CHAPTER FIFTEEN

For a long time after Innis bolted out of the room like the chicken-shit jack-rabbit he was, Clarise remained with her back stoically to Avis, and he had no idea how to close the growing distance between them. Guards rushed into the room, surrounding Clarise and separating her from the only viable threat in the room which happened to be him.

He sighed and waited for Clarise to rectify their misconceptions. As she explained the situation, Avis heard the term persona-non-gratae being said about Innis again and wondered idly what that meant to the Hellions. Clearly something not good, given the way the guards bristled, then turned and rushed just as quickly from the room, leaving Avis and Clarise alone.

Alone … and a room apart. It felt like a realm.

“I haven’t lied since you rescued me from the Nine Levels,” he said as he slid his raised leg flat against the mattress and leaned forward, willing her to believe him.

Clarise slowly turned. In doing so, the black cloak that fell below her knees swayed, distorting the golden insignia of Mystal’s precious flying equine as it reared with its wings extended proudly. Avis noted the folded crest of his pantheon and took heart at what its presence represented now. Had she really been mad at him, she wouldn’t have retained either the uniform or the Mystallian shape, and he clung to the hope that it meant she was at least willing to hear him out.

What he didn’t like, were the tears that streamed down her cheeks.

Wishing he had the power to stop them the way she could, he went up on to his knees and crawled to the foot of the bed with his arms outstretched. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. I swear I haven’t lied to you since that first time I woke up in this bed … our bed.” She didn’t move to him, but likewise, she didn’t move away.

Hoping he still wasn’t misreading her body language, Avis stepped off the bed and went to stand in front of her. His gloved hands found her shoulders and he rubbed them through her dark cloak and doublet. Then he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her to him, kissing the top of her head.

“Baby, your older brother, Uriel came to me yesterday afternoon to tell me Cora had broken the cardinal rule of going into a blood rage. I had no idea what one was and he told me that the High Court had convened to decide Cora’s fate. Apparently, it was a close call, but instead of killing her outright as you know they would have done under any other circumstances, they gave me the option of taking her out of Hell with me, never to return. I readily accepted it. Like I said before, sweetheart, she’s too Mystallian to be here.”

He paused, deciding how to word the next part. “But even before all of that went down, Columbine spent a while with me and that kid’s really grown on me. She’s sweet and maybe a little too shy for my usual liking, but if anyone wants to have a problem with that, they’ll have to get through me first. The bottom line is, this isn’t just about Cora. I want you all, Clarise. I had no idea how I was going to ask and knew I had no right to, but I was going to ask anyway. I can’t stay here, but I don’t want to leave without taking all of you with me. You spent years filling Columbine’s head with the fantasy that wasn’t me at the time, and all I’m asking for is the chance to become that god. For you. For them.” He slid one hand under her chin and tilted her head up to look at him. “You do believe me, don’t you?”

Clarise blinked at him once, then slowly, knowingly, she smiled. Her tears literally dried up on the spot and the combination softened her expression gorgeously.

“There is something you should know about me, beloved,” she said, her eyelids dipping ever so slightly. “Ordinarily, I am able to distinguish the truth from a lie. That is my innate gift. Some have implied your powers of deception exceed my ability to read that truth,” —her smile grew— “… but I am of the opinion that I am so love-struck by you, that you could tell me that water was dry and I would believe you.”

So, she didn’t really believe him, but she loved him enough to not care. That wasn’t good enough for Avis. Still holding her, he stepped backwards to the foot of the bed and partially sat on the timber frame so that he was on the same eye level as her. “What can I say or do that will prove how I feel about you?” He slid his hands down her arms until he held her hands against his chest. “I’m not lying, sweetheart. I love you so much it kills me to think you don’t actually believe me.”

“I know,” Clarise replied. “The point where you lied and I didn’t know, was that night in my father’s conservatory. But I knew you were lying when you promised yourself to me at our wedding, and I knew you were telling me the truth when you called me all those horrible names and made me feel so worthless in Mystal. I also knew you were telling the truth when you told me last night you loved me and wanted me back and I hear the truth now.”

She looked over her shoulder at the bedroom doors that were still open from where the guards had left. “Innis was also telling the truth, though his version was biased against you, as all of them will no doubt be.”

He lifted both her hands and pressed the palms to his lips. “They’re all wrong about my intentions. I swear on the whole realm of Mystal they are.”

Clarise looked him squarely in the eyes. “Had Innis not brought Cora’s blood rage to light, would you have ever told me?”

