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I couldn’t simply walk through the front doors—especially considering the house’s large red double-doors were wrapped in lengths of black thread, intricately braided and knotted, forming powerful wards of protection around the entry. I found the windows similarly protected. But at the very back of the house, almost entirely hidden beneath a mound of dirt, leaves, and moss, I found a small wooden door set into the foundation of the house.
A cellar.
The rusting hinges were impossible to open without noise, but I took my time to ease them open and slipped down into the dank space. Bunches of herbs hung from the ceiling alongside shelves of canned goods and old, locked crates. I found wooden stairs at the far end of the room, and climbed up to find myself in a large, disconcertingly old-fashioned kitchen that smelt strongly of cinnamon, cloves, and oranges.
I was feeling pretty damn confident. I’d happened upon the place when the little witch’s Archdemon wasn’t even at home. A piano was playing softly from above as I crept out into the entry hall and, strangely, I could hear birdsong. Despite the dreary light outside, the house was as well-lit as a spring day.
I was making my way toward the large staircase to the upper floor when something seized my throat, squeezed with a vice grip, and hurled me backwards to fly through the air until I hit the far wall so hard, I swear my being slipped back into Hell for a moment.
But only a moment.
Then I was on my feet, muscles tensed, claws distended, ready to—
Seized again, my arm was jolted from its socket as I was flung in the opposite direction and landed hard on the stone floor, skidding across its smooth surface. The movement was so fast I saw nothing more than a dark blur, nothing more than—
Grabbed again, thrown, and this time my skull hit the banister and I tumbled down the stairs to lie limply at the foot of them. I could take a beating, but fucking hell, all the air had been forced out of my lungs, my arm was dislocated, and my body was heating drastically as it attempted to repair what was almost certainly several fractures in my skull. I didn’t even make an attempt to move as footsteps pounded slowly across the floor toward me, and the sole of a boot pressed down on the top of my head.
Pressing—crushing me against the stone—harder—my vision flashed—
“Fucking fuck, stop…stop!” My voice broke, but what did it matter when my skull was about to be cracked like an egg? I scrambled on the floor, but that foot resting on me may as well have been the weight of an elephant.
“Going to beg for mercy already? You’re no fun.” The voice that spoke was all gravel, deep as night, dark as the furthest depths of Hell. The piano had stopped, as had the birdsong. I shuddered from head to foot and stopped struggling, and instead licked my bleeding lips and focused all my energy on healing as rapidly as possible.
“Callum,” I said quickly. “It’s Callum, isn’t it?”
There was a pause,then the boot left my head, and fingers knotted in my hair, hauling me up until I dangled on the tips of my toes—and faced the Archdemon I’d been so certain wasn’t here.
“Do I know you, hellion?” It was impossible to tell where his solidly black eyes were looking, but I tried to keep a stoic face; showing pain was exactly what he’d want, exactly what would spur him on. He was taller than me, but slimmer. Dark-haired, with a slim mouth and rigid jaw. How the hell I hadn’t smelled him, I couldn’t fathom; he reeked of blood and wood smoke, and the energy within his presence was palpable. My closeness to him was almost unbearable, like having my head pounded with soundless bass.
But when he hauled me up, he left his throat exposed. Leaving me an opening to—
All it took was the slightest twitch of my hand, and my face got bashed against the far wall again. Dazed, I raised my head from the floor, spitting blood onto the stones. The Archdemon paced along the hall, snapping his fingers as if to some invisible beat.
I hated him. I really, desperately wanted to rip him to shreds.
He didn’t bother to throw me again. Instead, he drop-kicked the heel of his boot into my face and I felt something snap in my jaw.
“Alright!” I held up a hand—felt him grasp it—the bastard snapped my wrist back, breaking it like a twig. I snatched it back, cradling it to my chest as I screamed furiously, “Fucking hell, stop! I’ll go, I’ll fucking go, goddamnit…”
“Go?” He laughed, or at least I guessed that he did. The sound was just deep rumbles in my aching head. “You’re really not fun at all. Why don’t you try to squirm for the door?” He squatted down near me, still snapping his fucking fingers. “I’ll let you reach it, I promise. I won’t let you getbeyondit, but won’t it feel good to—”
This time, my claws made contact with his face, and he leapt back to the foot of the stairway.
“Fuck you,” I snarled, jerking up to my feet, blood pouring from my nose, my jaw making some truly bizarre popping sounds as it knitted itself back together. Callum curiously touched along his face, where I’d laid open his cheek straight through to his teeth, and regarded the blood on his fingers with an all-too-calm curiosity.
“Clever,” he murmured. “And here I thought you couldn’t take the pain.”
“I’ve spent the last century in pain,” I spat onto the floor again, cracking my stiffening neck. There were some very unhappy vertebrae at the base of my skull. “I’m not here to cause any trouble for you or your witch, I only want—”
Slammed onto my back again, the air rushed out of my lungs, and Callum crouched over me with an expression of clinical indifference. With his face already knitting back together, he sunk his claws into my cheek and began to tear. “I don’t care what you want, hellion, any more than a spider cares for the wants of a fly.”
I tried not to scream, but fuck, ithurt. For the first time, I began to think I wasn’t going to get out of this alive.
“What pretty teeth you have, hellion—”
“Callum, stop!”
The Archdemon went stiff as stone, his claws still sunk into my face. There, at the top of the stairway, Everly Hadleigh stood in a pale green dress, her long hair coiled up and pinned in a messy pile atop her head. She came slowly down the stairs, her expression grim but wide-eyed, her gaze fixed on my face.
