Page 104 of Lustling

The gates are flanked by pyre statues—living flames shaped like knights. They never move, but they always watch. As we pass, they flare brighter, like they know I don’t belong here anymore.

Bastion grimaces. “You’d think they’d update the decor.”

I grunt. “My father isn’t much for change.”

Just as we cross into the outer court, a voice slices through the haze behind us.

“Well, well. Look what the pit dragged in.”

I stop. Close my eyes. Count to three. Then turn.

Thorne.

A tall figure strolls forward, pale hair bound in silver rings, horns lacquered obsidian. Born of shadow and spite, Thorne is my half-brother in blood only. He thrives in ruin and watches from the cracks. And he never forgets a grudge.

“Didn’t think we’d see you back in Hell so soon,” he says with a grin, wings flicking open lazily. “Come to fetch your broken little succubus?”

My hands fist at my sides. Cassiel steps forward, but I stop him with a glance.

“I’m not here for you.”

“Pity. I had bets going. Thought you’d be sulking in the Wastes for another century.” His grin widens as he eyes Bastion, then Cassiel. “But look at you. You brought backup. How sweet.”

Before I can answer, another voice cuts in—cool, sharper, but not dripping venom like his.

“Thorne, enough.”

A woman emerges from the shadow of the colonnade. She’s leaner than him, her horns swept back and polished to silver sheen. Her hair falls like ink, her eyes a pale, luminous violet that miss nothing. Her armor is etched in sigils that smolder faintly in the heat.

“Serenya,” I mutter, exhaling. My older half-sister. My father’s eldest daughter.

Unlike Thorne, she doesn’t grin. She studies me with something colder, steadier—a quiet recognition that isn’t approval, but isn’t mockery either.

A second shadow moves behind her, tall but quieter. Her mate. He keeps a respectful distance, his posture a study in restraint. His eyes never leave her, not out of fear, but reverence. It’s obvious who holds the leash between them.

“Deimos,” she says simply. “Didn’t think you’d come back willingly.”

“Didn’t plan to,” I answer.

Thorne scoffs. “You always were dramatic.”

Serenya cuts him a look sharp enough to silence him. “Don’t you have somewhere else to lurk?”

He bares his teeth at her, but after a beat, he fades into shadow, muttering curses as he goes.

Her gaze returns to me. “If you’re going in, be careful. He’s been… restless.”

Restless. That’s her way of saying dangerous. Unstable. My father in his current state is like a fire that doesn’t burn clean—only smoke and poison.

I nod once. “I’m not here to pick a fight.”

Her lips twitch faintly. Not a smile, not quite. “That would be new.”

She doesn’t try to stop us. She just steps aside with her mate, letting us pass into the heat.

The air thickens the closer we get—charged with memory, with the kind of old magic that sticks to your lungs. The obsidian walls pulse with infernal sigils, casting flickers of molten light across our skin.

We’re almost to the doors. And then Cassiel drops.