Page 50 of The Damned (Coven of Bones #3)

M A R G O T

My skin felt too sensitive after the hot shower that had washed all of Beelzebub’s blood away.

He’d insisted we get changed and move on from the Fifth Circle, wanting to arrive in the next before we rested for the night.

I didn’t dare to ask what his hesitation was with staying here, but I had the sinking suspicion I already knew.

The memory of Satanus’s lack of emotion as Beelzebub died was fresh on my mind, and I wondered what the story was there.

He helped me slip into a change of clothes, gliding the pants over my legs.

I’d been tempted to resist, but it seemed foolish now that he’d seen everything there.

I flushed as he stood, smirking as his unblemished body moved toward the door.

He didn’t have a single scar, his form completely free from wounds or any indication that he’d been so gravely injured. Mine wasn’t so free of marks, the skin around my wrists raw and irritated from where the ropes had snapped free.

Beelzebub’s eyes strayed to them, a question in that gaze that I refused to answer. The memory of Amelia telling him that I’d been bound was hazy in my memory, but his gaze was warm and understanding.

“How?” he asked, voicing the question I’d hoped he would allow me to avoid. Admitting to my feelings, admitting I was no longer trapped in my unfeeling cycle was not something I was ready to do.

“It happened when you were dying,” I admitted, wincing because even that felt too close to an admission. I didn’t know what to do with the new feelings swirling inside of me, with the warmth I felt every time he looked at me.

I didn’t know how to do any of this.

Beelzebub nodded, an understanding smile crossing his face. “I’ll be here, whenever you’re ready to let me in, songbird,” he said, stepping closer and touching his mouth to my forehead sweetly. It warmed me more than normal, sinking into my gut and making my skin tingle with goose bumps.

How had I gone through my life without ever feeling this ?

“Where’s my scythe?” he asked, stepping back and looking around the room as if trying to connect the pieces. “How did you get me here? The last I remember, we were still in the path between the pit of souls.”

I swallowed, wringing my hands as I studied him intently. I didn’t know how this news would be taken, and it made me nervous to be honest. “Satanus took your scythe when he rescued you from the pit,” I said, wincing when his muscles seemed to freeze solid.

“Satanus pulled me out?” he asked, his voice low. His frame was tense, his shoulders raised high as he closed the distance between us. He cupped my cheeks in his hands, staring down at me intently. “Did he also bring me here?”

I swallowed, nodding my agreement.

His eyes shuddered closed. “Tell me you didn’t,” he said, his voice pleading. His forehead touched mine, the pleading in his eyes striking me in the heart. In the same place he’d torn in two. I couldn’t bear to be the reason for that expression on his face, no matter what he thought of me.

“Didn’t what?” I asked, smiling up at him as I tried to play it off.

But I knew enough about demons, and Beelzebub had warned me enough to know what he meant.

I’d made a bargain, and I would one day be beholden to whatever terms Satanus set forth.

One day, I’d have to give him whatever he wanted in exchange for saving Beelzebub’s life, and even though it made anxiety churn in my gut, I couldn’t regret it.

He stood before me, whole and unharmed, and for that it was a price I would willingly pay.

“Tell me you didn’t make a deal with him,” he said, his voice raising in tenor. His anger was palpable, but he couldn’t understand that I wouldn’t rise to that occasion. Not for this, but I could direct it elsewhere. Distract him so I didn’t need to continue lying.

“Of course not,” I scoffed, shrugging out of his hold. “What do you think I am? Stupid? Why would I make a deal with a demon for a man who just sees me as another conquest?”

His face fell, and I knew then he realized what I must have overheard before he came after me.

There was no indication of surprise on his face, only a resignation that he’d known this moment was coming.

“It wasn’t what you think,” he said, the gentle tone of his voice serving to reignite my anger.

I was still immensely happy that he’d survived, but that didn’t mean I could just erase the pain he’d caused me.

The hurt I’d never meant to feel.

It was so much worse now that the bindings were gone from my wrists. My emotions moved through me in a torrent, threatening to sweep me away on stormy seas.

“I fail to see what else it could have been. It’s better this way.

I’d rather hear the ugly truth than listen to your pretty lies for another second,” I snapped, making my way toward the door to dismiss him.

He’d said we needed to move on to the next circle, and I fully intended to keep moving.

I might not have known what the story was between him and Satanus, but that didn’t mean I wanted to linger with the archdemon who made me uncomfortable at best.

