Page 73 of Kiss of Seduction (Court of Chains #1)

It had been over a century since Natalya last felt the touch of flames.

Then, it claimed the house that had been her prison for over twenty years.

Under Roland’s cruel ownership, she wasn’t shackled by something as simple as chains.

As long as her binding circle remained intact, as did his control over her.

Her circle had burned. Roland’s son, whose cruelties were only matched by his father, had fallen asleep with a cigarette in his mouth. The glowing ash had fallen and then caught on the sheets. Natalya was next to him. She could have saved him. She chose to let him burn.

She saw a house of torture crumble around her, and when she exited the inferno—her humanity burnt away until only the demon remained—she had found Roland and killed him so slowly it took days for him to succumb.

A century since flames had returned her stolen freedom.

A century of hate, pain, and practice that cumulated in her feeling the trusting embrace of another.

Now she felt flames again, whipping around her body and singeing her clothes as she was pulled away from the peaceful life she’d been allowed to taste only briefly.

As the flames kissed her painfully, they pulled her into enslavement.

When the summoning fires dissipated, she found herself in a large room with concrete flooring.

At her feet, the symbols of her true name were outlined in chalk.

With her summoning, they seared bright and burned into the floor, locking her in place.

A circle just six feet in diameter, its border thinner than a finger.

Without permission, she couldn’t even attempt to cross it.

“Welcome, Lady Natalya.”

Natalya looked up at the voice, unsurprised to hear it but dreading to see the man it belonged to. Varro Visconti stood a few feet away, finely dressed in a formfitting suit. He looked pleased. He looked hungry .

“I don’t feel welcome, snake .” She didn’t try to keep the hate out of her voice. “But if you break my bonds, I may be more inclined to be gentle.”

“Silence, Lust.” A high, weaselly voice spoke, feeling like a whiplash against her lips. She recognized that voice too. The last time she heard it, she’d sent its owner seething glares as he stared at her during the meeting with Varro.

She saw the room fully now. A richly decorated lair with stacked bookshelves, an ornate desk, and a bloody corpse lying at the feet of the two men who’d orchestrated her capture. One was the vampire King of the Heartlands. The other his loyal warlock, Dominic Fane.

The young, blond man with the beady eyes and wanting sneer looked at Natalya with such dark satisfaction it made her feel sick.

Dominic nudged the corpse on the floor with his foot. A beautiful woman with eyes that had once been bright violet, now dull in death. A lesser Lust fiend. A knife stuck out of her chest, the same type of dagger Stefano had used on Natalya.

“You should feel honored, Lust,” Dominic said. “You are part of a grand collection. One I plan on perfecting even further. I’m one step closer to doing it with you here.”

Dominic glanced to either side of her, and Natalya followed his gaze.

Her binding circle wasn’t the only one in the room. It was one of seven, set in a semicircle in front of the desk Dominic leaned against. Each circle held a captive, seated and with their head lowered. Only when she saw the color of the trapped people’s eyes did she realize what this was.

The Sins were all here, placed and bound in order. Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, Sloth. Each circle held a fiend. All of them lesser. All of them cowed, even Pride.

All save for one.

“Do I get a treat now?” The fiend next to Natalya sneered at Dominic. Vex, who had fought Natalya in her apartment only an hour before, sat inside her circle. Annoyed. Other than Natalya, she was the only greater fiend present. “I got what you asked for.”

Dominic looked at her with disdain. “Your orders were to get her marks swiftly and without being noticed. And to kill that little Seraphic slave too. You disappointed.”

Vex scoffed. “You try sneaking around a high-rise filled with wolves and faeries for a few months. Especially one that also has two greater fucking fiends. Tends to make you careful. As I recall, my orders also involved not getting myself killed, hence why you had me target the pleasure demon rather than the one meant for tearing bodies apart.”

Dominic looked irritated for a moment. Then he waved his hand, and Vex fell back and started to scream. She convulsed on the floor, her back arching off the ground as her warlock Master sent scorching pain into her body with only a gesture.

“Suffer in silence,” Dominic said. Vex stopped screaming, though she still trembled in agonizing pain.

“She got insolent in her time away,” Varro said, looking at Vex. “If I were you, I’d leave her like that for a few hours. Pain helps slaves remember their place.”

Natalya would have snarled at them, but she couldn’t. Dominic had ordered her silent. Instead, she stepped to the edge of her circle, staring at the two men with such seething hatred it made the lesser Greed fiend next to her flinch away.

