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Her long black gown made it look like she was made of the darkness or maybe the darkness was what she wore. It climbed up until the bodice of her gown that pushed her heavy pale brown breasts up, putting her cleavage on display. The runes lit the mounds of her breasts green before they climbed up her throat and her jaw, over her face before they disappeared into her hairline. As the words continued to drone on, the script scrolled vertically. Moving. Shifting.
Her eyes flicked open and blackness stared at me.
I flinched. Her stare was a new kind of terror. It made my blood freeze and the hairs on my arms stand on end.
The key in my chest lit bright, like a fire burnt behind it. My skin heated as she stretched her hand out and her fingers snapped and cracked. She reached and against my will, my back bowed and my chest lurched toward her.
“So this is the woman who captured the key of my demon. Prince of the depraved.”
My teeth clenched as my flesh stretched, struggling to keep hold of everything underneath it as my chest wretched toward her again.
Pain made tears run from my eyes as I gasped but no breath filled my lungs.
This was death, it had to be.
The thought of dying here, alone with this woman instead of surrounded by my girls or my Gran and Abuela fractured my heart.
“How unremarkable.” Her hand cupped the side of my face as I contorted further. I was growing so tired of being pulled and stretched by these witches. Being bound so I couldn’t do anything.
Anger ignited in the depths of my belly.
How cowardly.
They were witches. They were supposed to be these powerful things but they had to send moths to lure me. Had to throw me in the dark and toy with my mind. Had to tie me up to get what they wanted. There had never been a single moment in my life where I wanted to tie someone up — at least not during a fight. I would throw hands. I would embrace the fist to my cheek if that was what I had to do to win but this — leaving someone helpless while they dug dirty fingers into their minds and jerked them around — was weak.
My teeth ground together as my heart thrummed faster. It was a whir. A motion so quick it rivalled that of a hummingbird’s wings as I pulled back. I wasn’t going to just let her do this to me. Not without a fight.
Heat like the fiery ropes my husband used to bind me rolled through me and I focused on it. I imagined what they would feel like rolling over my skin. Coating me but leaving me in control. Unharmed.
Asmodeus would never harm me. He said as much and though I wasn’t necessarily the type to take the word of a man I barely knew, I had seen with my own eyes that it was like hurting himself. Something about this key — about that box in my mind and the heart inside it — made me his keeper.
He was mine.
His power should be too, right? It had been enough to knock the witch off earlier. There had to be some way I could use it.
“I’ll admit, you’re a pretty little thing,” she cooed. “Too bad you likely won’t survive our souls being bound.”
“What?” The incantation continued to drone in the background. I hadn’t known what would happen to me once Maledictia forced her way into my skin. Wondering had been the only way to pass the time as I watched and pulled into myself. Numbing myself to Vindictia’s constant assault as she unleashed her madness on me. Still, I hadn’t really settled on a possibility. Everything felt so out of my depth, there was no way I could know what would happen. I couldn’t even guess.
“My sister is working now to make us one. Once I exist in here, I’ll make sure nothing but me lives in that pretty flesh of yours. Me and that key.” She did a slow twirl, her smile too wide and her eyes glowing too bright.
These women were out of their damned minds. “Then what?” I got the gist of it. They needed the key to claim my husband. Blah, blah, blah. I was getting a little bored of all this. The villainous monologue that tried to make all this madness seem normal. “You get my body and the key and then what?”
Her eyes whipped to look at me. “Then his powers will be mine.”
I rolled my eyes. The key had been in my chest since the moment he came through the book and I didn’t feel any more powerful. I couldn’t even fight Vindictia off. “Because suddenly in my body he won’t realize you’re the same witch he went up against before?”
“You can’t be this simple.” She shook her head, dark eyes meeting mine. “You’ve had him under your thumb and you still don’t know you command him? You don’t realize your very voice is a whip that brings him to his knees without hesitation. Just what have you been doing this whole time?” She leaned in, inhaling me. “Or maybe the only use you’ve found for him is one where you’re on your back.”
My stomach bottomed out and my face hardened at the implication. I resented her words. I mean… they weren’t wrong, but she was oversimplifying this for sure. Before the book, I knew nothing about anything. How the hell was I supposed to know what having his key would mean? He never fully explained it to me.
Her grin broadened. “What worthless things you mortals are. Clueless.”
My brows scrunched as I thought about it. All the times he was standing in front of me one moment and then gone in the next. My harsh words told him to go away. Demanded he leave me alone.
I was commanding him without even knowing.
Shaking fingers lifted and brushed against the key. Just what else could I command of him? How could I harness his powers in the way these witches clearly planned to? Maybe if I could figure that out, I could get out of here all on my own.
