Page 36 of The Damned (Coven of Bones #3)

B EE L ZE B U B

I snagged the bottle of Brimstone off the bar counter, ignoring the demon who glared at me for the theft.

He backed down quickly enough, his ranking in Hell far too low to go toe-to-toe with an archdemon on Asmodeus’s behalf.

I had no doubt he would report my infraction to my brother in arms, but I couldn’t have cared less.

I already felt the need to make sure I was with Margot at all times, a deep pulsing obsession that rivaled even the greatest of my gluttonous urges.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t recognized the symptoms of my newest obsession, but I’d never had a person occupy that space within me.

Knowing that she was one second away from snapping?

From losing every tendril of control that kept her from giving in to the darkest parts of magic that would make her a mindless, careless creature of nothing but impulse and urge?

She would never forgive herself for it, and yet she couldn’t seem to be convinced of the advantages of taking her own releases. Of giving herself the pleasure that would satiate at least the most violent of urges and enable her to maintain that careful balance of control without risking herself.

I picked an empty corner of the room, dropping down onto the love seat. It stunk of sex, and I had little doubt that whoever had occupied it before me hadn’t been gone for long. I fidgeted uncomfortably, avoiding touching the cushion with my bare hands.

Gross.

Amelia approached, a sly smile on her face as her stare dropped from my face and the bottle in my hands to the wet stain on my pants. I’d been in such a hurry to get away from Margot, to not have to witness her self-inflicted pain, that I hadn’t stopped to think about what had happened.

She’d made me come in my pants like a schoolboy, and now I wore the signs of that in the middle of a fucking orgy.

Even worse, I’d been happy to do it, knowing that it was a step in the right direction.

I hoped my restraint would help convince her that I was not only not under her spell, but also that she could trust me to protect her consent even when her magic tried to convince her to act outside of it.

“Did you and our little Red witch enjoy yourselves?” she asked, her nose lifting as she scented the air—no doubt smelling Margot on me.

Amelia had always been a little more… animalistic than the other original witches, her magic so steeped in primal reactions and base urges that it seemed to pull her a little more toward the wildness in her blood.

“Didn’t even get my damn pants off,” I mumbled, tossing back a swig of the fire whiskey.

It burned the entire way down my throat, warming the parts of me that had chilled as Margot’s magic wore off.

While I wasn’t immune to the other sins around me, they couldn’t strike as deep as they would have with someone who belonged to them and the effects didn’t last outside the moment.

“I hope Margot enjoyed herself thoroughly. That poor girl needed the release desperately,” Amelia said, her soft smile telling me that she saw straight into whatever power Margot held contained inside her.

“With her magic bound within her as it is, she cannot give the excess back to the Source. She just keeps absorbing over and over again, making her need for orgasm all the more important to her control over her power and her form.”

I winced, hating that I needed to be the one to give her the bad news, to share that I hadn’t been able to convince Margot to let out her power. “She wouldn’t let me…” I trailed off.

Amelia stilled, that soft smile falling from her face as she jerked her head back. “Surely you’re kidding. Please tell me you did not leave her unsatisfied!”

“If I’d forced it, I would have been no better than him.

She said no, repeatedly. What was I supposed to do, Amelia?

I won’t force myself on her when she isn’t ready,” I said, standing from the love seat.

I set the bottle of whiskey on the side table, pulling at the ends of my hair. “She made her wishes clear.”

“I don’t accept that,” Amelia said, spinning on her heel.

She turned back for her bedroom, leaving me with no choice but to follow after her.

I had to hope I could mitigate the violence swirling around her, keep her from doing something that would hurt Margot in the end.

Racing up the stairs, I followed after her with slower steps thanks to my longer stride.

She paused at the top of the stairs suddenly, a complete contradiction to the urgency with which she’d been determined to reach Margot.

“There is something you should know about her, before you get in too deep.”

I went cold, all the warmth leaching from my body at the severity of those words. She’d told me to go after Margot only an hour prior, was the catalyst that made me realize exactly what this was.

Now I was in too deep?

“What?” I asked, allowing her to grab me by the arm and pull me away from the people lingering nearby.

“At some point in her life, Margot’s magic was bound through a ritual by another witch.

She is cut off from the Source, and that means all that magic stays trapped within her.

It twists and writhes and becomes dark when that happens.

That means that she cannot connect to the lightness of the Reds.

