Page 8 of Malicent (Seven Devils #1)

Kalix places the glass down. With movements both subtle and fluid, his thumb finds the side of his silver coin ring. As he presses against it, a near invisible compartment clicks open.

Inside, an odorless, tasteless powder.

He doesn’t pause, doesn’t hesitate. With barely a whisper of motion, the contents disappear into the wine.

The ring clicks shut, and by the time he picks the wine glass up, poor Annabeth is already lost in him.

Kalix brings it to her lips again, and this time, she drinks greedily, fueling the fire burning in her stomach.

Kalix chuckles, amused at her eagerness. “Such a greedy girl.”

Her pupils dilate. The shift is subtle but unmistakable.

I move to their side in an instant. “Let’s get her somewhere quieter,” I say smoothly.

Kalix sets the wine down, taking Annabeth’s hand.

Always so easy.

The drug in her system is working fast, her body loose and her mind pliant. The thoughts are easy to sift through.

And, damn, she actually thinks Kalix is a suitor.

Sitting in her thoughts makes this job even easier. Poor girl is lost in some fairy tale. I think the Abyss would turn into a land of sun and rainbows before Kalix settled down with anyone.

Kalix doesn’t mix work and personal life. Never has. He’s emotionally unavailable, drowning in an obsession hole over someone just as emotionally unreachable. I don’t question it. Who am I to demand Kalix make sense of the situation for me?

I’m not one to judge. Obsession? Love? Whatever they were, I’d never felt them.

As we walk, I glance at Annabeth again. Cute. Soft. Easily Led. I have no doubt she’d obey anything I asked her, but she’s not my type. Too fragile. Too breakable.

I don’t make love. I don’t cuddle or coddle. Sex is a release, nothing more, and I have plenty to release.

Outside of some chick bouncing on my cock, what else was there? My lovers were one-night things, rarely revisited, because they couldn’t handle the darker side of me.

A short time later, we guide Annabeth through the crowded room, her steps light and unsteady. She doesn’t question us or give any resistance. The drug is still working. Good.

The cool night air greets us as we step onto the patio. The garden stretches out into seclusion. Perfect. No unwanted eyes.

Kalix leads her down into the path, the distant hum of music fading as we traverse the shadowed gardens. A stone bench waits beneath a trellis, vines curling over the frame like grasping fingers. We sit her down. A precaution.

Kalix squats in front of her, casual and relaxed. I stay standing next to him, arms crossed over my chest. Watching.

Annabeth lifts her gaze, and the moment her eyes find me, her entire body stiffens.

Fear. Pure, instinctive.

Nearly as tall as Kalix, I know what she sees. Bright silver eyes, unsettling and inhuman, are set in a face that offers no warmth. Black ink crawls up my throat curling over the edges of my tunic. My shoulder length hair falls in shaggy, unkempt waves, just unruly enough to hint at disorder.

Kalix smiles up at her. His expression still holds traces of amusement, but his eyes are sharp now. Focused.

Me? I don’t smile. I don’t need to.

Kalix places his hands on her knees—firm, steady, careful not to wander. He likes to make them flustered. It makes his job easier, just another part of his method.

“Annabeth,” he says, the charm gone from his voice, replaced by something colder, sharper. “Where is your father?”

She flinches. Her breath stutters. She tries to speak but chokes instead. Coughing, struggling, her body resisting the words forming on her tongue.

Her frantic gaze flicks between us, realization dawning on her in a slow, creeping horror.

She can’t lie.

Annabeth gasps, throat tightening like a noose. She claws at her collarbone, desperate for air.

“He is at the guest house,” she chokes out.

Kalix doesn’t let up. “Doing what? Why the secrecy?”

Her body convulses with another attempt to resist, but the drug doesn’t allow for hesitation. Her lungs constrict.

Annabeth is learning quickly.

Her face turns a deeper shade of red. Panic arises with every shuddering breath until—

She breaks.

“He will not tell me exactly what he does,” she blurts, the words spilling out in desperation. “But there are times, sometimes hours, when he disappears there. He doesn’t always come back the same.”