Avis dragged his upper lip through his teeth. He never wanted to lie to her again—not even by omission. “I don’t know. Maybe … maybe it was cowardly of me, but I thought if I could convince you and Columbine to come with us, you need never know. But I swear, I don’t want just Cora. Yes, she acts more like a Mystallian than Columbine, but that little girl is very special and has come to mean a great deal to me too. You shouldn’t have told her all those things about me if you didn’t want me to come back into her life. You wanted me back, and now here I am, swearing on everything I hold dear that I want to come back. I love you, Clarise. Maybe it’s taken all that time in the Ninth Level to make me realise that, but it’s still true.”

He gave her hands a little tug that brought her down into his embrace. “I don’t deserve a second chance, I know,” he whispered quietly into her ear. “But you were willing to give it to me. Don’t take it back now. That would be worse than the entire two years I spent in the Nine Levels.”

Clarise looked at him and dusted her thumbs against his cheek bones. “I have never seen you cry before last night,” she said, drying the moisture from his cheeks. “It brings an unusual softness to your face.”

Avis wasn’t aware that he had been crying, but he seized the opportunity it had given him. “I’ve cried a lot during these past two years, but never once before that. Not even as a child. Weakness of that magnitude was not looked kindly upon.”

“Do you consider tears humiliating?”

He nodded without hesitation. “They provide a weakness that begs to be exploited.” Pinching his lips together tightly, he pushed back the memories of himself as a child, where he’d been lying at his father’s feet, crying and begging for mercy … and the alternate to Hell that had been unleashed on him because of it. “And you know where we sit on the subject of begging.”

Clarise tilted her head a little. “Yet you cry shamelessly at the thought of losing Columbine and I?”

Having no words to express how he felt, Avis closed his mouth and nodded silently.

Clarise bowed her head and Avis quickly followed suit, determined to keep eye contact with her. She freed one hand and curled her arm around his neck, then pulled him forward until their foreheads met.

Avis made himself relax and go along with whatever she had in mind. He was not one for relinquishing control easily, but for this … to win this … he would do anything. She slid her hand through his dark hair and rolled his head upwards until they stared each other in the eye.

“Then you shall have your second chance, beloved,” she whispered against his lips. “I truly do believe you.”

Avis released the breath he hadn’t remembered holding and kissed her deeply. “You’ll never regret it,” he promised when it ended and he peppered her lips, her nose, her eyes and every other part of her face and neck with light kisses. All to show her how much he wanted this.

“I had better not,” she chuckled, allowing him to pull her backwards onto the bed.

* * *

Flaring small, feathered wings from his hips (that shouldn’t have been strong enough to carry his weight) Ahriman landed at the foot of his father’s throne with the ease of his much larger winged brethren. “I have just one question for you, sister,” he declared, circling Clarise as if he couldn’t decide what aspect of her Mystallian appearance offended him more.

Clarise held her chin high and followed his movements as best she could without moving her head. Everything below her neck was covered in black leather and fabric in accordance with the pantheon of her husband. She hadn’t worn it before today, not even when she first moved to Mystal. Avis had made it clear she wasn’t welcome, and she hadn’t wanted to antagonise him by wearing it anyway.

But ever since Innis had … ‘visited’ them, Avis had all but cooed his approval at the sight of her in his uniform. Own the space, he’d purred in and around her lips, adding his confidence to her own. You’re one of us now, sweetheart. Don’t let any of them push you around. He had dearly wanted to accompany her but given the level of hostility she’d been expecting and the weakened state he was in, she’d convinced him to stay behind. He’d never have handled the amount of intimidation they were likely to push at her without fighting back and getting hurt in the process.

An hour earlier, after placing a Highborn Hellion Guard outside her bedroom to prevent a repeat of Innis’ attack while she was away, she had gone to her father and requested an audience with the High Court. The two had discussed matters for a short time before he summoned the Highborn Lords. Once they arrived, she informed them that she and Columbine would be leaving with Avis and Cora as soon as he was well enough to travel.

Their response had been … less than enthusiastic.

“Are you out of your mind?” her lion-headed brother roared when his circuit was complete and he stood before her with his fists planted against his feathered hip wings. His outrage was echoed throughout the room.

Clarise stood with her hands hidden in the folds of her dark cloak. The ankles of her soft, black leather leggings and solid knee-high leather boots were shoulder-width apart as she stood at ease and met Ahriman’s glare with a level one of her own, neither offering him excuses nor accepting his condemning criticism of her husband.

