When the summoning fires dissipated, she found herself in a large room with concrete flooring. At her feet, the symbols of her true name were outlined in chalk. With her summoning, they seared bright and burned into the floor, locking her in place. A circle just six feet in diameter, its border thinner than a finger. Without permission, she couldn’t even attempt to cross it.
“Welcome, Lady Natalya.”
Natalya looked up at the voice, unsurprised to hear it but dreading to see the man it belonged to. Varro Visconti stood a few feet away, finely dressed in a formfitting suit. He looked pleased. He lookedhungry.
“I don’t feel welcome,snake.” She didn’t try to keep the hate out of her voice. “But if you break my bonds, I may be more inclined to be gentle.”
“Silence, Lust.” A high, weaselly voice spoke, feeling like a whiplash against her lips. She recognized that voice too. The last time she heard it, she’d sent its owner seething glares as he stared at her during the meeting with Varro.
She saw the room fully now. A richly decorated lair with stacked bookshelves, an ornate desk, and a bloody corpse lying at the feet of the two men who’d orchestrated her capture. One was the vampire King of the Heartlands. The other his loyal warlock, Dominic Fane.
The young, blond man with the beady eyes and wanting sneer looked at Natalya with such dark satisfaction it made her feel sick.
Dominic nudged the corpse on the floor with his foot. A beautiful woman with eyes that had once been bright violet, nowdull in death. A lesser Lust fiend. A knife stuck out of her chest, the same type of dagger Stefano had used on Natalya.
“You should feel honored, Lust,” Dominic said. “You are part of a grand collection. One I plan on perfecting even further. I’m one step closer to doing it with you here.”
Dominic glanced to either side of her, and Natalya followed his gaze.
Her binding circle wasn’t the only one in the room. It was one of seven, set in a semicircle in front of the desk Dominic leaned against. Each circle held a captive, seated and with their head lowered. Only when she saw the color of the trapped people’s eyes did she realize what this was.
The Sins were all here, placed and bound in order. Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, Sloth. Each circle held a fiend. All of them lesser. All of them cowed, even Pride.
All save for one.
“Do I get a treat now?” The fiend next to Natalya sneered at Dominic. Vex, who had fought Natalya in her apartment only an hour before, sat inside her circle. Annoyed. Other than Natalya, she was the only greater fiend present. “I got what you asked for.”
Dominic looked at her with disdain. “Your orders were to get her marks swiftly and without being noticed. And to kill that little Seraphic slave too. You disappointed.”
Vex scoffed. “You try sneaking around a high-rise filled with wolves and faeries for a few months. Especially one that also has two greater fucking fiends. Tends to make you careful. As I recall, myordersalso involved not getting myself killed, hence why you had me target the pleasure demon rather than the one meant for tearing bodies apart.”
Dominic looked irritated for a moment. Then he waved his hand, and Vex fell back and started to scream. She convulsed onthe floor, her back arching off the ground as her warlock Master sent scorching pain into her body with only a gesture.
“Suffer in silence,” Dominic said. Vex stopped screaming, though she still trembled in agonizing pain.
“She got insolent in her time away,” Varro said, looking at Vex. “If I were you, I’d leave her like that for a few hours. Pain helps slaves remember their place.”
Natalya would have snarled at them, but she couldn’t. Dominic had ordered her silent. Instead, she stepped to the edge of her circle, staring at the two men with such seething hatred it made the lesser Greed fiend next to her flinch away.
“Would you like to speak, Lust?” Dominic asked, smirking. “Do so.”
“You vermin,” she said hatefully. “You don’t know what you’ve called down on yourself.”
“Actually, I do. I’ve called on a beautiful slave. It’s what you were made for, sweet thing. I’m merely reminding you of your purpose.”
Dominic pushed off the table, stepping in the lesser Lust fiend’s blood and walking over to Natalya. He was shorter than her and much weaker, but she couldn’t harm him. Not as long as she was bound.
Dominic looked up at her, smiling with sickening satisfaction. “Kneel.”
She had no control. This wasn’t a command to be refused or even challenged. It was filled with magic and the power thereof. She had no choice but to obey.
She knelt on the floor.
“So pretty.” Dominic ran his thumb over her lips. Touching her didn’t hurt him. It couldn’t. She was his property. “Much prettier than the last one. And she wasgorgeous.”
Natalya looked at the corpse behind him. She was young, Natalya realized. Though they aged slower once their truenature came into fruition, lesser fiends weren’t immortal like the greater ones. The woman looked to have only been in her twenties.
Lesser fiends didn’t get their marks or glowing eyes until they turned twenty-five. The woman had barely been allowed to live as she was. Maybe she hadn’t at all.
