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Match Made in the Seventh Hell

EMILIA

B ianca and Cassiopeia laughed as they watched my face. They let go of my arms, Cassiopeia shoving me forward.

“Greetings and salutations, little Morningstar,” Venus chirped in her uppity voice. “We haven’t formally met, you and me. The pleasure is yours.”

Destiny’s chest rose and fell, fury scorching in her eyes.

“Try anything and I’ll slit your throat to the bone, sparky,” Venus warned her.

“What do you want?” I forced the words out. My chest had a bag of sand pressing on it. Frost formed on the tips of my fingers, the cold power inside of me longing to be unleashed.

“I just want to talk,” Venus insisted, her voice sickeningly sweet. She stood tall in her platform boots, long legs clad in fishnets, her outfit a short leather skirt and tight crop top. All red. Glistening crystals dangling from silver chains drenched her neck, wrists, midriff, and hair.

“We have to talk like this?” I rasped, coughing still.

“Duh. See, I don’t know you, so I don’t trust you. I’ve come to find people are a lot more honest when they—or someone they love—has a blade to the throat. Something about imminent death really summons the truth, you know? So, yes. We have to talk like this. Are you going to make it a bigger problem?”

I swallowed. Enough blood had been shed. Despite Destiny giving me the finish-her eyes, I said, “Tell me what you want.”

“I want to know everything you know about Solaris Adder.”

My brows narrowed. “Seriously?”

Venus pressed the dagger harder into Destiny’s flesh. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

I shook my head, eyes wide. This was not how I thought I’d be spending my night.

“He’s a monster,” I offered.

Her eyes remained hard on me. “Go on.”

In Venus’s hold, Destiny was about to blow. Embers lit her eyes, her chest still heaving, and I knew her fire was clawing at her insides like a caged lion. And while St. Claire may have deserved it, I couldn’t take any more fighting right now.

“I’ll tell you everything I know. Let Destiny go. We can talk like civil creatures.”

She regarded me silently for a moment before saying, “If either of you try anything cute, I will kill you both.”

I’d never heard a death threat sound so much like a sweet nothing.

“We won’t,” I said. “Let her go.”

Another loll of silence. We stared into each other’s eyes in the dim light. I couldn’t read her face. I wondered if she could read mine.

She released Destiny. Pushed her away and twirled the blade. My best friend seethed as she joined me at the bottom of the stairs. I waited for her to explode like Nyx would, but to my surprise and her credit, she didn’t.

“Talk, little Morningstar.” Venus’s voice rang through the Sphere, poised but hard.

“What exactly about him do you want to—”

Her black dagger came at me, fast and spinning.

Saved by a primal instinct to duck, the weapon zoomed over my head. I felt the freaking wind of it. My heart tumbled as it clashed somewhere behind us.

“I said EVERYTHING, bitch!” Venus cried. “I’m losing my patience!”

“Okay, okay, okay!” I rose to my feet, hands up in surrender. I couldn’t tell her everything , but I could satiate her with a vague outline. “He was in a prison realm. Somehow, he Astral Snatched Nyx right before classes started. Her fire burned him free. Once he was out, he started blackmailing her. He had something on her—I don’t know what. Nyx hardly tells me anything. Basically, he manipulated her into fighting him at the Clash. I don’t know what happened to them after the vampire attack.”

She glared at me. “Was he Compelling her?”

I frowned. “Can Celestials be Compelled?”

“Apparently,” Venus replied darkly. “So, was he?”

“I have no idea. I don’t think so.”

“How did he manipulate her, then?”

My tongue was dry. “I don’t—”

“You’re being a lot more useless than I thought you would be,” Venus interrupted, leaning on one long leg as she assessed me. “Would you like to take another ride in a water tornado? Because I’m sure Cassi and B would be happy to oblige.

Her two henchwomen snickered, taking a step closer to me in warning.

Destiny was eerily silent.

“I can tell you’re holding out on me, little Morningstar. Don’t bother. As much as I hate to say it, we’re on the same side. I have my own personal reasons to want that shadow demon vanquished. I know that Nyx is somehow bound to him, though I don’t know exactly how…”

“Isn’t he, like, your boyfriend?” Destiny piped up.

Venus’s cold, guarded stare sliced to my friend and brimmed with something that looked a lot like vengeance. “No. He is, like, not .”

“Wait,” I said, a lightbulb going off. “Was Solaris Compelling you ?”

She didn’t have to say anything for it to click as the truth. It was clear on her face and in the air itself.

Their relationship had been entirely warped and unsettling. I hadn’t thought it could have been because it wasn’t real.

Venus checked her nails and shrugged. “No point in denying it, I guess. Yeah, that fucker Compelled me. I moved to Europe to escape this cesspool of a city. I had absolutely no desire to come back and join this broken, feeble coven.”

Destiny and I shared a wide-eyed glance. Venus St. Claire had come here because of Solaris?

“He kidnapped me! Compelled me to enroll in this bullshit academy and start a pathetic, juvenile war with your sister. Compelled me to pose as his girlfriend . I don’t even like men!” She shuddered before moving forward, her brown eyes lit as she took a step down the stairs of the Elemental Ring. “I don’t know how or why, but after the Clash, the Compulsion dropped. I’m no longer under his control.”

