CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

It was a good thing the double doors were only a step from Avis’ back, for although he hadn’t known he’d moved, the timber suddenly collided with his shoulders in a forceful thump. She’d been a newborn infant when he’d attacked Clarise in the nursery. He vaguely remembered her wailing incessantly in the background, but clearly, she remembered everything about him. The question was … how?

“You’ve had your adult perception that long?” he asked, hoping against hope that he was mistaken. He held enough shame over his actions as it was, without adding this …

Cora’s lethal glare confirmed his worst nightmare. “Not just my perception either, you slae-el. I remember everything,” she snarled. “Every realm-damned second of it. You, staggering in so badly you could barely stand. Mother’s smile, when she thought you were taking an interest in me, and her look of absolute terror when your real motives became known. She was barely a handful of hours out of labour and you grabbed her by the back of her neck and forced her over my change table and you raped her! You rammed her so hard you hurt her and no amount of begging and pleading on her part stopped you! She didn’t even shapeshift to escape you! She should have, but you did something to stop her! I know you did! I even remember what you said, when you did it!”

Avis wanted more than anything to cover his ears and hide, unable to bear the justifiable fury that leapt across the room at him. He’d been too drunk to remember what he’d said, but he could well imagine. ‘Monster’ would have been too generous a title for him back then, and he was the first to admit it.

But hiding from his daughter was a coward’s way out and he wouldn’t deny her this. She’d been waiting five long years for this moment and he was going to stand there and hear every word she had to say. Later, he could carve his heart out and offer it to them on a plate—if she didn’t do it first.

“You want to spawn with my seed so fucking badly, you demonic whore! Here! Have some fucking more!”

Avis’ blood turned to ice in his veins at the words he could hear himself saying, and he fell against the door for a second time. He slammed his eyes shut against the truth, bowing his head and dragging all his fingers through his hair. No! … Oh, no … no, no! It hadn’t been Clarise’s decision to fall pregnant with Columbine at all! As the Mystallian God of Life within his own powerbase, he had possessed the establishment field to create life where there would’ve ordinarily been none. Most of that day had been lost in a drunken blur, but it would explain how Columbine came to be. He had been the one to make it so.

And Cora, despite her infantile state, had seen and heard it all. He clenched his fist in self-loathing and slammed it against the door behind him. This was going to take more than a few punches and a shouting match. This was going to take blood. A whole lot of blood.

He didn’t like where his thoughts were taking him. No sane man would. Hell had no demonic healers to repair a Mystallian and his own limited healing in the Nine Levels had been achieved through the Walk. If he followed his first instinct and offered Cora a weapon with which to hack him to pieces, the Highborn Hellions would find out about it the second he was carried through Hell to the Walk. Cora had already lost an arm for wielding a weapon. There was no way anyone was going to let her swing another, even if it was at him.

Trying to heal on his own without the Walk would delay their departure by months—maybe years. Small cuts, scratches and bruises would heal in seconds to minutes without the boost of a powerbase. A broken bone; maybe an hour or two. But being reduced to a smear? That was a healing process which even a god needed decades to recover from.

And if he waited until after they left Hell to resolve the situation, he’d still be a smear for decades until he healed. Decades, when his family would be vulnerable to the Known Realms without his protection. Avis shook his head. He had too many enemies out there to risk that.

Option four was to wait until they were all safely in Mystal. Avis dragged his lips through his teeth. Two things went against that plan. One: Cora needed to vent now if she was to hang on to her sanity, not at some distant point in the future that could be years away. Two: If his family found out the actual specifics of his assault on Clarise, they’d all pile on to Cora’s side so fast his head would spin. Even now, he could picture Griffith and Tal pinning him to the ground while Amaro and Armina showed the already way too smart girl precisely how to make every blow cause the maximum pain and damage until her vengeance had run its course.

As much as it galled him, taking the Walk and spending a few more days in bed was the only feasible option … and only one person had the power to defy Hellion Highborn law inside of Hell. Oh, I really don’t want to do this. But having decided on his course of action, he lowered his hand to look at Cora, then placed a silencing finger to his lips. Fear the repercussions, the supreme demon had said the last time they’d met, and Avis surely did. But this wasn’t about him. Before he could talk himself out of it, Avis raised his hand and barely whispered the name, “Belial.”

An image of the supreme demon formed between him and Cora, though Avis kept his eyes low and only saw him from his waist down. “Perhaps I was not understood,” the great demon rumbled ominously.

“You were, M’lord,” Avis replied, rolling his shoulders forward and dipping his head in supplication. It took everything he had not to fall to his knees and grovel. “It’s for Cora’s sake that I’m reaching out to you. Not my own.” He didn’t offer any further explanation, hoping Belial would take the bait and keep the conversation going.

The muscles in Belial’s lower legs flexed as he squared his weight between his cloven feet. “You are surrendering your charge already?”

“No!” Avis’ eyes automatically flew upwards in denial, almost making it to the demon’s chin before he caught himself and lowered it back to Belial’s leather-plated waist. Eye contact would have been suicidal. “No, M’lord. But I do have a proposal that would require a measure of your … gratuity.”

