Page 31 of Broken Shadows (Corrupt Shadows Duet #2)

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Evie

Something isn’t right.

My instincts scream at me to run as the song begins in a single, eerie note. Lorcan’s wide eyes meet mine for a moment before the dance floor is draped with shadows, obscuring my view of him and Evangeline.

His voice grounds me as he breaks his rule for a second time and Lorcan’s words echo into my mind. Get out of here. Now.

Samuel’s hold on me tightens as the music begins like a wisp of an echo, resonating through the cavernous room. My thoughts direct me from the floor, but I am a puppet to the music, remaining glued to Samuel, trapped in this deadly waltz.

My magic sizzles in my fingertips but is quickly quelled as the music picks up.

“This dance is called the Garaud,” Samuel explains in an eerie whisper, the shadows shrouding the sea of spirits and demons around us. “It’s also known as the dance of death.” He glides my leg back with his knee, whispering, “The music is an earworm to the living. Once you start, you can’t leave.” His long fingers snake lower down my spine, sending a shiver skittling through my bones. “The Garaud once swept through entire towns, and the people in them danced until they died.”

I crane my neck, searching for a glimpse of Lorcan amongst the dark fog, but can’t see anything beyond the wall of mist. “Well,” I say, turning my focus to Samuel, “at least I might die soon and be relieved of the presence of your company.”

“You have such a wicked mouth,” he intones with a wolfish grin. “It’s no wonder my brother is so taken with you.”

“So, is this your revenge?” I ask, my body spinning to the music without any instruction from my brain, as if the moves are imprinted in my soul. “To dance me to death?”

Crystals hang from the bone chandelier above, their light refracted into shards, illuminating the reddish hue woven into Samuel’s brown hair. “Oh no. Your demise will be far more satisfying, but watching you squirm like this… is…” His eyes close for a second, a satisfied smile curling his thin lips, as if he’s tasting my sorrow and it’s the most delicious thing ever.

Dark, somber notes resonate from the piano as another song begins, uplifted by the quick sweeps of bows across violins, the melody building into a steady crescendo.

His dead eyes latch onto mine as he moves in inhuman angles, all slow turns, then quick jolts. Quick jabs and off-tones screech together, the deadly rhythm seeping into my ears, ensnaring my senses, and for a moment the world blurs. He spins me once, twice, and I cannot speak no matter how many times I open my mouth in protest.

I want to stop.

My heart rate flutters into uneven beats, rising and falling with the frantic strikes of the instruments.

Masked demons blur in and out of the shadows as my back rises and falls against Samuel’s palm, their too-wide grins haunting my swaying twirls. Dizziness encompasses my mind, numbing my inhibitions until all I can feel is the music, my feet aching with the flurried movements as the song descends into a frantic delirium, each chord wildly chasing the next.

I bite my lip, closing my eyes to the spinning world, until I can taste a tang of blood. Entrenched with the music is Samuel’s giddy laughter echoing around my ears until tears are spilling from my ducts.

Samuel rotates me outward, but this time lets go as the song ends in a final, heart-jolting chord, followed by a thick, heavy silence.

I collapse onto the floor, my fingers grasping the stone for some sense of stability as the shadows disappear. I blink once, then twice as my vision clears and I see Lorcan standing in front of Samuel. At first, I don’t know what I’m looking at until I notice the throbbing, black heart in dripping blood through Lorcan’s fingers.

My gaze tracks the rest of the crowd to the musicians, and I gasp.

All eyes are on the bloody, flesh-coated spine hanging over a music stand, and the corpse of a demon crumpled at the bottom.

No wonder the music ended so abruptly.

Lucifer speaks first, his voice deeper than earlier, the command in his tone silencing the room. “Calm down, son.”

“There are humans here,” Lorcan shouts, and tosses the heart on the ground. “The fucking Garaud, really?”

Lucifer nods slowly and approaches Lorcan on the small stone platform where the other musicians' backs are pressed firmly against the wall. “It was my mistake. It won’t happen again.”

“It was Samuel’s,” he spits, pointing at his brother, who watches with a devilish smile, his hand on his hip.

“Come now,” Lucifer says, guiding Lorcan from the platform. “Let’s continue. It isn’t a party without a little murder,” he jokes, his voice filled with a mirth that is contradiction with the rest of the room.

