Page 139 of She Who Holds My Wrath

His brows draw together, his head tilting ever so slightly in confusion. I smile softly at him, softly stroking my thumbs across his cheeks.

“They’re beautiful,” I whisper. “Because they’re yours. Because they mean you lived through things no one should have survived, and somehow, somehow, you still came back capable of love.”

His breath shudders, those impossibly black eyes shining with unshed tears that make me both sad and angry for him. “You still chose me gently. Even with The Void inside you. Even with everything they did. Even after being raised to believe softness was something that needed to be beaten out of you.”

A tear finally slips from his eye, tracking slowly down his beautiful face.

“If your father wasn’t already dead,” I grit out, my voice turning cold, “I would kill him myself.” Korithax huffs a laugh, but his gaze is filled with darkness. “And Calrix… Calrix is yours.”

Korithax goes deathly still. I feel the pain surging down the bond as if he’s remembering everything that piece of shit did to him. He tried to kill him once. He will not have another chance.

“When the time comes, no one gets to take that from you. Not me. Not the council. Not the gods. He is yours to kill, and yours alone. And you can do it slowly. Painfully. You can make him feel every single second he stole from you. Every scar. Every lesson. Every moment he helped turn you into something you should have never become.”

He pulls one of my hands from his cheek, entwining our fingers together. “You would do that?” he asks.

“I would stand beside you while you did it and enjoy every fucking second.”

His expression shifts so quickly, it guts me. Gratitude mixed with sadness. Hope beneath fear. I see the boy beneath the crown. The child punished for being kind. The prince forced into cruelty without ever learning what mercy felt like.

“You are not a weapon to me, Korithax. You are not a monster, you are not his perfect, ruthless king. You are my husband. My heart. My home. And I am so sorry no one protected you when you deserved to be protected.”

A broken sound tears from his throat. Then his arms are around me, crushing me against him, his face buried in my neck as his body shakes. I hold him just as tightly, one hand in his hair, the other spread over the tattoos covering his back.

I can feel them now. The slight ridges beneath the ink. Impossible to notice unless you knew they were there. I feel the history of every wound he buried. Every brutal punishment disguised as discipline. Every act of softness someone tried to carve out of him. And I hold him through it. I hold him whilst the ruthless Prince of Hell trembles in my arms. I hold him while he lets himself be something other than controlled. Something other than feared. Something other than a weapon.

“I love you,” I whisper against his hair. “Every part of you. Every scar. Every shadow. Every piece they tried to ruin.”

His arms tighten. “I don’t know how to be this,” he rasps.

“This?”

“Worthy of being loved.”

I kiss the side of his head, inhaling his smoky scent. “I will continue to teach you. Every day. For as long as you’ll let me.”

He pulls back just enough to look at me, eyes wet and burning, his expression so raw it steals every bit of air from my lungs.

“For eternity, then?”

A sob catches in my throat, but I smile through it. “For eternity.”

The training grounds are absolute chaos.

We had to expand the space to more than triple its original size just to accommodate the influx of soldiers. Thankfully, everybody arrived safely—the gates still mostly undisturbed thanks to the wards. Lucifer, of course, tried to play hero and see if he could travel through the gate to check whether the curse was still in place for Hell’s civilians.

He clearly hadn’t learnt from when he last tried—back when the curse was first placed—because his wings were severely burnt. Again.

Vor’Khar destroyed the outer walls of the original outdoor training ring to give us the space we needed. Hell’s serving staff immediately set to work, moving stone, sand, and weapon racks with immaculate efficiency. Only half of each realm’s army was here to train; the other half remained behind to defend their own territories in case trouble came knocking.

That meant we had five thousand from Fjellheim Heights, two thousand from Aurora’s Veil, five thousand from Solara, two thousand from Stormravan, and five thousand from Luminaria. There were no soldiers from Noxthrallia. An army of Maelkar’s creatures simply wasn’t safe for anyone nearby. He did, however, have several of them spread across Earth and near the gates—watching, listening, and waiting.

“Ready to show me what the Shadowtongue taught you, little flower?” Korithax murmurs into my ear as he comes up behind me, placing his hands on my hips.

I smile, leaning into his touch. “I’m gonna kick your ass, King of Hell.”

He huffs a laugh. “Just your king. Not theirs.”

Korithax steps in front of me, taking his place on the opposite side of the chalk-lined ring. He cracks his neck from side to side, rolls his shoulders, and swings his sword lazily in his hand.