Her fingers tighten in her lap. “Sometimes he seems…off. Shaken. I worry about him, but I’m supposed to tell no one!”

The realization of what she said hits her all at once.

“That’s enough.” My voice cuts through the night air.

Annabeth flinches.

“You did well, Annabeth.” I take a measured step forward, silver light flaring in my eyes as my power bleeds into the air. Shadows shift—thickening, stretching, responding to my call. “Forget this conversation. Forget our faces— or else .”

Kalix rises. His voice, sharp and commanding, leaves no room for argument.

“Off with you now.”

Annabeth bolts from the bench, nearly tripping in her haste. Her fear is now a tangible thing in the air. She won’t stop running until she’s back in the safety of the ballroom.

It would be of little consequence if she told someone, anyway. Even if she told someone, what could they do?

I am the black mage. The title alone demands fear, commands silence. The strongest mage of our time. The only one who has a bonded dragon.

No one would dare challenge me.

The hunger stirs.

A familiar voice—a whisper, a temptation, a need.

Unstoppable. Take it all. Have it all.

Use it just one more time.

The darkness coils through me like a drug, sliding over my skin as if waiting to be fed. Just one hit, one pulse of power, and I’d feel it again.

Raw. Consuming. Limitless.

The idea is intoxicating.

The need unbearable.

Power always comes at a price. And you never truly know the cost until it’s too late.

A sharp finger snap slices through my thoughts.

Kalix.

He must sense the monster in me awakening. His eyes are on me, steady and unyielding.

“Put it on a leash. We have a job to finish,” he warns, his voice low and firm. No patience for argument here.

He turns on his heel, cutting through the shadows of the garden, boots grinding against scattered cobblestone. The path ahead leads to the guest house, looming like an omen in the distance.

I shake my head and follow Kalix, pushing the hunger back down. Burying it. Black mages were never part of creation.

Our origins are unclear, lost to time and half-truths. The old texts claim that we were never meant to exist. It’s accepted that our magic formed as a response, an answer to the ever-growing power of witches. An evolutionary necessity.

Maybe that’s true; maybe it isn’t.

But I know this: there is something inside me.

It wakes, restless and starving.

What am I?

I’ve never had a single apprentice complain of a presence in their veins, whispering of its hunger. They call me Cage, Lord Black, or the first mage to the king of the South. A respected warrior. Protector of people.

If only they knew this is just a mask, a skin, I wear.

What would they think of what dwells beneath if they knew the truth of what I am?

The evil within has surfaced countless times. It drove me to wander, to destroy, to seek power. And no matter how much I took, it was never enough.

Nothing was ever enough.

I hungered for more. Fuck, I was starving for more. Always more.

Even now, restraint is a daily battle. Time has made managing the monster easier, but it was very much still alive.

It’s still there. Watching. Waiting. Tempting.

And, gods, it is ever so tempting. Sometimes, when I spiral too deep into the depths of my being or when I become the thing that lurks down there, I wonder if Nora was right.

Maybe the Coven was right .

Maybe their lessons, their punishments, their chains really did protect people from me.

For a time, I believed it.

Then I sober up. And I remember the manipulation and the hours of torture. Every “special” lesson, every scar, served one purpose: for Nora to gain control.

Not to help me. Not to save me. To own me.

I fall into step behind Kalix, watching the tree line and the rooftops, waiting for the first sign of a new player in our game.

My vision is sharper in the dark than most. A gift from whatever dark force sired my magic. The night is clear and sharp, nearly as visible as if it were bathed in sunlight. But distance is my limit. The further away I try to focus, the more the details blur.

A shift. A whisper.

Something stirs ahead, not seen but felt. My magic awakens of its own will, coiling at the edges of my skin, recognizing a darkness I cannot yet see.

The guest house looms in the distance. The small, forest green cottage is almost black under the cover of night.

Then I reach the door.

Awareness slices into me. A sharp pull. A whisper of instinct.

A warning.

“You are going to want to cover as much skin as possible.” My voice is a low growl, almost lost in the thickening air. The argent glow of my eyes intensifies, bleeding silver light into the dark.

And the house changes.

Its true color reveals itself beneath my gaze.