Page 135 of Lustling

The guards who forced Deimos to his knees burn first. Their armor melts, fusing into their flesh as they scream. Their flesh sloughs from bone in sheets, falling wet and blackened onto the marble. Their skulls collapse into ash.

The nobles who watched in silence, who whispered and smirked as I was paraded in chains—the fire turns their jeweled crowns molten, liquefying gold into rivers that sear their faces down to bone. They shriek as their eyes boil in their sockets, as skin bubbles and bursts, until only smoldering skeletons remain slumped in velvet pews.

The stained-glass dome overhead shatters in the heat. Fragments of crimson and violet rain down like jagged jewels, slicing into the few still writhing on the floor. The throne itself cracks, obsidian splitting with a sound like the earth itself breaking.

Blood runs in rivulets down the steps, pooling into the carvings of conquest etched into the floor. The air fills with the reek of scorched flesh, molten metal, burning hair. Screams echo, overlap, then fall into silence one by one, swallowed by the storm.

When it ends, there is nothing left but ruin.

Only three remain untouched.

Deimos. Bastion. Cassiel.

They stand in the wreckage, framed by the ruined dome, the night sky bleeding through, starlight catching in the ash like constellations painted across the dead. Their eyes are locked on me—not with fear, not with horror. With recognition. With awe.

And me?

I stand at the center of the throne room, ankle-deep in ash, light blazing from my body, hunger satisfied, power unchained.

The choker has melted away, dripping down my throat in rivulets of cooling gold. The thorn crown lies shattered at my feet.

I am not a bride. I am not a victim.

I am retribution.

EIGHTY-ONE

Lillien is so fucking beautiful and powerful, my cock hardens in my pants. Light devours the ash around her, transmuting smoke into a halo that crowns her like a saint of ruin. Her dress is no longer just a cloth of crimson and gold—it is a smear of blood and ember clinging to skin that radiates divinity. The choker is gone, melted into a molten river of gold, running down her throat and chest like sacrament, like worship carved into flesh.

Everyone is gone—ash and smoke and ruin. Everyone except my brothers and our mate.

Her knees buckle, her body swaying like a flame about to gutter. For a heartbeat, the world stops breathing. Then Cassiel moves—swift as a blade drawn from prayer. He catches her before she hits the marble, gathering her against him like she’s made of glass instead of fire and fury.

A thin line of red slips from her nose, trailing down over her lips. It glows faintly in the light, holy and wrong all at once. My chest seizes.

“That’s too much power for you,” Cassiel rasps, his arm steady around her trembling frame. “Your body wasn’t made for angel fire like mine. We don’t know what it could do to you.”

She pants against him, breath ragged, the scent of ozone and blood curling through the air. Sweat glints at her temples, her lashes wet. But she smiles. That damned smile—soft, defiant, unbroken. She lifts her hand, her fingers shaking, and pats his cheek with a tenderness that makes my throat burn. Then she leans in, her lips brushing his, a fleeting kiss that tastes like iron and heaven.

When she pulls back, she whispers the words that split me open.

“I love you.”

Not just to him. To all of us.

Cassiel stiffens as he steadies her, helping her back to her feet.

That’s when I can’t hold myself back. My body doesn’t wait for thought. I cross the shattered marble in two strides, shards crunching underfoot, and rip her from his arms into mine.

“My mate,” I growl against her lips as I crush my mouth to hers. Her kiss answers with feral heat, with hunger that is both animal and holy. Her nails bite my skin, dragging me closer, deeper. “I love you.” I taste iron. Flame. Salt. Us.

My mate. My bride. Not his. Never his. Let all of Hell see what happens when they touch what belongs to me.

The thought flares through me like triumph, like rage, like something older than either. Not his. Never his. Let all of Hell see what happens when they touch what belongs to me.

The ruined chamber itself seems to tremble with it—until a sound cuts through the smoke.

Laughter. It threads into the silence like a blade through gauze. Soft, sharp, inevitable.