AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“If you want me to bite you, all you have to do is ask.” Dante flips me over and into his arms, cradling me like a bride.
Elias groans, his lolling head stealing my attention. “What did you do to me? I feel weird.”
Kase plops down beside him on the bed and drapes his arm over Elias’s shoulders. Leaning into him, Kase fucks with Elias by ruffling his fingers through his hair. “You’ll feel great in a minute. High and mighty as the angel you used to be until you fell for that soul right over there.” Twirling his finger, Kase motions at me. “Don’t you see it?”
Elias slowly blinks, squinting his eyes at me. “What do you mean I fell for her?”
“Not Raven—at least, not in this lifetime. The soul.” Kase pinches Elias’s chin and keeps him in place. “Look at that sexy bright thing.”
“All I see are the bands of darkness choking the light of that soul. The same darkness radiating from you. Her light has only grown darker since I first laid eyes on her. Nothing you say, and I mean, nothing, will ever attract me to an abomination.”
Dante releases a vibrating hiss. “I suppose you’d have to be a narcissist, considering it belongs to you.”
“What?” Elias’s head bobs before he touches his chin to his chest. “I’m too fucked up to follow.” His words slur and he attempts to raise his head again.
Kase pulls him by the hair, getting him to flop back and stare at the mirror on the ceiling. I can’t help following his line of sight. Catching my gaze, Elias smiles lazily, his hard features softening to expose how cute he looks, even under the influence of Dante’s venom.
“My God, my love. You haven’t changed, my breathtaking soulmate.” Elias stretches his arms in an attempt at coaxing my reflection to him, but the restraints lock him in place. A flash of anger steals the gentleness of his features, and he thrashes. “Let me go! I have to get to her. The darkness claims her because of me. Please, don’t hurt her.”
I shift in Dante’s arms. “I think he’s tripping.”
“Grace! My Grace, listen to me. They will come for you to use you against me. You must never give in to their temptation. They will only lure you to your doom. Run and don’t look back. I will come for you.” Elias’s eyes rim with tears, and he struggles again. “Promise me, Grace. You won’t let the saviors tempt you. You will do as we planned. I can’t live without you, and if they get what they want, they will use life and time to try to keep us apart.”
“He’s hallucinating, Dante. There has to be something you can do. I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself.” I try to shrug out of Dante’s arms, but he doesn’t let me go.
Kase scoots between the two of us and Elias, ensuring I don’t try anything crazy. Tilting his head toward the mirror on the ceiling, Kase watches Elias watch me. Dante watches too. It’s so strange to hear him call me by another name and treat me like I’m the most precious person to him, even if it’s not real.
“It’s a memory, Raven,” Kase finally says. He twists and waves his hand in front of Elias’s face, grabbing his attention. “You hear me, Elias? Whatever you see isn’t real.”
Whipping his head down, Elias breaks my stare in the mirror, widening his eyes at the sight of Kase like he just now realizes he sits in front of him. “Kase, my brethren. What are you doing here? Have you come for me?”
Kase clears his throat. “It took you long enough. You should’ve followed us and leaped.”
I gawk at the back of Kase’s head. I can’t believe he’s playing along, pretending to know what the hell Elias rambles on about in his venom-induced memory hallucination. It takes everything in me not to whack him on the back, because I want to find out how Elias’s memory of me in another life played out without devil intervention. Dante laces his fingers through mine and stops me.
“It wasn’t my time. Please, you have to understand,” Elias says, fighting against the chains. “I couldn’t. But I’m ready now. I need your help. Cassius—”
“You want a deal with the devil?” Kase says, cutting him off.
“No, Kase. I want your help, not a deal. You must keep Lucifer out of it. I know your alliance is strong, but he is Hell’s anchor, and I don’t want him touching my beautiful Grace.” Elias grinds his teeth, still fighting the restraints. “Please, will you help me?”
“Under one condition,” Kase says, swiveling his torso. “You must tell Dante who holds your mortal soul.”
I don’t get a chance to react before Dante drops me on the bed beside him and hisses, letting his devil façade break through his skin. I know one of his specialties is entrancing humans into a state of hypnosis to bend them to his will, but I’m not sure it will work on Elias. It didn’t work on me.
“I don’t have a mortal soul. I barely have my light. I gave it to Grace.” Elias heaves a breath and coughs, hacking so hard that blood spatters across his shirt. Fuck. It’s worse than I thought. He wasn’t joking about being sick and dying.
Dante towers over Elias and grabs him by the throat, getting him to stop fighting. Leaning in, he captures him with his gaze. “Snap out of it. You’re human and you sold your soul to a bottom feeder demon. Tell us who owns it, so we can handle the situation.”
Like Dante knocks sense back into him, Elias’s wide eyes narrow, and his features twist from fear and into hatred hot enough that I expect the world to ignite in flames around us. Flaring his nostrils, Elias jerks his attention back toward my reflection on the ceiling. I nearly dive into Kase’s arms, half expecting the fallen angel, now reborn as a mortal, to still have the capability to smite me.
“What the actual fuck! What have you done to my head?” Elias asks, his voice rising with his fury. “Just kill me and get it over with. I can’t give you the information you seek. It’s in my contract.”
Kase grows and snakes his tail toward Elias, wrapping it around his neck, constricting his airway. “Just because you can’t speak of it, doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways to extract the information. Now, about a deal.”
“No. I’ve sold enough to Hell.” Elias bucks his body, trying to break free.
“Damn it, you son-of-a-bastard,” Dante snaps, flashing his fangs. “We are trying to help you—and yoursoulmate.” He hisses the word soulmate like it pains him to say it. “You’ve already failed her once. Don’t try to dismiss what you saw.”