I stayed rooted in place, and soon she was right in front of me. Tall and gorgeous, as ethereal as she was intimidating. “This is your one and only chance to be on my side, little Morningstar. Whatever he’s done to Nyx, I know it’s bad, and I know you want to help her. He has her right now, doesn’t he?” She read my face which apparently had the truth written all over it because she clicked her tongue and nodded, a knowing look in her eyes. “He wanted a war—he’s getting one. Help me take him down.”

The silence between us had a heady charge to it.

I was backed into a corner. If I said no, there would be mayhem. No way could Destiny and I take on the three of them. I needed time to think—to contemplate my options. But I didn’t have time. Her eyes were nearly burning me to the ground as she waited for my response.

“Why should we trust you?” Destiny interjected, her dark eyebrows narrowed into a dramatic V. “You were just threatening to kill us. And this isn’t the first time you’ve attacked us.”

Venus smirked, looking my best friend up and down. “Isn’t that how all great alliances start? You cannot beat me. So, join me.”

I bit my lip, desperately racking my brain for something to say.

Venus’s face crumpled into a grimace. “Do you seriously have to think about it? Are you stupid? What in the seven hells are you two fledglings going to do to help your sister escape this beast? If it were the other way around, she’d already have freshly applied lipstick and a diabolical plan to get you back. You don’t have a fucking clue what to do, I can see it on your face. Last chance to stand with me.”

What choice did I have? Without Natalia, Venus was right. I had zero clue what to do.

“Fine,” I muttered.

Destiny’s neck snapped in my direction. I ignored her.

A smug look swathed Venus’s features. She folded her arms over her chest. “Good. But you failed your first test, I’m afraid. I did not expect you to actually come tonight. I mean, who in the seven hells trusts a note slipped under their door in the middle of the night? If you are truly that gullible, perhaps I don’t want to align after all.”

“We’re not stupid. We thought it was Nyx,” Destiny shot back. “At least, I did.”

Venus’s expression softened. Slightly . “Fine. But don’t make that mistake again. Trust no one and nothing.”

I scoffed, eyes roving over my new ‘ally’. “I’m way ahead of you.”

She stepped closer, erasing the space between us. I gasped a little, her closeness as overwhelming as the aroma of cherry incense wafting off of her. She grabbed a lock of my dark hair, grinning to herself. “Something tells me we’re going to be a match made in the Seventh Hell.”

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Destiny accused as we walked down the long hallway, making our way to Michael’s tower.

My heart hadn’t stopped racing since we left the Sphere. Destiny grilling me just faded into background noise. I wanted to talk to my mother. Damn her! I couldn’t believe she’d left me high and dry, just like she did to Nyx. Guilty as it made me feel, my mother and I had always had a sort of okay relationship. She’d never been as cold to me as she was to my sister. In a way, my mother had been…sweet to me. Distant, but sweet. When I was little, at least. I couldn’t believe she would abandon me like this.

None of this felt real.

I didn’t have my mother or my sister. I didn’t trust the Luminary or the Priestesses. My faith in the Goddess wavered.

Everything was just dark.

“Emilia!” Destiny cawed, coming to a halt. Her fingers snaked around my wrist and tugged me to face her. “Dude, hello? Are you even listening?”

I sucked in a breath and lifted a shoulder. “I’m sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”

I turned to keep walking, but she grabbed me again, harder this time.

“If you want me to watch over you while you risk your consciousness by Dreamwalking again, you better tell me what’s really going on. Something happened after you went back to the stadium. Tell me!”

“Please don’t do this,” was all I could say.

She regarded me with disappointment in her eyes. “Seriously?”

“I’ll tell you,” I lied. “Just not right now. Please, can we just focus on getting Natalia back? She’ll know what to do—about all of it.”

“Fucking hell.” She dropped my wrist and stalked forward, leaving me behind.

I quickly caught up with her, feeling like absolute ass about this. But it was done. Neither of us spoke again. The narrow, gilded halls were daunting in the candlelight, shadows dancing in a nightmarish fashion over us as we passed. When we reached the staircase to the tower, she moved aside and let me go first.

Hot blood pumped loudly from my heart. No matter how many times I ascended these spiral stairs, facing the boy who awaited me always had a storm of butterflies desperately trying to escape my stomach.

Those butterflies dropped dead as we reached the top.

The Luminary was the one waiting for us; Michael nowhere to be seen. A hard, knowing look blazed in her turquoise eyes. She let the suspense fester before folding her hands behind her back and saying, “The boy has been relocated. He is now under the care of the Chancellors, at Veneficus.”

“ What ? But he—”

“This is what is best for him,” the Luminary insisted. “Mortal as he may be, he is a male who possesses magical abilities. He needs to be with his own kind, to learn how to hone his gifts. Not here, being used.”

She may as well have slapped me across the face.

She didn’t relent, either. The Luminary’s eyes were fixed stoically on mine as she said, cooly, “Emilia, you need to come with me.”