Page 315 of The Spider Queen

He shivered.

I brought his palm to my lips. “What am I going to do withyou, Lucifer?”

“Whatever you want.” His breathing was ragged.

There, under the Hellish moon, I wondered if just maybe, there was a chance for something more than lust. More than want with the Prince of Darkness. Because what if he wasn’t truly dark at all? What if he was a slave to his own position as I was?

I could no sooner turn away from my nature, the nature of easing those who suffered, than he could turn away from devilish deals and opportunistically taking advantage of weak humans who were nothing short of desperate.

Could I feel for him? Truly? He was the cause of so much strife—strife I made my life’s work to combat.

Burdens were burdens. Pain was pain. Regardless if it came from humans, harpies, or fallen angels.

Lucifer reached up with his free hand to touch my chin. He brought my mouth to his in an achingly gentle kiss. I sank into it as my thoughts fled. There was nothing but the here and now.

With him.

He teased my lips as his tongue entered my mouth. Sweetness turned to hunger. Lucifer was a constant surprise. Calm one moment, ravenous the next. Before I knew it, I was sitting astride his lap, pressed against the warmth of his chest as his fingers tore through my loose hair.

His hot mouth ripped away from mine to drag across my flaming skin. I was shivering in delight, sinking into the feel of him when suddenly I was wrenched off his body.

“Stella!” he cried as he fell back.

Glistening black chains slithered around him. The Queen of the Harpies stepped out of the shadows, her brown eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

“Run to the Smith,” she called, pointing toward the horizon. Her shrill voice cut through the air and would’ve made a human’s ears bleed. But I wasn’t human, and all I suffered was a slight trembling in my eardrums.

Someone behind me—someone who smelled like sewage and noxious flesh, pushed me in the direction I was clearly supposed to go.

“Stella!” Lucifer’s voice was full of anguish as he struggled against the chains.

What kind of chains could hold the Prince of Darkness prisoner?

Turning away from Lucifer’s bewildered face, I ran from him. I ran for my freedom.

My lungs burned as my legs carried me through the night over miles of rocky terrain. How was I supposed to find the Smith? Was he in a cave deep within a craggy mountain like the Sibyl? Would he be the one to find me? Did he even know I was coming?

I ran until my legs threatened to give out, but just when I was in danger of collapsing, I heard the faint sounds of metal scraping against metal.

Turning my head in the direction of the noise, I let my instinct and ears bring me to the Smith. Instead of a sliver of an opening in the side of a mountain, it was a stone staircase that led deep into the earth.

I quickly descended it. The air grew warmer, like I was getting close to the core of a planet. Hot, lava, magma.

Orange and red flames appeared along the stone walls as I descended deeper. The temperature rose, so it was almost unbearable, but I knew I had to press on. The noise of the Smith pounding metal echoed in my ears. I turned down the spiral stone staircase and saw a shadow on the wall. A bulky body was pounding a hammer onto an anvil.

The Smith stood in front of a blacksmith’s fire, working on an object he held between a pair of metal tongs. He was bare-chested, his surprisingly tan skin coated in dirt and sweat. He placed the object on an anvil and pounded with dedicated intensity.

I waited a moment, not wanting to disrupt him.

The pound of each strike on the metal reverberated in my bones as he worked, and my ears rang from the sound.

Finally, the Smith was satisfied. He set down his hammer, lifted the metal object from the anvil with his tongs, and quenched the hot metal in a bath of oil that burned and smoked. It was a sword in the making, and it had a short blade and appeared thin and lightweight enough that even a small child could wield it. The Smith tested the unsharpened, unpolished blade and it was already sharp enough to shave the hair off of his arm. When finished, it would be lethal…but who would wield it?

“You are the one the Sibyl has spoken of,” the Smith said without looking at me.

My heart began to gallop in my chest. Did everyone know about this prophecy except me? “I—yes.”

The Smith finally set down his newly formed blade and looked at me. His eyes were silver like the metal he formed.