Page 18 of Unholy Bond (The Corruption of Evelyn Adams #2)

If I’d known what kind of entrance they’d make, I would have spent more time on my outfit. As it was, I stood naked in front of the mirror, black water still running off my thighs, not even the decency of a robe to wrap myself in when the chamber door detonated off its hinges.

It was a soundless explosion. No wind, no fire, just a force that shredded the runes along the threshold and sent the slab of black marble slamming into the far wall.

The impact left a crater, a spiderweb of white fractures blossoming out across the polished surface.

The magic of this place was built to outlast apocalypse, but no one had ever accounted for the three men now stumbling through the blasted entryway.

They moved as a unit: wounded, bloodied, but somehow more alive than when I’d last seen them on Earth.

Their bodies were covered in a grime that glittered as they moved.

Seam-ash . Apparently, a kind of filth the wards couldn’t index. It slid between my chamber sigils and wrote them in as nothing.

Aziz led the way, shoulders squared and head up, a soldier’s march corrupted by the limp of an old wound.

His skin was darker than usual, mottled with purple streaks that pulsed in time with the thick veins running up his forearms. He looked at me, and for the first time I saw the man as he must have been before the world began—a Titan, unbroken, burning with purpose.

Levi was next, hair plastered to his skull with blood and sweat, suit jacket hanging off one arm by a thread.

His eyes, normally a careless blue, had gone navy and deep, reflecting the flames that licked along the seams of the ruined hallway behind him.

He grinned when he saw me, but the smile was a haunted thing, brittle and desperate.

He dropped to his knees just inside the room, hands braced on the floor, as if he’d reached the only safe harbor left in the universe and was still waiting for it to disappear.

Ian brought up the rear, and it was hard to tell if he was injured or if he simply hated the idea of arriving anywhere at speed.

His shirt had been torn away, exposing the ridged blue-black skin beneath, and the sharp angles of his demon form stood out in relief against the naked torso.

He paused in the doorway, scanning the room with the eyes of a sniper, then stepped over Levi’s sprawled body and knelt, not at my feet, but at the foot of the bed.

Even in hell, the asshole found a way to be off kilter.

For a moment, none of us moved. The air was thick with the stink of sulfur and old blood, and the cracks radiating from the door’s impact had started to pulse with a dim light. The bedchamber held its breath, waiting to see if the world would end.

Aziz broke the silence. He stood, his legs shaking, and closed the distance between us in three uneven strides.

The purple tail that belonged only to his true self twitched behind him, and for once, it was not a threat.

He dropped to one knee before me, head bowed so low I thought he’d buried it in the floor.

“I’m yours,” he said, and the words shook with effort.

“I was always yours. Even when I thought I hated you.” His hands balled into fists, claws digging into his own palms until black blood welled up and spattered the marble.

“I will follow you. I will die for you. I will burn every city and eat the hearts of our enemies if you ask it.” He looked up, the gold ring of his iris searing through the purple.

“I love you. That’s the only reason I ever survived him. ”

The Void inside me flared, not in hunger, but in something disturbingly close to delight. I heard it purr, and the sensation went straight to the pit of my stomach.

Ian snorted, but his eyes were wet. “You always were a drama queen, Aziz.” He looked at me, head cocked.

“But he’s right. This time, we’re not backing down.

” He reached up, pressed two fingers to his own throat, and drew a thin line across the skin.

The black blood welled up, then closed as quickly as it had opened.

“No more oaths to Lucifer. Only to you.”

Levi staggered upright and crawled to my feet.

He wrapped his arms around my calves, face buried against my shin, and shook with silent laughter.

“I can’t top that. But if you’ll have me, I’m in.

I’ll kill for you, I’ll die for you, I’ll make you laugh at least once a day.

” He looked up, eyes wild. “Promise. Tell me you’re okay, my Queen—and I’ll start joking again. ”

It should have been absurd, this tableau of battered monsters swearing loyalty at my bare feet.

Instead, it felt inevitable. The world had always been a meat grinder, and the only thing that kept it turning was the certainty that someone, somewhere, still believed in the possibility of more.

For the first time since waking up here, I believed in it, too.

I bent down, cupped Aziz’s jaw in my hand, and pulled him up until our foreheads touched. The heat of his skin scorched me, but I held on. “You were always mine,” I whispered. “You just never wanted to admit it.”

