Page 36

VHEX

Mother. Fucking. Bat. FUCKER .

Hellfire boils through my veins, undoing all that sweet sexual healing.

My cut-off silks seethe.

She’s gone.

“AZRID!” I toss a fireball at the last wisp of shadow fading through my wall.

The flames slide off stone and pool around my claw-tipped toes.

The shadows snicker.

Azrid’s shitty voice nips at my ear. Don’t touch my Guide with your filthy venom.

“ Mine ,” I hiss.

She’s the only fucking one strong enough to save me from myself.

She’s THE ONE.

Maybe like the woman who brought the devil king to his knees—the one who who took his venom for years without caving to the hellfire’s burn.

Trezzoran was THE devil king, spawned into our world. Then he fell for my ancestor. Family lore says he fucking happily accepted her chains.

I didn’t get it.

Now I do.

She tamed the monster like Iris is taming me.

Iris is mine.

Not Azrid’s.

Not anyone else’s.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

Mine.

MINE.

Already bit her, I snarl through layers of rock, tracking his shitty shadows.

Azrid doesn’t answer, but he can’t hide her from me for long.

I’m in her veins.

I sense her. Deep underground.

My fists light up as I attack a crack between the floor stones.

Rock by fucking rock, I tear through the ground.

My knuckles bleed, burn, rip their scabs, then bleed some more.

I can’t feel pain when I’m heading to her.

My wife.

My firefly.

My blissful fucking doom.

I grin through showers of fire and rock shards, digging closer to hell where I belong.

I can’t rip out my own fang.

Nothing’s stopping me from ripping out Azrid’s.