Lucifer talks with the musicians, leaving us alone with that bitch. Evangeline smiles, approaching us as the rest of the crowd comes together in rushed whispers, and the musicians step over the demon's entrails and continue playing, a new song this time. She glides in front of me. Unlike many other tortured souls here, her human form isn’t lost.

She stops a few feet in front of me. I take in her dark hair that falls in loose curls around her chest, her form tightly bound in ivory fabric, with nary a wrinkle around her eyes. She looks less a great aunt and more like a sister. I suppose she was in her thirties when she died. But, while the family resemblance is undeniable, her square jawline and diamond-shaped face lean more toward her paternal genes, at least from what I could gather in old family photo albums.

“Well, well,” Eva says, her eyes darting from me and land on Lorcan, who reaches us, taking a protective stance at my side. “You certainly showed what’s really in your heart this evening.”

He shakes his head, nostrils flaring. “It was you.”

She shrugs and brings a glass of crimson wine to her lips. At least, I hope it's wine. “What can I say? I have always enjoyed the Garaud. I completely forgot that humans were present. Witches too.” She tilts her head, and I imagine tearing her throat out.

I guess the ruse is over before it could really begin, I say into his mind as he grips my fingers in his. He blew his cover. For me. I’m so fucking annoyed by that, even if it was an incredibly sweet gesture. I was okay. You don’t need to kill every person who tries to hurt me.

Yes, I do.

“So, you do have a bond with her,” Evangeline spits. “How? You cannot love.”

I smirk, forcing a puff of breath through my nose. “You mean he cannot love you .”

Her expression drops into something akin to a panther eyeing its prey. “Do you think this is going to be a happy ending?” She wags a finger between us. “You’ll end up dead like me.”

“Lorcan wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Ha. What makes you think he wouldn’t? He’s a demon,” she continues in a hushed tone, and looks at Lorcan. “Tell her the truth. You cannot love and you know it. Lust, yes. Infatuation, even at a stretch, perhaps. But not love.”

I tilt my head and whisper, “Are you jealous?”

“Jealous!” She snorts and taps her long nails against her hip while trailing her glare over me. “Of my namesake, why? You’re nothing but a washed-out version of me. What is it you think you have that I don’t?”

I tilt my head, offering her my most cloying smile and hold my index finger in the air. “You mean apart from Lorcan?” I almost laugh as I watch her lips fall into a frown and her pupils narrow into slits. I continue to count off things on my fingers. “I’m alive, for one, and I hold the magic of our entire coven while you lost yours, along with your life. And for what, unrequited love? Must you be so cliché?”

She glances around as a few demons come close enough to hear our conversation. “Unrequited love? You must be delusional. I love Lucifer and he very much loves me .” Flustered, her finger taps against the glass with a clink. “Lucifer would do anything for me. Remember that.”

As if summoned by his name, Lucifer joins us before things can escalate, but his presence does little to tame the whirlwind of death magic humming in my bone marrow.

Evangeline smiles and drapes her arm over his, running her fingers down his cheek. “I was just telling my niece how sorry we are that the Garaud was played while she was here.”

Lucifer brings his hands together, brows pinching, looking actually concerned. Unlike her. “I should have told them not to play it. Such a mistake,” he says, shaking his head. “It won’t happen again. While you are here in my home, you are safe. All of you are. Come now,” he tells Evangeline and grips her waist, “let us dance.”

My mouth twists as I watch them leave. “I didn’t think it was possible for her to be worse than I imagined.”

A low growl rumbles in his chest. “We need to get out of here.”

Rosa rolls her hips as she walks to greet us, Ezra bouncing at her side along with Lazarus and Asher. “I wanted to make sure your aunt was gone,” she explains and rubs the side of her neck. “How are you?”

“Me? How are you ?” I ask, realizing she would have been caught in the throes of that dance too.

“Fine,” she chirps. “Ezra walked me outside when he realized it was going to start.”

She lingers between Lorcan and me as he turns his back to us, grabbing a glass of wine from a passing demon server’s tray.

“I’ll find you shortly. Stay close,” I say as she saunters away with Ezra.

I should have done that instead of playing some part.

I place my palm on his back and speak into his mind, in the softest tone my brain can create. It’s not your fault.

Before he can answer, Asher pushes between us. “Dad didn’t know anything. I thought I was going by his orders so…” Glancing at Evie, he says, “I regret my part in all of this.”