He laughed, a sound halfway between a sob and a growl, and pressed his mouth to mine.

The kiss was brutal, teeth scraping, tongues fighting, a memory of every time we’d loved and hated and killed together.

I tasted blood—his and mine, indistinguishable now—and let it pool on my tongue before swallowing it.

Aziz’s hand went to his pocket. He held up a thin black ring.

“We go as one,” he said, the words roughened at the edges.

I took it. We went to war, not wedding. I slid it onto my middle finger. “We come back the same way.”

Ian’s turn was less dramatic, but no less final. He stood, the old pain gone from his eyes, and kissed me once on each cheek, then on the mouth. His hands shook, but when he pulled back, his gaze was steady. “Let’s fuck him up,” he said. “Let’s take this place for ourselves.”

Levi wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me down onto the bed in a tangle of arms and legs. His mouth found the soft part of my shoulder, and he bit down, hard enough to mark but not enough to hurt. “No speeches,” he said. “Just action.”

The three of them held me there, limbs woven together, bodies sticky with blood and sweat and a need that made the Void inside me sing.

I let it out, just a little, and the air thickened.

The cracks in the walls began to weep black, the edges smoking with shadow.

I could hear Lucifer’s rage from a thousand miles away, could feel his claws trying to breach the barrier around the room, but the Void held strong.

I pressed my lips to each of theirs in turn, sealing the pact with the only magic I trusted. “You’re mine,” I said. “Forever. No more running. No more dying for someone else’s plan.”

They nodded, all three, and for a moment, the bedchamber was silent except for the low, greedy hum of the Void.

I stood, untangling myself from their arms, and faced the ruined door.

The runes flashed, then died. I pressed my hand to the marble, and the black veins snaked out from my skin, crawling up the walls and across the shattered threshold.

They sealed the cracks, fused the door back into place, then spread out in a web that shimmered with a light I’d never seen before, a darkness so pure it glowed.

Lucifer would never see what happened here, not unless I wanted him to. For the first time in my afterlife, I had privacy. I had allies. I had a plan.

I turned to face my men. “We have work to do,” I said, and the words came out expectant.

They smiled, and the Void inside me purred, content.

I sat up, dragging the sheet around myself more out of habit than shame. The Void buzzed beneath my skin. The three men watched me as if expecting a benediction.

“Lucifer thinks he can break me,” I said. The words surprised me with their steadiness. “That’s why he dragged me here. He wanted to peel apart the layers, strip out the human, and use what’s left to plug a hole in the dam.”

Aziz grunted, rolling to his feet. “He’s done it before. He’ll keep doing it.”

Ian’s lip curled in contempt. “You think you’re the first. You’re just the latest.”

“He thinks I’m just a vessel,” I said. “He knows the Void is inside me. He thinks if he controls me, he can control it.”

Levi snickered. “He never learned the difference between a parasite and a partner.” He rolled onto his stomach, chin propped on his fists, and looked up at me with mischievous eyes. “So what’s the plan, O Great Vessel?”

I smiled. “I’m going to seduce him,” I said. “I’m going to let him think he’s winning, until the Void and I are strong enough to take him out.”

Aziz’s tail twitched, a little too hard. “Seduce?” The single word came out as a growl.

I met his glare. “I don’t mean in the cute way. I mean I’ll get him alone, get close enough to tear out his heart and eat it in front of the entire palace. But until then, I need to grow stronger. Merge with the Void completely. Become something he can’t predict.”

They stared at me. For a heartbeat, I thought they might laugh. Instead, Ian nodded, slow, grave, as if I’d just told him the secret to immortality.

“You’ll need help,” Ian said. “He’s got the entire bureaucracy watching. Every corridor, every gate.”

Levi piped up, “The guards are loyal to their last paycheck, which is usually paid in flayed skin or a new round of privileges.”

Aziz ran a hand along my spine, kneading the flesh as if to reassure himself I was real. “You want us to infiltrate.”

“Yes,” I said. “But not just you. My children are already here. The ones I made before…” I trailed off, not sure which ending was true: before death, before Earth, before the latest round of heartbreak. “They’re everywhere. Waiting for a word.”

Ian whistled, impressed. “You always were good at leaving little presents in your wake.”