Page 63 of Mortal Heart

So hehadforeseen her death at some point.Nice of him to tell me so, she thought grimly.

Arkady coughed up blood. “Maybe not, but this is how it’s happening,” she said. Best to not waste her remaining breaths calling him names. Atonoskelis was approaching, and she had the look of a demon who intended to finish things off. “If you get back home and I don’t, tell Alice I did this on purpose to get out of wearing a bridesmaid dress.”

What Ronan thought of that statement, Arkady had no idea. With a hiss, Atonoskelis hauled her to her feet. Her knees wouldn’t hold her up, so the demon pinned her against the wall with a clawed hand fisted in her shirt.

“Strange that after all you’ve been through and seen, you end up dying here,” Atonoskelis said, grinning. “Any last words, my sweetness?”

Through the ringing in her ears, Arkady heard Ronan inhale sharply. Maybe it was that hated nickname, which she supposed Henry Farrell might have learned from Atonoskelis in the first place. Or maybe it was the thought of watching her die from inside a cage. At that moment, she didn’t really care.

There was only one way out of this mess and it was going to require the biggest gamble of her entire crazy life. At least if this turned out to be last call, she’d had a good, long, wild ride.

She spat out some blood, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and forced herself to stand up straight so she could look Atonoskelis in the eye. “Just the ones I figured would be my last,” she said. “Which are, fuck you.”

With a smile, Atonoskelis drove Arkady’s own knife right through her heart.

17

RONAN

Arkady Woodall,the first woman Ronan would have died for in all his long existence, was dead before she hit the floor.

He couldn’t breathe. For a moment, he thought somehow he’d taken that fatal blow in her stead. He even looked down at his own chest, half expecting—halfhoping—to see the hilt of a knife protruding from his sternum, but there was nothing there. The knife was buried in Arkady’s heart where Atonoskelis had left it. Her death had simply sucked the air from his lungs.

What if he’d been wrong about Arkady’s knife? How could he go back to Alice and Malcolm and tell them she was dead? Alice would demand to know why they hadn’t called on her for help. All he would be able to tell her was that he and Arkady had wanted to go into Carmody Tower alone to take on something that was out of their league, just to see if they could beat it. Alice would tell him that was a worthless excuse and she would be right.

Atonoskelis left Arkady’s lifeless body where it had fallen with the hilt of the knife still sticking out of her chest, but she took the knife Arkady had used in their fight and came to his cage. He trembled with the force of his rage and grief.

“Was that as good for you as it was for me?” Atonoskelis purred. She licked some of Arkady’s blood off her palm. “Oh, there is nothing as delicious as the blood of someone you’ve killed. I look forward to roasting and eating her flesh. It’s an honor I give only my best adversaries. Everyone else I consume raw, of course. A much more expedient method of feeding, as I’m sure you’ll agree.”

His stomach rebelled at the thought, but he swallowed hard and met her mocking gaze with his own cold one. “She was right—youarepathetic.”

“I see one of us standing and one of us dead.” Atonoskelis chuckled. “If one of us is pathetic, it is your lover. Yourformerlover, who is now my future meal.”

“You know why you’re pathetic?” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “You crave worship and power and yet you have none. All you have is the illusion of it.”

Her slitted eyes flashed. “I am worshiped in any form I take and wherever I go, wingless little man.”

“I don’t think so. Your demon minions are so incompetent and fear you so little that they didn’t even check me for hidden weapons. You poor, pitiful, hoofed creature.” He brandished the amulet, which caused her to take a step back. “In the human world, you’re reduced to employing humans to kidnap and traffic the weak and vulnerable.”

“In the human world, I’m a savior of the weak,” she said, preening. “They believe I am like a god.”

“You’ve never saved anyone in your entire existence,” he retorted. “Why lie about that to me?”

“As Melody Fullerton, I run an online message board,” she snapped. “Young humans cry out for help.Save me, they wail in the night. The ones who will be missed, I send to safety. The ones who will not be missed, they are never to be found again. I am their god too, but a god of cruelty and doom.” She smiled and caressed her hips. “And to the men at Bella’s, I am a goddess.”

“You’re deluded. Those men you think look at you with such admiration look the same way at every other woman there.”

“My lovers are legion,” she hissed. “More men and women have writhed beneath me and called my name in their release than your puny mind can comprehend.”

“They may call out a name, but it isn’t yours.” He snorted. “You seduce humans by posing as their lovers, because if you came to them as yourself they wouldn’t touch you. Arkady had you figured out right from the beginning. You are to be pitied, not worshiped or feared.”

Enraged, Atonoskelis whipped her tail at him. With the bars in the way he had time to dodge. She tried to stab him with her knife, but he blocked her arm.

“You know it’s true,” he said as she glared at him. “Somewhere in this realm there’s a demon lord who owns you, isn’t there? A prince, perhaps, or a duke, or a general at the end of whose chain you crawl. Maybe you have more freedom than most, Atonoskelis, but you and I both know you don’t rule either in my worldoryour own.” He stepped up to the bars, putting himself well within her reach. “You.Serve.”

She lunged for him with a screech that reminded him of the tiny winged demons at Nyx. He grabbed her wrists with all his strength.

“You will kneel before me!” She struggled to free herself. “Fear me!”

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