Refusing to back down now that he was on this path, Avis quickly went on. “Cora has the comprehension of an adult, and apparently, she has always had that presence of mind. She was … there … that day in Mystal and has been forced to deny her Mystallian sense of righteousness ever since. I … she needs to vent it before it destroys her from the inside. Over half her current attitude stems from it. In order to grant her that vengeance, I’m going to be hurt, which in turn will slow down my recovery and force me to remain inside of Hell for much longer than any of us wanted.”

Belial’s smoky breath billowed down his legs. “What are you asking?”

As if you didn’t already know, Avis thought to himself, but was careful not to let his features betray those thoughts. He swallowed heavily, unable to believe the next words he was about to utter. “I’m asking for permission to be taken to The Walk after she’s finished with me, and that Cora not be punished for anything that happens between us during this time.”

“While Cora remains in her current form, nothing she can do to you will require more than a few minutes for you to heal naturally from. That would hardly require punishment from me.”

He was being antagonistic on purpose. Avis was sure of it. “Because of the tefsla in her system, she can’t change very easily—if at all. But the anger inside her needs an outlet which is more than her current shape by itself can provide. So … even if it’s only temporary … with your permission … I’d like one of two things for her. Either she be granted her demonic form to rip me to pieces, or …” —Avis paused and swallowed, knowing this latter one would be like asking for the throne of Hell itself— “… for the duration of this contest, all of Hell ignores the fact that she is swinging into me with a sword. One of those two needs to happen.” He paused. “She needs this to happen.”

What happened next, stunned Avis to the core.

“Give me your hand.”

Avis’ eyes shot up again, and he saw the clawed hand of the supreme demon being raised in his direction. He had no chance to warn Cora. To keep Belial waiting even a millisecond was to court a sentence of the Damned and Cora had already heard his side of the conversation, so he could only hope that she was as clever as she appeared.

After clasping wrists with Avis, Belial stepped into the room beside him. Cora gasped and dropped from the footboard to land on her knees on the carpeted floor with her forehead bowed to the ground—a pose Avis chastised himself for wanting to replicate.

“Cora attempted to use a weapon and later attacked her sister in a blood rage. Both were done while she stood under my house banner and she paid the price,” Belial rumbled, twisting as if to peruse the room, rather than its occupants. “As of this time three days ago, by both our decrees, she now stands under yours. However … before you continue on this path, I would suggest you consider how confused your plan will make her. She was punished for attempting to wield a weapon and now you are going to give her that and more, knowing no woman of standing may touch a weapon inside the borders of Chaos. Not even my descendants of war.”

Wait … she didn’t even get to the weapon wielding part? They maimed her just for trying?

Avis jumped all over his thoughts, not wanting a single facial movement to give them away. Belial may not have had a clue about the inner workings of a mind, but he was all over everything physical and every possible tell therein. Avis chose instead to look at his prone daughter, reminding himself of the spitfire she had been not two minutes earlier—and would be again if he had his way. “I wronged her as a Mystallian. She may have her vengeance as a Mystallian. It’s our way.”

“Beelzebub,” Avis thought he heard Belial murmur, though the three were alone and no blood-link had been established between the supreme demon and his Military Commander. Not that a blood-link would have worked anyway … unless Beelzebub was family.

Was he?

“Avis and Clarise’s bedroom is completely off limits to all. No one may enter until you hear so from me.”

Eternity could come and go before Avis would ask him how he’d done that. Without looking, the Mystallian felt the full weight of Belial’s gaze as it raked across his body and forced himself to stay perfectly still. “I will take you through The Walk personally when this is over. This will remain between us.”

Although it was everything Avis had asked for, the thought of the impending bloodbath—namely his—had his heartrate skyrocketing. He’d be a liar if he said otherwise. Pain was still pain, and he wasn’t a shifter. He couldn’t just switch off his pain receptors whenever he wanted like they could. Every stroke of the blade was going to bring unbridled agony, but he’d deserved this. Every second of it.

All the Hellions combined had not been as wronged as Clarise and Cora were. Clarise had already forgiven him. Why, he was still trying to fathom, but he was grateful beyond words for the second chance. Cora was too Mystallian for a verbal forgiveness and needed to extract her revenge before they could move forward as a family.

“I’ll need her to have a seclusion ring of some type as well,” he added, as he realised his calm acceptance of what must be was only possible because the carnage hadn’t started yet. The same would not be said half a heartbeat after he was first skewered by a sword. “Once she starts, I’ll fight back. I won’t be able to help myself and she’ll never survive it.”

Through his peripheral vision, Avis saw Belial close his left hand into a loose fist, and when he opened it again, a plain gold ring sat in the centre of his palm. The ease with which he’d done that was laughable, if Avis didn’t know it was exactly what he’d asked for. He tried really, really hard not to react to the fact that Belial had managed to create the one item that could shut down anyone from his side of the family indefinitely, with little more than a thought and no actual components. He’d just willed it into being. Yet another terrifying piece of information to add to his already petrifyingly scary father-by-marriage.

