Page 103 of Lustling

The collar hums, satisfied, like it knew what I was trying.

I sag back against the column, breath ragged, my vision swimming. My nails scrape uselessly over the metal, but it doesn’t loosen. It never does.

I am starving.

So I watch. I endure. I let the ache hollow me out as they tremble and cry out for him, as he tips his head back and sighs—beautiful and cruel and smug in his satisfaction.

And I take nothing. No sustenance. No relief.

Only the sharp ache of want, sharpened to a knife’s edge.

And when the second woman climbs onto him and begins again, when the throne pulses with the weight of their ritual and I feel his gaze still locked on me, unwavering, unmoved, I realize?—

This isn’t about pleasure. This is punishment. He knows I’m dying.

And he wants me to know I’m dying because of what I chose. Because I dared to love someone else. Because they dared to love me back.

The second woman cries out, arching like a wave breaking, and Zepharion lets her. Lets her moan and shake and weep. And when he finally follows—groaning low, hand tangled in her hair, eyes still locked on mine—I break.

Not out loud. Not visibly. But something in me splits.

Silently. Cleanly. A crack across the heart of who I am.

And when it’s over, when the women collapse on either side of him like satisfied dolls, when he strokes their backs with lazy affection, he speaks again.

“See, petal?” His voice is molten. Mocking. “There are other ways to live.”

I don’t answer. Because if I do, I’ll scream.

SIXTY-FOUR

Before we meet with my father, we stop at Velora’s tower—a spire of midnight vines and wind chimes made from bones too delicate to be human. She waits in her garden, barefoot, wearing a crown of curling silver thorns. Her eyes shimmer—half-feral, too knowing.

“The prodigal prince returns,” she drawls, tilting her head as we approach.

“Just visiting,” I say, folding my arms. “Any chance you know where my father is?”

Velora hums, brushing a hand over a blossom that opens with a shiver. “Last I heard, he was back at the Crown. Sulking. Playing at thrones and grudges.”

“Good,” I mutter.

As I turn to go, her voice stops me.

“Deimos.”

I glance back.

“You owe me.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” I say. “I’m just… preoccupied with finding my mate.”

Her smile softens, just a little. “Then go. Find her. But when she’s safe—when the ash clears—I’ll want to collect.”

I nod once. Then we vanish into the heat. The scent of brimstone hits before we even see the palace.

Velora calls it The Crown Below—a mockery of the celestial halls it once tried to rival. Where heaven builds cathedrals from starlight and glass, this place drips obsidian and bone. The spires pierce the underbelly of Hell’s sky like black fangs, and the heat rolls in thick waves, humming with the kind of magic that remembers how to bleed.

We land just outside the outer gates, the three of us cloaked in travel dust and tension. Cassiel holds a steady pace behind me, silent but sharp-eyed. Bastion stays close on my left, jaw tight.