She was so tired of lying down and sleeping—and dreaming. So, this time, she sat.
Right in the middle of the cell, Luella folded her legs closely to her body, palms placed in the middle of her thighs, fingers drifting over the hem of her shift. She was given a clean oneevery few days after Floris helped wipe her down with a rough, small cloth. The tips of her wings brushed against the cool stone beneath her. They ached fiercely, all the time. Just as her hand did. Her ankle had healed rather well, perhaps because she hadn’t been on her feet much.
Her eyes closed.
The voices of her Vincire came to her. She cracked open an eye, thinking that she’d find them before her. But it was silent. The only sound was her soft breaths.
Tharen would tell her to stop sulking and be smart—for once in her life.
Vale would tell her not to give up. But she was so tired.
Az would…
Luella’s throat closed up. She could scarcely parse the memory of Az, Bastian, and Graves alongside the versions that haunted her in this cell. They had converged into one entity in her mind.
The Graves who knelt before her, begging for her forgiveness, had merged with the one who forced her into the ground, bit her lip, and touched between her thighs. As had the memory of Az—her sweet demon protector, who helped her overcome her fear of water; he shifted into the male who made her soften up before he struck with wicked words. Bastian, who had helped her the only way he knew how, for so long, only to turn into a monster in her eyes.
She pressed her fist to her mouth to stifle a sob. If no one was here to hear the sound of her cries, would it really be so bad to let them free?
She was so consumed in her own mind, trapped, that she didn’t hear the sound of footsteps until they were right before the bars.
"Look at this, the little heirus bitch, alone and caged."
Luella opened her eyes at the sound of the voice. Was it real?
Ambrose stood before the bars, the blue lights sparkled over his dark skin, accentuating the hollows under his eyes. He didn’t look as bad as he had the last time she had seen him. He wore a fine black coat, thrown over an embroidered blouse, with tight-fitting breeches and shoes that shone. The tip of his shoe nudged the bottom of the bars, making a soft clinking noise. She scooted back.
"Scared of me?" Ambrose laughed. "I knew you were smart. You look so good in here, behind bars. I was told by my master that he hasn’t touched you—yet. I know it won’t be long before he does. You look so fucking broken in here. I bet you’d welcome his touch, wouldn’t you?"
"You—you died," Luella said, an echo of her words as he’d handed her collar to Caliban in the throne room.
Ambrose’s lips quirked. "Not really. It was only a little punishment from my master. I digress, I was bad. I deserved it. Hurt like a motherfucker, though." His dark eyes raked over her form. "Now I wish to make you hurt."
"No. You can’t. Caliban—he won’t like it if you harm me, is that right? That’s why he punished you." The words were thick in her mouth, like shadowy sludge. "How did you… survive that?"
Ambrose took a step back. Had her words gotten through to him?
Instead of leaving, his hand raised, reaching for a dark key dangling on a hook just out of her sight—and her reach. He held it on his finger, dangling it before her, his arm through the bars as if to taunt her.
"Don’t ever say his name, you bitch. I cannot believe Master would leave you in here like this—alone. Really, he was asking for trouble. He couldn’t fault me for taking a piece of you. He made me this way, after all."
Luella’s eyes were fixated on the key in his grasp. "M-made you?" Slowly, she stood and took the tiniest of steps toward the bars. Surely he wouldn’t unlock the door and come inside?
Caliban hadshoved his hand through Ambrose’s chest.
Her stare dipped, but she found no broken flesh or cracked bones. He was whole, unmarred. And so, so violent.
"You still haven’t fucking figured it out—how I’m alive? I see your young, little mind working. Your face is so readable. It’s a wonder you survived this long with all these predators nipping at your heels and salivating for a taste of your innocence."
Entranced by the key, she found herself moving closer until the bars brushed her knees. "I don’t understand," she breathed.
"Of course you don’t. Did you really think a god inside the flesh of a male could be overcome by death so easily? My master found me in the streets centuries before you were ever even a thought. He saw how desperate I was for affection, and he gave it to me unlike any other. I was reborn through his shadows. He broke me just as you are being broken. Solitude, infrequent visits, until I began to hang on to every shift of sound in the air, hoping andpraying"—he gave a dark, deep laugh, head tipped back as if the thought of praying was amusing—"that it would be him."
She searched his eyes, finding the absence of shadows just as she had before. "You’re not an Umbra." It wasn’t a question.
Luella understood why she hadn’t turned into an Umbra after that day at the cliffside. She had thought, for sure, his blood had gotten somewhere on her—in her—or perhaps his… saliva. The first few days, she’d been too out of it to wonder, then she had forgotten almost entirely. Now she knew why.
"He doesn’t turn everyone. Only those who have more worth as mindless vessels than willing, worshipful slaves. Those he doesn’t turn have to prove their loyalty. Do you want to knowwhat I did?" Ambrose moved closer to the bars until she felt his breath on her cheeks.
