Page 29 of The Damned (Coven of Bones #3)

“That is no mere lust,” Amelia said with a soft chuckle. “Look deeper. Feel what they feel.”

I raised my hand to the glass of the window, pressing my palm against it. I reached out with trembling fingers, sending my magic coursing through the pane and into the gardens so that I could feel their connection. It was different than what I’d come to know of lust, warmer somehow.

Like the comfort of a fire in the hearth during winter. It was not the hot, balmy passion of sweat-slicked bodies, but something stronger that tickled at my senses.

“What is it?” I asked, flinching back from Amelia’s shocked gasp.

“It is love, Margot. That is our light. That is the true purpose of the magic of the Reds, not the lust we use against our enemies, but the love we can use to make the world a better place. Happy people who are in love with both themselves and their life partner do not feel the need to harm others. Love can inspire great change,” Amelia answered, and my gaze dropped to where she ran her fingers over my wrists.

The skin shifted as she pressed her magic into it, the indentations of rope revealing themselves to her.

My binding.

“Do all in the Coven bear these marks?” she asked, her jaw clenching as she guided me back to the chair and set me in front of the mirror once again.

“I don’t think so. Only the Tribunal heirs,” I said, considering what my mother had revealed in our brief conversation before everything went to shit.

“I am not familiar with the magic of bindings, but I do know that only the person who bound you can unknot your magic—”

“And if he’s dead?” I asked, suddenly horrified by the implication of what that binding meant. I’d never been in love, never felt an inkling of that heavy emotion or even recognized it in others. Had Itan taken that from me, too?

“Then it would take something very powerful to snap those bonds,” she said sadly, hanging her head forward for a moment as she fiddled with my hair once again.

I swallowed, picking at my fingernails as my gaze dropped to them. I felt my face twist, trying to find the words to communicate how her story and revelations had left me feeling. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Because I see a little of myself in you, Margot. You’re afraid of what you are, and until the day comes when you learn to love yourself, you’ll never be able to come into the power that those bonds took from you.

I can feel your magic simmering away inside of you.

It’s trapped there and it is going to overwhelm you.

You’re a ticking time bomb, and it will eventually explode if you don’t embrace it and release it regularly,” she said, stepping around the chair.

“I understand that it is more complicated than it should be with you cut off from the Source, and the lighter side of the magic that would have offered some balance to all that darkness, but that understanding will not change your fate.” She set to doing my makeup, continuing on through the process of preparing me to join the festivities downstairs even though I wanted nothing more than to stay locked within this room.

“You don’t understand. I can’t stand being touched—”

“There are ways around that. Your own pleasure is a release, and it does not matter if it comes at your own hand if that is what you choose.” I protested, and she held up a hand to silence me before she continued on.

Pleasure was not something I had any interest in for myself, refraining from it entirely for fear of what would happen to me once I opened that door.

“You can plant visions of pleasure into the minds of others while barely touching them if that is easier for you. If you feed their release, it will release some magic for you as well. But be mindful here, Asmodeus’s magic has a numbing effect on us.

It can strip away our inhibitions and make us far more susceptible to the pull of lust. For what it’s worth, it may be worth taking advantage of that numbness for a night. ”

“Okay,” I murmured, stilling when she returned with a red gloss to paint my lips.

“Either way, Asmodeus will not allow you to pass through to the Third Circle without giving something to the magic. I suspect Beelzebub is attempting to convince him as we speak, but Asmodeus will not be swayed to go against the rules. He never is,” she said, taking my hands and guiding me to stand.

I nodded my understanding, trying to think of what I could do that wouldn’t require what I could not give. What I could give of lust without spiraling into a tunnel of grief and trauma.

“Now,” Amelia said, stepping back to grab a deep red dress off a hanger in the closet. She carried it over, and I quirked a brow. “Let’s get you dressed.”

I nodded, stepping behind the privacy partition in the corner of the room before I stripped off the clothes that Beelzebub had given me in Purgatory. “I don’t have any other undergarments,” I said, shucking everything into a pile I stacked neatly at the side of the partition.

“That’s alright. They aren’t allowed downstairs,” Amelia said, making me twist my lips in annoyance.

Fucking rules.

She handed the dress around the edge of the partition, leaving me to pull it over my head.

The straps were so thin they dug into the tops of my shoulders, the square neck dipped low.

It hugged me through the stomach and hips, falling in an asymmetrical hem that skimmed the tops of my thighs.

From there the fabric shifted to lace and fell to my knees, leaving far more revealed than I would have liked, but the necessities were covered.

It wasn’t lost on me that it was far more modest than the rest of the dresses I’d seen and what Amelia herself wore, and I couldn’t help but feel gratitude for that at least.

I stepped out from behind the partition, watching as Amelia’s mouth spread into a wide grin. “He doesn’t stand a chance against you,” she said, her face lighting with the delight of a challenge.

“Who?” I asked, allowing her to take my arm and guide me to the door of her bedroom.

She laughed, the sound full and hearty without a hint of the seductiveness I’d found watching her earlier. “Oh, this is going to be fun .”