“I have never done anything to deter your faith in me before, brother, and it is my wish to believe in my husband. Ordinarily, I am not permitted to make many decisions regarding my well-being—”

“And look at how you handle the ones you do get!” Ahriman raged. He then arched in agony as various pain receptors across his body were engaged and triggered. “I apologise,” he said quickly, his eyes lifting firstly to Belial who had done the physical reprimand from range, then his various brothers that were scattered around the room—all of whom glared down at him from their various perches.

No one shouted at a Highborn Lady, no matter what form she took. “But Clarise, have you not heard a single word which we have been trying to tell you? You have to know your husband is nothing more than a malicious opportunist.”

“That opinion is your right to bear. However, he is still my husband and my place, so long as I bear his bracers of marriage, shall always be at his side.” To emphasise that point, she removed the elbow-length, soft leather glove from her left hand and pushed the doublet sleeve to the elbow.

The motion exposed one of her golden wedding bracers which glinted in the flickering half-light against the snow-like quality of her Mystallian forearm. The engravings were of a rearing winged mystallion whose front hooves merged with the hooves of a rearing demon steed on the opposite side, representing the union of their two prestigious pantheons. She held it above her head for the room to see. “He and I are one.”

“But how do you know he feels the same way?” Yima asked, joining his twin on the floor before the court. “I mean he has already deceived you once. How do you know he is not just using you to raise that wretched daughter of his?”

Clarise’s gaze narrowed—something she would have never done before. “That wretched daughter is mine also, brother, and although your opinions are your right to have, you will keep those that regard the highborn youth of our house in a derogatory fashion entirely to yourself. My gift is the ability to hear the truth when it is spoken, and although it failed me once, it has never let me down before or since. Make no mistake, brother. I am not here to seek out your approval or your permission. Cora and Columbine are going to need both their parents for several years to come and I have decided to move back to Mystal with their father.”

“And what of Charon?” Plouton asked, from his perch high overhead. “Does he not deserve both parents also?”

Clarise lost a lot of her intensity with that reminder, and instead of looking up at her brother, she turned her attention to the military commander who stood just behind her father’s throne.

“Charon will stay with his father,” she said, forcing herself to maintain eye contact with the only other male who had ever shared her bed. He deserved so much more than to be told like this, yet she silently willed him to understand her reasons. All her reasons. Reasons she still hadn’t fully grasped herself yet.

“He was born out of wedlock with barely a drop of Mystallian blood and would never be accepted by them in any capacity, which is as it should be. Here at least, he will grow to be a Demon Lord in his own right and have the family and his father to protect him.”

Beelzebub dipped his horned head a fraction in silent acceptance of her decree.

“You are a brainless fool!” Yima shouted with a stamp of his heel.

“Enough,” Belial cut in before things could escalate, frowning ever so slightly at his twin sons to show them he had no intention of allowing either of their savage words towards their sister to pass without reprisal. The men swallowed as his unspoken message was received.

For the life of her, Clarise couldn’t explain why she’d never noticed these subtle exchanges between them before. “It is Clarise’s decision to remain loyal to her husband and regardless of your personal opinions, we will support her during this time of difficulty, just as we always have.”

Clarise could feel her lips beginning to pull upwards in a smile and had to numb those muscles to get them back under control as she rolled her sleeve down and replaced her glove. It astonished her how quickly her circumstances had changed.

Two days ago, she’d have never found the courage to stand in front of the convened High Court and make her intentions known, let alone see them through without caving into their demands. Back when she had petitioned for Avis’ release, it had been her father who informed the High Court of her decision, while she had silently stood at his side. Not this time. She was growing beyond the confines of a Highborn Hellion Lady.

Returning sensation to her lips, she bowed her head and shoulders to the Highborn Hellion who ruled them all. “Thank you, Father.”

“You may go now, my child.”

Clarise straightened, spun on her booted heel and replicated her farewell bow to the assembled court. Then she left, enjoying the thump of her Mystallian boots on the stone floor as she strode proudly from the room without saying another word; her head held high and her shoulders drawn back. There was nothing delicate about the Mystallian uniform. In all black from neck to toe, it was strength. It was power. It was … invigorating.

Belial waited until Clarise was well on her way before he slowly turned his attention back to his twin sons who remained before him. He said nothing for a long time as he stared down at them, his claws sinking deeper into the souls that made up the armrests of his throne. A cold chill entered the room, causing both brothers to swallow heavily again and glance at each other nervously.

This was not going to end well for either of them.

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CHAPTER SIXTEEN

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