Lazarus steps in, too, riding a hand through his blue-black hair. “I am too. I couldn’t give a fuck about the humans, but we’re brothers.”

Lorcan nods, I assume this is about as close to anything sentimental as these three get. Silence hangs between them as the music picks up and I decide to break it. We all should get along, and we might need Lazarus and Asher on our side.

I glance at the spirits lingering nearby, searching for anything to break this awkward silence, and turn to Asher. “Why do they look like that? The spirits? Some appear human.”

Asher tips the contents of his glass into his mouth. “Some souls look worse than others.” He shrugs. “Don’t really know why. Suppose it depends on how long they’ve been here and how worn down they are.”

Lazarus tsks and runs a hand around to the back of his neck. “That’s not true. Excuse my brother. He’s spent so much time at the crossing that he’s forgotten how to observe.”

Asher rolls his blue eyes. “With that, I’m leaving. Good evening, Evie, Lorcan.” He nods at us both, then shoots a scathing glare at his brother. “Lazarus.”

Asher disappears into the crowd, heading toward the nearest exit, and Lazarus turns his attention to me. His neat, slicked back hair doesn’t move when he rakes a hand over his head. “When a human soul enters Hell, while they’re translucent with their spectral form, they maintain their appearance from the Human Realm. The more time they spend trapped in their punishment, they forget the essence of who they are and shift into what you see there.”

He waves a hand toward two spirits caught in a dance of ghostly smoke, flurrying as they spin to the music, the steps not in time with the symphony, their movements slowing despite the haunting tune lifting into a crescendo. It’s as if they’re trapped in a memory we cannot see, habitually dancing to a time in the Human Realm that the world has long forgotten.

“Evangeline still has her form,” I say, and Lorcan grunts.

“Only because of our dad. Without him, she’d wither here too.”

Lazarus’s lips quirk upward. “Indeed, she would. I must talk to our father, anyway. Good evening.”

I watch Evangeline on the other side of the room now, wrapped in Lucifer’s arms, but her gaze is elsewhere—fixed on us.

Let’s change the plan, I say into Lorcan’s mind. Evangeline looks as if she’s going to combust. Let’s make sure she does. Lucifer isn’t the only one who can obliterate a soul out of existence. Your brothers hunted me down so I could do it to you, remember?

Eyes half-closed, long lashes shadowing his lids, and fingers digging into my hips as he tugs me into his embrace. It won’t work here. This is my dad’s domain and if you hurt her, I worry what he’ll do to you. He needs to see what she’s like first.

Death magic dances in my fingers, shadows coiling around each one like vipers. Then let’s show him. Drive her wild with jealousy and she won’t be able to hold back. Look at her, she’s already struggling to hold it in.

A nudge of agreement sears into our bond, but I sense something else has consumed his thoughts over the threat waltzing near us. Bringing his lips to the shell of my ear, his whisper climbing into my brain in a gentle caress. “Did you read my letter?”

Bruising touches linger on my hips as he pulls away, then drifts his fingers up my spine and over my arms, leaving traces of him over every pore in my body. I close my eyes, wanting nothing more than to feel him in every part of me.

I nod, my hand sliding over his chest. “You are my eternity too.”

His hand grips the nape of my neck, lips pressing to mine as he holds my face with more urgency than ever before. Breathless, he breaks our kiss and with all that untapped power behind his eyes focused on me, he utters, “I am all yours, Evie. My heart belongs to you, always. I never thought I could love anything or anyone.” He brings his hands to my hair, fingers threading the stands as he stares wild-eyed. “It’s terrifying, only because I’ve never truly been afraid, but the thought of losing you tears my soul into shreds.” His fingers skate my cheeks, my neck, then down to my chest as if he’s needling unseen threads and whispers, “Your mortal heart taunts me with every beat.”

Amidst his swirling shadows, my heart quickens. “If I could tear out my heart and give it to you—if it meant I could stay here with you for an eternity, I would.”

“ My Witch.” His hand inches down my back and paused at the bottom of my spine with the gentlest touch. “You deserve a life outside of Hell. In the Human Realm. I’m not fit for court life, and you shouldn’t be subjected to it.”

“I’ve never much fit into the real world,” I say as he spins us to the music, holding me so close to his body, so tightly, as if any gap between us is an insult. “If our plan works, we could stay here. Perhaps it’s where we both belong.”

He slumps over me, forehead pressing against mine. “I only belong with you, wherever that is.”