The bond stands at the edge where her head hangs, cock hard and fisted in his hand. He steps closer.
In the memory I stop him. But here he rewrites it. This time no one stops him.
He pushes into her mouth slow. I watch her throat work as she tries to adjust to his length, her cheeks filling out.
"Swallow it. All the way down," he murmurs.
The two sensations collide. Her tightening around me, her swallowing him.
I close my eyes. "Stop."
"Let me out," the bond commands. "I want to crawl inside her soul and make a home there. I want to weave myself into her thoughts until she couldn't tell where she ends and we begin. I would—"
"Enough!"
The shout reverberates through the cavern. I feel the others stirring, my inner beasts waking from their slumber. The collection of horrors that Lilith sacrificed to create the Rhunhraefn. All of them bound to my soul. They're all part of this twisted whole.
Coinneach rises first from the deepest shadows of the cavern. The Ysendral takes form slowly, his darkness flowing like waves.
He threatens her,Coinneach whispers, and the shadows around him writhe.The girl must be protected.
Even from us,the Noble Wolf growls, stepping out from behind a pillar of stone. He's enormous, fur as black as midnight, eyes glowing like embers.
Wendy materializes from the cold spaces between, the monster whose hunger became mine. Impossibly tall, with jutting bones and stretched skin. When he speaks, frost forms in the air.
Protect Rhianelle.
The salt circles begin to break. One by one, the fallen from Hel claw their way free from their cages. The salt hisses and steams where they cross it, ancient bindings meant to keep them controlled.
The demon from Hel's third circle emerges first. His body constantly shifts between states of decay, flesh rotting and regenerating in an endless cycle. Once he had a name, before Lilith bound him to my soul. Now he’s just another piece of the monster I've become.
We must stop him,he rasps, a voice of rot and hunger.Before he hurts her.
The demon from Abaddon follows, wreathed in black flame that gives no heat. Then the one from Sheol and the one from Gehenna, both covered in ash. Three creatures of the Hollow remain bound to their chains despite breaking free from the salt circles. The fiend from Tartarus, the shifter of Pandemonium, and the being from the Void itself.
Seven demons from seven different hells, all breaking free from their salt cages to stand against the bond.
The bond snarls, whirling to face them. "You would betray yourselves? We are one. What I feel, you all feel. You want her just as much as I do."
Want, yes,the demon from Hel's third circle agrees, its form rippling with decay.But we have learned restraint. We have learned that some hungers must be leashed or they consume everything we love.
"Love?" The bond sneers. "You don't love her. You fear what she makes us feel. It's weakness and vulnerability—"
The demon from Hel moves first. Chains of bone and sinew erupt from its hands, wrapping around the bond's wrists. The bond roars, thrashing against the restraints. Tendrils of black flame shoot from the demon of Abaddon, binding his ankles.Wendy lurches forward, his impossible strength forcing the bond to its knees.
Coinneach flows around them all. His shadows wrap the bond in darkness, muffling his screams.
One by one, my monsters turn against this piece of myself.
"You can't cage me forever!" The bond fights desperately. Its power surges and I feel it like lightning in my veins.
For a moment, the chains tremble.
"The eclipse comes. During the eclipse, all your careful separations crumble. We become one again, whether you want it or not."
"Then we'll hold you until the eclipse passes," I say, moving forward to help drag the bond toward its prison.
The casket sits in the center of the cavern, carved from black stone and inscribed with runes. Together, my monsters and I drag the bond toward it.
