“Alright, Lustling,” he says, turning with that wicked glint in his eyes. “Lesson one—welcome to Hell.”
The energy inside me answers the land. I feel better, stronger, sharper. Something about this place wakes the edges of me; it hums along my nerves and makes me want to stretch into it. Deimos notices the change in me and smirks. “Time for the fun part.”
Then he changes.
It happens in a breath. One heartbeat he is his usual arrogant, half-naked self; the next, power tears out of him in a rolling wave. Black smoke coils from his skin, wrapping his silhouette. His frame stretches and bulks; muscle tightens with a new, cruel precision. Horns push back from his temples, long and jagged, tips faintly aglow; his eyes flare violet-gold. Wings sprout—thick, leathery—snapping open with a sound like a storm rolling in. His tail flicks, the tip a sharp, dangerous point. His hands end in claws. He looks like a god that decided violence was an acceptable hobby.
I should be afraid. I should shrink. Instead I feel awe, a small bright thing in my chest.
Bastion laughs at me as if he can read the mouth on my face. “You’re drooling, Hellcat.”
I don’t have time to answer. He shifts too, and the air shivers. His body bulks up further, melting into a darker bronze that shines like river rock. Horns curl from his brow in a ram-twist, etched with runes that pulse faintly. His eyes go molten gold. Black, armor-like plating crawls up his forearms. A thick tail, tipped in blade, lashes behind him.
If Deimos is temptation, Bastion is war incarnate—walking arsenal and terrible grin. I swallow hard and find my thighs pressed together with a guilty, involuntary hunger.
Cassiel’s change is not the loud, animal one that the others choose. He does not bloat or sprout armor. He falls to his kneesand dark light seeps from him, a shadow that seems to consume the air around his skin. Then, as if the sky were remembering an old song, six wings unfurl—black and broken, beautiful and tragic. Some feathers are charred, others torn away, leaving the raw under skin exposed. Once those wings were gold. Once they carried him in a light I cannot now imagine. Now they are ruin made gorgeous.
He has always been otherworldly. In Hell he becomes a fallen god, heartbreaking in his ruined glory. I step toward him, fingers itching to trace the edges of his wings. He watches me, lips parted, eyes silver-blue and raw. There is a gravity in him that pulls at my insides.
I want him. Not the same hunger I have for Deimos or Bastion—though I want them, too—but something taut and curious and dangerous. Cassiel is a puzzle I ache to solve.
I trail my gaze over the three of them, drinking in their fierce, terrible beauty. “Not bad,” I murmur. “Not bad at all.”
Deimos chuckles and steps closer. “Think you can keep up, Lustling?”
Something stirs in me at the challenge. I can feel the land's heat inside my bones. I don’t know if I can shift fully yet, if the horns will push or the tail will answer, but there is only one way to find out.
I step between them and let the heat of Hell run through my veins. The courtyard thrums underfoot as if the place itself is testing me. I lift my chin and smile, a small, dangerous flare. “Let’s see, shall we?”
FORTY-TWO
The moment she starts to shift, the air answers. It thickens, crackling with a charge that makes the hairs along my arms stand to attention. She grips her arms, panting like someone pulling herself out of a deep well, eyes flaring with a light I’ve hardly ever seen—power, impatient, raw. It’s fighting to break out of her and she’s the only thing between it and the world.
“Come on, Lustling,” I murmur, watching every inch of her. “Stop holding back.”
Her head snaps up, lips peeling back in a snarl. There’s struggle there, the small terrified human part and the thing that wants to tear the sky down. Then the human part loses the fight.
A wave of force erupts from her, a pulse that hammers the courtyard. Dust and loose gravel tumble; banners flutter like wounded birds. She gasps, arches, and then her body re-forms.
Fuck.
My breath goes hollow and I feel the old animal in me react. Bastion gives a low appreciative growl; even Cassiel, so careful and contained, inhales a sharp, involuntary breath. She is breathtaking.
Her skin has gone molten—deep red running in liquid patterns over her limbs, darker crescents along her thighs and arms. Her hair is a living flame, longer and wilder than before. Two monstrous, leathery wings unfurl behind her, edges honed like blades, crimson melting to black at the tips. Curved black horns crown her head, sleek and lethal. Her eyes glow with a molten mix of gold and violet and they lock onto me with a hunger that is almost feral.
Desire flares, immediate and hot. I want her here—under this sky, in this ruin—to mark her, to take her until every part of her knows my claim. But this is not just about sex. Not today. Not yet.
I force my breath steady, push the animal back into its cage. “Well, Lustling…” I step forward, circling her like a predator tasting the air. “Aren’t you a fucking sight.”
She tilts her head and flexes claws designed to kill, moving with a new, predatory grace. The hunger in her eyes slides from want to hunt; something feral and dangerous anchors there. It sets my teeth on edge in a way I adore.
“Time to put that new body to the test,” I tell her, stepping back and feeling the weight of my own demonic shape settle in. The courtyard seems to lean in. “Let’s see what you can do.”
She grins, fangs flashing. Then she launches.
She moves faster than I’d given her credit for, weaving and striking with a speed that makes my head spin. She catches counters I didn’t expect; she adapts, learns, a student turning teacher. For a moment she holds her own against all three of us.
Beautiful. Terrifying. Yet not quite enough.
