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Don’t panic. Stand your ground.
“No more games.”
His voice was an ice blade cutting the air. He wound black wire around his fists, pulling the wire taut and snapping it in a loud crack. I jumped. He smiled a monstrous smile—all serrated teeth, promising pain.
“Do not fear, Genevieve. I have no plans to strangle you. But, oh, darling, I will bind you.” He sauntered casually into the room, making his way carefully closer, red eyes piercing the dark. “I will teach you to behave, my sweet. It may take a few days, weeks, months, perhaps, but you will learn obedience. Willful fillies must be broken by their master’s hand. It will only hurt a little. Now come to me.”
“I will never give in to you.Never!”
“We’ll see about that.”
I was against the wall, shaking from terror and rage. My hand holding the dagger trembled, but I held it aloft. He was out of his fucking mind if he thought I’d let him bind me willingly. He came closer, not even trying to hide the menace in his eyes.
A ghastly, high-pitched shriek pierced the castle walls in an explosion of anguish and agonizing woe. My dagger clattered to the floor as I pressed my hands over my ears, sound sucking from the room. Danté swiveled.
“Cocytus. What’s that bitch doing here?”
That was the last I heard as a string of curses spilled from Danté’s mouth. Evaporation of all sound but the shriek of cold-blooded despair screamed through the halls, coming closer. Something close to fear skittered across my captor’s immaculate face. No longer immaculate with the angry gash searing one side.
Cocytus. The River of Lamentation. Soul-eater of woe. She came closer still. I could hardly stand it, a deep sorrow creeping into my bones. Danté threw down the black wire he carried and started for the door when she swept into the room, floating above him.
Banshee-like in a tattered gray cloak, wisps of cloth billowing, framing a grisly white face with wicked, black eyes, she screamed again, spreading skeleton arms wide. I collapsed to the floor, tears streaming down my face from the painful pressure of despair.
Danté approached, drawing his arm back. I have no idea what he was about to do, because she cried out again. Her jaw yawned grotesquely, until I saw fire burning in the cavernous gulf. Her mouth gaped unnaturally wide. Something crawled over her tongue.
In a millisecond, a man spilled out and landed on his feet. An aura of flame burned him into an entire being of fire. Flames arched behind him, forming a blaze of huge wings as he drew a massive claymore from the scabbard strapped to his back.
“Jude.”
Danté took a giant step back and stared. Jude circled, his muscles rigid and taut. Cocytus floated, undulating in the corner like a spider spinning a web, but there was no web. She stopped shrieking, watching with ink-black eyes—a spindly predator awaiting her meal.
Flames of light simmered and rippled around Jude as he circled his prey, who’d straightened himself in an arrogant stance, gesturing wildly. Jude’s back was to me, but as he moved, his head swiveled in my direction.
I gasped. In Jude’s dark gaze, I saw only death. It was all for him, for Danté. An all-consuming fury intent on its prize.
Danté said something to Jude. The vacuum of sound eased. I heard sporadic words—luscious…inevitable…like her…so sweet.
Jude’s aura of fire licked brightly as he clasped the claymore with both hands, his knuckles stretched white, centering the blade upright. He spoke to Danté. Though I couldn’t hear the words, I read them on lips I knew so well, now tight with promise.
For Genevieve.
The massive sword swung around in a wide arc, cutting the air in a long sweep, cleanly slicing off Danté’s head, which bounced twice and rolled across the floor, hitting the wall.
Cold gray eyes widened in shock. The head’s mouth opened and closed like a guppy, gasping for air. Danté’s body fell to its knees, black blood dripping down chest and back. But Jude wasn’t through.
Rage blazed fiercely in a flaming halo of red, orange and gold, framing his lithe body, taut with strain on the edge of triumph. He plunged the claymore straight through the decapitated body. Rather than pull the sword straight back out, Jude ripped upward through chest and neck, his mouth open in a soundless scream.
The fiery blaze dimmed with his victorious stroke. Jude walked to the wall, picked up Danté’s head by the hair and tossed it in the air toward Cocytus as if he were simply lobbing a ball.
She opened her mouth and gulped the head like a bird swallowing a worm. I should’ve been sickened, but I wasn’t. I felt something entirely different as Cocytus leaned over the rest of her gruesome meal and Jude sheathed his sword, stalking in long strides toward me, something desperate in his eyes. I leaped into his arms.
He gripped me with such vicious need, I lost my breath and nearly fainted. I nuzzled my face into his neck, breathing in the safety and smell of Jude. His steel armor of protection clamped on to me. I didn’t even need that. Being in his arms was enough.
He held me and held me and held me, his lips pressed to the crown of my head, his arms a vise of possession.
Cocytus shrieked softly, sated, floating out of the room and away to wherever soul-collectors went. Sound came back to the room. I could hear my own breathing coming fast. Jude’s too.
“Are you okay? Did he…?” he breathed into my hair.