“I-If you could put it somewhere inside Cora where I won’t find it easily, I won’t be able to target it the second we get started,” Avis stammered, scrambling to get his own racing thoughts in check.

“You will do no harm to her physically.”

Belial’s voice reverberated against Avis’ eardrums, though the great demon never spoke a word. Avis gasped and jerked to face him, but Belial’s full focus was still on Cora.

The ring was no longer in his hand …

… and he hadn’t moved.

Avis breathed through his growing panic. Shapeshifting his eardrums to hear sounds that were never uttered and able to create a seclusion ring from scratch and put it in Cora—all without moving. The evil bastard was definitely freaking him out on purpose. “W-Will you give her a blade, M’lord?”

“Mystallian steel, no less,” Belial replied.

Avis watched Cora’s reaction to the conversation. The girl was still curled in a submissive ball on the floor, but despite the distance he could almost swear he saw her tiny ears twitch as she strained to catch every word. Specifically, the words Mystallian steel. No sooner had Belial said the words, then a metre-long sword rose out of the carpet fibres under her nose, not unlike an island breaking through the surface of the ocean.

Unwilling to lift her head from the subservient position, she moved her hand so that her palm stroked the flattened side of the blade. If there’d been any doubt she was Mystallian, watching the way she caressed the mystical steel in absolute rapture finished it off. He’d seen his sister Armina of War have that same love affair with her claymores too many times not to recognise it for what it was.

It shouldn’t have surprised him that Belial was gone when he turned to say something else. It really shouldn’t have—and no doubt he’d be telling himself that for the next few millennia. Creepy so and so.

“Alright, Cora. On your feet,” he said, slapping his hands together to distract himself from his dangerous musings. “And unless you think your fingernails can match that blade you’re practically drooling over, bring it with you. You’re a Mystallian now, girl, and it’s about time you learned how to swing one of our swords.”

Cora slowly rose to her knees, using downward pressure on the flat of the blade to keep it within reach. Avis noticed she did so without touching the hilt and he pressed his lips together to prevent himself from saying what he thought of that.

“What do you mean, I am a Mystallian now?” she asked, frowning ever so slightly.

Avis gestured at her missing arm. “Hellions don’t allow swordplay in their women,” he said, as if she should have remembered that fact for herself. “And they kill them for having temper tantrums. Yet here you stand, having done both, stuck in the unyielding form of my people with our steel laying at your side, waiting for your hand to teach it to sing. I’m sure even you can connect those dots.”

Cora snatched her hand away from the blade and leapt to her feet without it. “I am no Mystallian.”

“If that’s what you’d rather.” Avis spoke the lie with a half-grin he didn’t really mean. Even if it killed him (and had he not been established, that would’ve been on the cards) he’d make her see sense before the end of the day. She was so Mystallian she might as well have had it tattooed in hellfire across her forehead. He took a sidewards step and knocked the back of his knuckles against the double doors beside him. “Your Highborn Hellion death sentence is still right outside those doors. All you have to do is walk through them and shout at the top of your lungs that you’re not a Mystallian. I’m pretty sure the Highborn Hellions will take it from there.”

He lowered his hand and placed it against his hip. “Or, you can accept that you are a Mystallian who’s been wronged and enjoy the revenge that you’re due.” He slid both hands behind his back and locked them together at the wrist, more to prevent himself from fighting back than for any measure of pride. “This is how Mystallians apologise and as I’ve already said, I’m right here.”

It irked Avis that she hesitated. Her eyes shifted from the doors to him and back again, her tongue hovering over the middle of her upper lip in thought. Would she really prefer certain death over admitting the blood in her veins was his? That was a lot of hatred. He’d earned it, of course, but that wasn’t the outcome he wanted now. Somehow, he had to sweeten the deal, though he wasn’t sure how. He thought about the crazy antics of his youngest brother, knowing Chance could bring the best out of any child, being so childlike himself … and that was when it dawned on him.

“Cora, do you remember who anointed you after you were born?” He caught the flicker of acknowledgement in her eyes right before it disappeared and knew he was on the right track. “My little brother anointed you in my absence. I know, because he told me, and I’ve seen what he’s like with his own kids. He would’ve played with you until you practically choked on your gurgles while your mother looked on. Do you remember him?”

“What about him?”

Avis had guessed right. Even though she’d only been with Chance for a short time before her mother fled back to Hell, no child ever forgot him … or his antics. “Being Mystallian doesn’t mean being me. They aren’t all like me. In fact, none of them are like me. Claiming your birth-right doesn’t make you me. It just makes you one of us.”

“I will never be like you!”

“And I wouldn’t want you to be. So, what’s your flavour, Cora? Do you walk out those doors and die, or do you pick up that sword and show me just how mad you are at me for making you suffer all these years?”

Cora snarled at the top of her lungs and swooped on the hilt of the sword. She leapt up and surged across the room at him, holding the blade over her head as if it were an axe rather than a sword. Not that it mattered. Mystallian steel was one of the strongest, sharpest metals in all existence. Combined with Cora’s natural strength, her first strike would cleave him in two.

Here it comes, Avis thought, bracing himself for the first of what would be many impacts.

He wasn’t mistaken.

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

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