Page 44 of The Damned (Coven of Bones #3)

B EE L ZE B U B

The mask covering my face did absolutely nothing to hide my identity, not with the characteristic wings that adorned my back.

The staff who’d attempted to prepare me for the masquerade had been disgruntled to realize they had no clothing they could dress me in, nothing outside of a change to more formal pants.

They’d needed to hurry to cut the back of the dress shirt they were determined to force me into, hand-sewing it once it was over my wings and settled against my skin.

The feeling of fabric drove me crazy, the pinching and pulling and restrictiveness that I was so unused to.

The fabric tugged at my wings when I raised them higher, shifting them back and forth so I could attempt to free myself from the tightness of it.

“Lord Beelzebub,” a man’s voice said at my side as I watched the dance floor, looking desperately for Margot.

I had to believe they’d finished preparing her, given the complications in finding me something suitable to wear.

How long could it possibly take to ready an already beautiful woman for a ball?

“Mephistopheles,” I said, acknowledging the demon who had taken Mammon’s place.

He was his closest friend and he trusted him, but I found that very few who stepped in to fill the power vacuum when we left Hell had good intentions.

They saw the opportunity to ingratiate themselves to Lucifer, hoping He would expel the magic needed to make them into archdemons.

“Is Lord Mammon with you?” Mephistopheles asked, his eyes searching the crowd much like mine.

“No,” I grunted as the room went silent and still.

Those who had been dancing stopped mid-step, freezing in place as I watched them turn.

Margot’s siren call rang in my head, the memory of her song and the purity of that husky, melodic voice resounding as if I were hearing it for the first time again.

Turning slowly, I found her approaching from behind me, drawn to me in the same way I had been to her.

They’d dressed her in a gown of deep purple, the fabric shimmering with tiny sparks that looked like embers of a flame.

It was sheer where it played at the bottom of her legs, the delicate layering there shaped into individual feathers that cascaded down to the floor.

The dress was strapless, the center dipping lower to show a delicate line of cleavage.

Feathered white wings seemed to spring from her back, peeking over her shoulders as the edges burned away into the color of flames.

Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, a songbird caught unaware, she moved as if her body were fluid.

The grace in those movements was so much more than she’d ever allowed before, the full force of her allure striking me straight in the chest as her mahogany eyes glowed like the embers on her gown.

Whatever staff had prepared her had drawn the same iridescent scales on the side of her face, an illusion of makeup hinting at the power no one else here knew she possessed.

There’d been a time when the legends said the sirens were women who were half bird rather than half fish, and looking at Margot in this moment, I knew it could have easily been either, or both.

They’d pinned her hair back, trailing the scaled makeup down the sides of her delicate neck and onto her collarbones and the tops of her breasts.

Everyone else in the room wore a mask, their face adorned with delicate filigree and fabric meant to conceal for an evening.

But Margot stood in a mask of her own making that kept the vulnerable parts of herself hidden from view.

She was the most beautiful woman in the room, and in this moment, I had no doubt that Margot knew it.

For once, instead of fearing the power in that beauty, she leaned into it.

I took the last few steps toward her, closing the distance between us.

Though her lips didn’t move, I still heard the delicacy of that song in my head, still felt the pull of compulsion to close the distance between us once and for all, but knew it was driven by my own obsession with her.

Activity resumed through the room as I thought about how much I wanted to hear that song in real time again, the dancers stumbling as they struggled to pick up their dances mid-song.

“Dance with me,” I said, and Margot’s brow rose at the non-question as I took her hand and guided her into the center of the floor.

She surprised me when she nodded, raising a delicate hand to my shoulder.

She stared at the fabric covering my chest as if she didn’t know what to make of it, as if she hated having the shirt between our skin as much as I did.

Her hands were adorned with gleaming golden rings, my runes pulsing through the white of the dress shirt as I took her waist with my free hand.

I raised our joined hands to her shoulder level, holding them out as I stared down at her meaningfully, waiting for the song that was ending to come to a stop.

When it did, Margot took a deep breath, readying herself for something that was probably as close to singing as she could get in such a public place.

The next song began, and Margot followed my lead as I guided her through the steps.

Her movements were smooth and elegant, the definition of well-practiced beauty.

Where others went through the motions, Margot wore a wide smile, her joy at moving along the dance floor evident in every extension and line of her body when I spun her out and pulled her back in quickly.

I dipped her low, dragging my hand from her chin and down over the front of her throat, through the center of her breast, and to her stomach as I pulled her back up to stand.

Her eyes glowed like embers of a flame, burning away in that breathtaking face that had absolutely no right to be so fucking perfect.

Her lips parted to reveal the tiny gap between her two front teeth, her tongue peeking out to torment me as she laughed.

She was blissfully unaware of the audience that had formed, of those who stood at the periphery of the dance floor and watched her with greedy gazes, seeing her as something to be possessed, a treasure to be locked in the vault, when all I saw was a woman who was meant to fly.

Her skin pulsed with light, glowing from within like the iridescent scales painted on her skin as she fed, the sensuality of the dance and those watching her with lust and greed mixed into one twisted, tangled knot of sin offering her a feeding that she wouldn’t have taken willingly.

Still, she didn’t stop dancing, and I couldn’t bring myself to speak the warning.

To tell her that the risk of taking more magic into her system was another bloodletting, another release that she would forbid herself from having.

I could still hear the faint whisper of her song that she didn’t dare to voice, as if it lingered just beneath the surface, begging to be set free.

Her fear limited her, kept her locked within a cage of her own making. No matter what I did, I couldn’t be the one to turn the key.

Margot needed to be the one to free herself, to step outside that cage willingly and embrace all that she was and all that she could be. If I tried to tear her out of that little haven she’d crafted, I’d be no better than those who had abused her in the past.

So I spun her again, twirling her and watching the joy light the features of her face with the soft light that emanated from her like moonlight, longing for the day when she could be this free all the time.

Hoping more than anything that she would allow me to stand at her side when she did.