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Of course, I didn’t add the part where my job was the reason she was here. I was hoping she just thought I was abusing vacation days or something.
“Well, I don’t regret it,” she said quietly. “It’s been about the only good thing that’s happened to me since I’ve been here.”
I pinched her chin with my thumb and forefinger and forced her to look at me. “You’re the only good thing that’s happened to me, too, and I’ve been here a lot longer than you.”
She smiled at that, and I kissed her quickly. After a brief brush of tongues, I hopped off the bed fully. As much as I wanted to keep her with me in this room forever, people were looking for us, and she really did need to get home. I would only be keeping her for selfish reasons. Lysandra and her cronies would get wind of where we were soon enough. As much as I wished we could… we didn’t have time to play lovers.
“Come on,” I urged her. “Let’s go. Let’s get you home.” I held up one finger. “And not because I want you gone.”
She stood slowly and stretched, a contemplative look on her face. With her messy bedhead and her long, rumpled dress, she looked fucking perfect. She looked like a night goddess, especially with the backdrop of celestial patterns on the velvet bed curtains. Almost all of one breast was exposed from her crooked, deep neckline. My heart hurt just looking at her.
“What?” she said, tilting her head to one side curiously. Her long, pale neck flexed as she did. I wanted to kiss it.
“Just… committing this to memory,” I said, trying to hide any sadness. I may not have had a lot of women in my life Topside, but even I could see she was falling for me. I couldn’t risk letting her know how badly I wanted her or how badly it would hurt when she left. Some part of her, a part that was growing larger by the hour, might want to stay. I couldn’t let that happen. I had enough blood on my hands.
The manor had provided a tray of breakfast food, so we set to eating and getting ready, both of us probably full of words we wanted to say. The tray had appeared atop the dresser while we were sleeping. There was no sign anyone had been in the room. It was just one of Hell’s many mysteries. I’d heard once that some of these sprawling buildings were living, sentient beings, feeding off the people they let stay in their bodies. I tried not to think too deeply about whether we’d stayed in the belly of a beast.
There was lukewarm, strong English tea and a small selection of scones and other breakfast grains. There was hot honey and two varieties of jam, both of which I politely advised Marnie not to eat. If they were anything like the fruit in the vineyard, she wouldn’t like how they were grown. I tried to keep the conversation light as we finished up our morning, which was a feat for me since I’m not exactly Mr. Positivity. But I had made my concerns clear earlier, and though I was still nervous about the second circle, I didn’t want my feelings to rub off on Marnie. I was also trying my best not to fall back into my default mode. It would be so much easier to pretend not to care, but she was almost hungry to be near me, and I hated the look on her face this morning. I should be pushing her away, but to do that meant hurting her. No torture in Hell would be worse, and I’d already screwed up the poor woman enough. I would be what she needed until it was time to end this, and then I would do the best thing and leave her forever.
When we were ready to leave, she looked up at me expectantly as she stood by the door. There was just one last thing we had to do.
I grabbed the chain and collar from where it lay on the floor, enjoying the familiar weight of it in my hand. The enjoyment was short-lived as old memories flooded back, but the way Marnie arched her throat toward me in invitation certainly helped. I had to remind myself that this was different from the other girls… the other collars.
No, best not to think about that.
“Ready to be your slave,” she said matter-of-factly, but her eyes darted to my eyes and then my mouth. She’d said the words in jest, but they made my heart ache all the same.
And other parts of me as well. Last night, I’d truly wanted it to be all about her, but I was more than pent up. My cock ached staring at her bared throat and her slightly parted lips. Fuck, even the act of clamping the metal around her neck and binding her to me sent a painful pulse through my entire being.
Today was going to be impossible.
Keeping our heads down, I hurried us through the grim streets of Greed and toward its northern gate. Exiting Greed was easy enough—it meant one less soul to share with—but the space between the third and second circle was notoriously disorienting to push through. Anytime you moved up a circle rather than deeper down, it was a literal uphill battle, but the haze Lust cast made for an extra hard slog.
“Hold on to me,” I warned Marnie as we stepped through the gates of Greed and into the wasteland between circles. “Remember, if we get separated, I have your chain. I will find you. I will always find you.”
She nodded, her face steely and her jaw set. “Got it.”
At first, the landscape was the same scrubby gray as the area beside the River Styx. Small plants barely clung to life, and our only possible shelters or hiding places from anything were a few copses of skeletal trees. But unlike the gap outside of Gluttony, or even the easier downward path to Greed, about an eighth of a mile in was a thick, impenetrable haze. Not only did it completely cut down our visibility, but it almost looked physical, like we’d have to really fight or push our way through it. It smelled almost sickeningly sweet, like spoiled chocolates or perfume. As we approached the wall of swirling, solid white, Marnie hesitated, tugging back on her chain a little.
“Remember,” I said kindly, “I won’t lose you. Hold on as long as you can. Think happy thoughts or whatever. Remember Peter Pan?”
She nodded, and I could see her throat reflex as she swallowed nervously. “Okay, yeah. Pixie dust. This is all… pixie dust.”
“Sure,” I muttered under my breath. “Let’s call it that.”
Gripping her chain tightly in my hand, I stepped forward into the mist. I felt both of her hands clutch against me. Immediately, I was drenched in an alternating blanket of cold and hot, both temperatures at an extreme. Marnie was still wearing my leather jacket, so when the cold hit, even I felt the bite of pain on my bare arms, and I wasn’t even technically warm-blooded. The heat felt like an instant sunburn, and Marnie yelped behind me.
“We have to move fast!” I yelled, but my words were whipped away quickly. Inside the mist, everything seemed both muffled and too loud, like we were physically walking through white noise or a brick of television static.
I pushed ahead, keeping my head down to barrel through the onslaught of pressure and noise. The distance to the actual gate was maybe only another eighth of a mile. It just felt like a hike up Everest.
And then Marnie let go of me.
“MARNIE!” I yelled, rooting my feet to the ground. I reached blindly behind me, unwilling to turn around. Turning around meant I might disorient myself and put us in the wrong direction. I gave a tug on her chain and was reassured when something pulled back. I just prayed to whatever god listened to damned souls that the something was her.
The mere second of standing still flooded my body with pain as the mist whipped at me and the heat burned across my skin. My pale arms had no marks or visible changes, but loitering in the mist felt like torture.
“C’mon, darlin’,” I whispered to myself as I gritted my teeth and pulled us through. “Be here. Be with me still.”