“Mephistopheles likes to collect things that matter to others. His favorite possessions are the ones he steals from other people and locks away so they can never be found again. What do you think he would have done if he had found out I cared for you?” he asked.

My shoulders dropped forward as I turned to face him slowly, forcing a casual smile to my face to hide the hurt he’d caused.

He didn’t get to know. Didn’t get to see.

“Who the fuck is Mephistopheles? It sounds like a Goddess-damned disease,” I spat, my harsh laughter sounding strange even to me. It wasn’t mine, that bitter, cruel sound that came from my throat.

“He might as well be as far as I’m concerned.

He rules in Mammon’s absence. He wanted to collect you, Margot.

I told him you were nothing to hide the truth, because if he knew…

” He trailed off, leveling me with the full force of his stare.

“If he knew I was in love with you, he would make sure I never saw you again.”

I stilled, gaping up at him, at the words I’d never wanted to hear. “Take it back,” I said, shaking my head.

“I’m trying!” Beelzebub snapped. “I’m trying to tell you I was lying to him. If I’d known you had overheard us, I never would have let you leave like that,” he said, taking a step toward me that I matched backward.

“The other part! Take it back!” I screamed, wrapping my arm around my stomach protectively. The butterflies that fluttered there were a complete betrayal to myself, an unreasonable notion that I could have this. “Take it back.”

“Songbird,” he said, his voice breaking as he closed the distance between us quickly.

He pulled my arms away from my stomach, threading his fingers through mine as he brought them to his chest. He squeezed my hands, the grip reassuring even as he looked at me and swallowed.

“I couldn’t take back the way I feel even if I wanted to.

You have burrowed your way into my soul and branded me with your mark. ”

My lip trembled, the reality of the situation making my heart crack in my chest. It felt like it was a bleeding, gaping wound, like it had struck me right down to my bones.

I wished that his words could be real, that there could be truth in them instead of just the manipulation of my magic making him believe them, but this made me question the realization I’d had about his immunity.

It wasn’t possible without magic.

“I sang. In the pits. I sang to try to save you,” I said, curling my fingers into his chest as I spoke the words. “This isn’t you. You don’t mean it and one day you’re going to wake up and hate me for taking your will from you.”

He sighed, smiling down at me. “I’m an archdemon, Margot.

Your song doesn’t work on me, not the way you think, anyway.

It can emphasize attraction that already exists, but there is a great difference between thinking you’re breathtaking and loving you all the way to your bones.

Lust is not my sin. I am so filled with gluttony that there is no room for your song to take root. ”

“I don’t understand why you wouldn’t have said something before the Second Circle. You hated my kind, just as much as I was afraid of yours,” I said, facing him as I spoke. I raised my chin, puffed out my chest, so confident in the knowledge that this, too, was another deception.

“You weren’t ready to hear it. You weren’t ready to accept the fact that maybe, just maybe, someone out there saw through those mile-high walls and was willing to scale them to end up on the other side with you.

I know that to be true, because I wasn’t ready either.

I missed the signs of my own immunity, and it wasn’t until Amelia pointed out my stupidity that I realized the truth.

I will wait however long it takes for you to see I am not only here because of your song.

I’m not going to leave you,” he said, making the smug expression fall right off my face.

I wanted to deny it—wanted to tell him that blaming me was a cop-out.

But was he wrong?

A few days ago, I’d have laughed him out of town if he’d claimed to want to be with me because of who I was and not for the magic in my song. But now…

Now I stared at him, considering his words carefully. Accepting them as truth still wasn’t something I was ready for, because what happened if it was true? What happened if he loved me?

Was I capable of loving him back now that my bindings had been broken?

The flutter in my stomach said yes, and I wished I could clip that fucking thing’s wings and tell it to shut up.

“I don’t expect you to say it back, songbird, but you needed to know why I was willing to lie to Mephistopheles.

You needed to know the truth before we continued down this road together.

Now let’s go get my fucking scythe and get the Hell out of this place,” he said, taking my hand in his on our way out the door.

We made our way through the manor of Wrath like he’d spent a great deal of time here.

I knew so little and so much about him all at once, with centuries of history to catch up on if I wanted to understand him fully.

It seemed insurmountable, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that none of those details mattered. That no matter what they revealed, he’d still be Beelzebub.

And I’d still be standing here, falling in love with him.