She can’t feel love, Beelzebub. Until her bonds are broken, she won’t be able to love you back.

She can be drawn to you and feel a certain tug and comfort in your presence, but she isn’t capable of recognizing that emotion.

She didn’t even know what it was when she was staring at a couple who were very much in love.

That emotion—romantic love—is lost to her for the time being,” she explained.

I nodded, because even though it was a revelation and Amelia meant it to be, it also wasn’t.

I understood Margot better for it now. It wasn’t so much that my songbird wanted to deny her feelings for me, she just simply didn’t know how to put them to words.

She didn’t know how to recognize them for what they were.

She couldn’t choose to love me until we released her from her binding.

Loving her would come with pain until then; it would come with rejection and a lack of understanding, but she’d be worth it. “I understand,” I said.

“There’s more. Because Margot has so much magic stored up within her, we both know that she is barreling toward an explosion.

When her body takes over, that darkness will claim her form.

I haven’t felt power like Margot possesses since the first generations of Reds,” Amelia explained, but I knew as well as she did that she was dancing around the real admission.

The implication of what all that power might mean for Margot.

“What are you saying?”

“If Margot were to lose control of her magic completely, I believe she’ll shift into her siren form,” she said finally. “And I don’t know that she’d ever be able to come back from it.”

“A witch with a siren form hasn’t existed for centuries,” I said, my voice trailing off. The thought that Margot might become so mindlessly lost to the magic of lust that she fed on those around her until they died would be a fate worse than death for her.

Fuck.

“The bloodlines have been diluted over time. The magic spread too thin as the population grew, but Margot takes it in and keeps it forever. She has this well of power that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen.

It’s unnatural, and it is going to destroy the woman you know.

There is not a doubt in my mind that she cannot remember a day where she wasn’t in pain because of it.

You have to convince her to help herself, to find a way to release it slowly,” she said, turning from me finally and shoving the door to her bedroom open.

Amelia turned for the bathroom, the sound of running water reaching through the closed door. It was unlocked when I turned the knob, stepping into the room to find Margot huddled in the corner of the shower, her legs curled into her chest.

I swung open the door, stepping into the shower without care for the icy water plunging down my back. Touching a hand to Margot’s forehead, I gasped as I pulled back. “She’s burning up,” I said, looking to Amelia for help.

“Bring her to the bedroom,” she said, and I did as I was told.

Margot’s dress was plastered to her body as I lifted her from the shower floor, the shivers that racked her frame sinking into mine.

She was so hot to the touch, as if the magic inside her were burning her from the inside out.

I lowered her to the mattress, barely having time to straighten before Amelia pressed the tip of a blade to Margot’s chest. She carved a line down the center, stopping when I reached out to take the knife at Margot’s pained whimper.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked, ignoring Amelia’s glare as Margot turned eyes to me that had bled to black.

The hint of scales at the edge of her face made me swallow, coming face-to-face with the siren that lurked within her—confirmation of Amelia’s suspicions.

Her cheeks had gone gaunt, her features narrowing as the scent of blood drew her more monstrous form to the surface of her body.

Margot’s own fingers curled, the edges of black talons protruding from her nail beds as Amelia continued cutting through her chest, drawing a perfectly straight line.

Blood slid over her skin, permeating the air with something heady and smelling of sin.

“There is magic in blood,” Amelia said, dipping a finger into the blood.

She held it out to me as Margot’s eyes rolled back, sleep claiming her and saving her from the agony I’d left her in.

She rubbed it on my arm, the heat of arousal spreading over me immediately.

It drew a groan from me, my body immediately hardening with the need to fuck.

Was this what Margot lived with daily?

Fuck.

“That should ease some of her pain for now, but it’s a bandage for a situation that has no resolution if she doesn’t help herself. She’s going to lose control, Beelzebub, and it’s going to happen soon,” Amelia said, heading for the door with a sad look back at Margot.

“How much time does she have before…?”

“I really couldn’t say. It could be days, could be a week.

You have to get through to her, and you have to do it fast. For tonight, do yourself a favor and go find something to fuck that out of your system.

I know I’m going to,” she said, nodding to the blood on my arm and leaving the room.

I took the seat beside the bed where Margot slept, not daring to touch her body with the magic now coating my skin and making me feel hornier than I could ever remember being.

She was so peaceful, so quiet. I didn’t want to fill the air with anything that might disturb that.

So I sat there in silence and bore the weight of her magic in her place.