“Would you like to speak, Lust?” Dominic asked, smirking. “Do so.”

“You vermin,” she said hatefully. “You don’t know what you’ve called down on yourself.”

“Actually, I do. I’ve called on a beautiful slave. It’s what you were made for, sweet thing. I’m merely reminding you of your purpose.”

Dominic pushed off the table, stepping in the lesser Lust fiend’s blood and walking over to Natalya. He was shorter than her and much weaker, but she couldn’t harm him. Not as long as she was bound.

Dominic looked up at her, smiling with sickening satisfaction. “Kneel.”

She had no control. This wasn’t a command to be refused or even challenged. It was filled with magic and the power thereof. She had no choice but to obey.

She knelt on the floor.

“So pretty.” Dominic ran his thumb over her lips. Touching her didn’t hurt him. It couldn’t. She was his property. “Much prettier than the last one. And she was gorgeous. ”

Natalya looked at the corpse behind him. She was young, Natalya realized. Though they aged slower once their true nature came into fruition, lesser fiends weren’t immortal like the greater ones. The woman looked to have only been in her twenties.

Lesser fiends didn’t get their marks or glowing eyes until they turned twenty-five. The woman had barely been allowed to live as she was. Maybe she hadn’t at all.

“Do you like my menagerie?” Dominic said, gesturing at the seven binding circles. “I’ve always enjoyed collecting things. And I like my collections perfect . You are the second of seven flawless pearls, my dear. I didn’t want to keep old toys around when I have better ones to play with.”

He looked back at the dead fiend, smiling with malicious joy.

“I trust you’re satisfied with your prize, Mr. Fane,” Varro said. The vampire King looked at Natalya with wicked appreciation. “I know the plan was to have her months ago when she guested here. To have her slip away, by the actions of my own slave no less, wasn’t ideal.”

“I have always been a patient man, King.” Dominic looked at Vex, still writhing in pain on the floor. “When you’ve owned a fiend of Envy for as many years as I have, you learn that certain cravings just take more work to satisfy. It makes it all the sweeter once you finally get them.”

He stepped away from Natalya, making a dismissive gesture at Vex, who shuddered into stillness on the floor. She shivered, and black ichor ran out of her nose. When she sat up, her eyes flared scarlet.

“Isn’t it late for you, Varro?” Dominic flashed a grin as he returned to his desk. He stepped over the corpse as he did. “Or perhaps early would be the better word.”

Varro’s mouth went taut, though he kept smiling. The King of the Heartlands obviously didn’t like the warlock living in his estate.

“It is. But I wished to see her before I rested.” He looked back at Natalya. “Mr. Fane, could you establish contingencies? As you did with the others? This one looks particularly murderous.”

“Lust, you’ll obey the commands of Varro Visconti as though it was I who said them, save should a command ask you to harm me or another.” Dominic didn’t even look at Natalya as he spoke. “There, King. You’re free to do what you want with her.”

“I intend to.” Varro’s black eyes locked on Natalya’s with a different hunger than before. A more sickening one. Then he turned back to Dominic. “And I trust that allowance of use stays. As was agreed.”

“A deal is a deal. Even one that is delayed. My devils help you crush the Chains. In return, I get their fiends.”

Natalya glanced at the lesser Wrath fiend a few spots to her left. She imagined Drago in that position. The thought made her clench her hands into fists.

“I believe the deal was to crush my enemies , Mr. Fane,” Varro said tightly. “With Zahra moving her forces along my borders, the East Coast has made it clear they are part of that group.”

Dominic chuckled, not at all frightened of the vampire King glaring down at him with flaming eyes. This mortal man, who looked to be barely in his twenties, seemingly didn’t care.

Knowing he had a fiend of Envy under him, Natalya suspected his age was stolen. Envy could steal lives. It was likely she’d given many years to her Master.

“Once I get a greater Wrath fiend, the East Coast won’t stand a chance against us. With him and my other pearls, I can tear the world apart if I wish it.” Dominic smiled crookedly. “And I am so looking forward to that.”

“Destroying the world must come later,” Varro said stiffly. “First, my rest. Yours too, I would suspect.”

“It has been a long, exciting night. Tomorrow’s eve will likely be even more so.” Dominic’s eyes briefly trailed to Natalya as though considering whether to make use of his newest toy, as he’d said. Then he looked at the gray-eyed man sitting at the end of their lineup.