morning. Her body already belonged to me. It was her mind I needed to possess,her mind I needed to convince to give in to whatever this fucking pulsating attraction came down to.
It was more than lust, making my blood simmer with unfamiliar warmth.
She reached the bottom of the stairs, pausing on the final one to glance between Amelia and me. If she went with Amelia, I had little doubt the Red witch would guide her to engage in the festivities, to give herself into her lust wholeheartedly. It wouldn’t even be done maliciously; I knew Amelia well enough to know that. She seemed to believe nearly everything could be solved through sex, that it could be the ultimate outlet for all the pain that Margot held within, and would do it out of a desire to help Margot.
It certainly had been an outlet for Amelia personally, and while I was beyond grateful the witch had found that way to deal with her own trauma when she’d needed it, I hoped she could see that she and Margot were not the same in spite of their relation.
Margot turned to me with a deep sigh that deflated her chest, raising her hand cautiously to place within my waiting palm. I smiled down at her, tucking her into my arm and raising a wing to shield her from view. I didn’t obstruct her vision of what was in front of her, but used it to offer her privacy from prying eyes that might be behind us.
“Thank you,” Margot said, her voice soft enough that only I could hear as she peered up at me from beneath her lashes. She didn’t so much as tip her head up to meet the full weight of my attention, but she reached out and ran a single finger down the edge of my wing. The light, teasing touch shot straight to my groin, and I fought back the strangled sound that clawed up my throat from my shock. Sheknewthey were sensitive, and still she’d chosen to touch them.
Her inhibitions were already lowered, her walls dropping bit by bit, and the night had only just begun.
I was damned.
19
MARGOT
Beelzebub and I made our rounds, circulating the room and mingling with those who were not otherwise occupied. If it hadn’t been for the sex happening all around us, it might have felt like a formal event.
Like a ball, rather than the free-for-all it was.
“Is it like this every night?” I asked, turning to look up at Beelzebub’s face more fully. I hadn’t wanted to allow myself to look at him, hadn’t wanted to see his rough, handsome features in the dim lighting. The red lights did something to his eyes, turning them molten as I met his gaze.
“I can’t say that I’ve spent a great amount of time here. From what I’ve seen, this is a bit grander than is typical,” he answered, surprising me into a moment of thought. I knew enough to know that the circles all existed within Hell, but outside of Lucifer’s influence over them all, they largely functioned independently in the same way the Covenant ruled over the Coven, but each head of family was responsible for their own line. In this place, that knowledge seemed to matter so much less. It seemed natural to have Asmodeus in charge of all this, while Beelzebub somehow didn’t belong here. It was like handing a Red witch a crystal; sure, it was pretty, but their connection to its magic wasn’t the same.
He watched some of the couples with rapt fixation, but therewasn’t the same hunger in him that I saw in others around us. There wasn’t the same hunger in him that Ifeltin me.
We strolled in a moment of silence, and I wondered how much longer we would need to remain downstairs before I could retreat to the privacy of a bedroom. Before I could separate from Beelzebub and the danger he presented to me undernormalcircumstances, let alone with Asmodeus’s magic coating my skin and making mine rise to the surface. I felt like I might come out of my skin, like the heat pooling between my thighs would drive me to make a mistake I would very much regret come morning.
“Come with me,” Beelzebub said, guiding me toward the double doors that led to that patio that overlooked the cliffs. In the distance, the hillside was stained with blood, the imagery sobering some of my desire. It felt wrong to say it was a welcome sight, but it was the one I’d needed in that moment—a stark reminder of what waited for me if I failed to move past the Second Circle.
Beelzebub pulled his wing back, leaving me feeling suddenly cold as he leaned forward onto the railing and crossed his arms over each other. His head hung forward, his chest moving with slow, deep breaths.
“Are you alright?” I asked, mimicking his stance. I didn’t lean as much as he did, worried about the length of my dress and what it might lay bare. Particularly given that there was no underwear to shield me from view.
