Page 81 of Fate and Fury

“You will do as I wish,” Elena said, each word imbued with the force of her power. “As I deserve. And you’ll see. We belong together, Niko. You were always meant to be mine.”

She stood, the skirts of the diaphanous, iridescent gown Sammael had had made for her swishing as she made her way toward the bedroom. Then she perched on the side of the bed, her legs coquettishly crossed at the ankles, and beckoned. “Crawl to me, my Shadow,” she said, her voice soft and deceptively gentle. “Now.”

The Shadow didn’t want to do it; Sammael could see the resistance in every fiber of his body. But Elena beckoned again, and even he, the Venom of God, could feel the pull. “Crawl,” she said, and now there was nothing gentle in her voice at all.

The Shadow crawled, his eyes straight ahead, looking not at Elena but into the distance, at whatever thoughts occupied a being such as him. One caught between worlds, chained to the Dark but sworn to the Light. And Elena watched him, her gaze hungry and avid, as if the man came to her of his own free will.

Perhaps, it occurred to Sammael dismally, she could no longer tell the difference.

He had thought, when he first encountered Elena Lisova in that abandoned chapel, that her gifts came from the union of her Vila heritage with his own power. It had been everything he had dreamed of, when the Watchers fell; that he would find a woman to lie with who was aligned with the Light. She would want him as he wanted her, and from their union would come a power to best all others. Not merely the minor demon spawn of Watchers and human women, but a queen among Grigori, a warrior who would fight at his side and defeat Gadreel once and for all. He, Sammael, would rule once again below as he had ruled above.

But he had been wrong. Elena had grown so powerful, so quickly. And he had come to believe that her gifts came not from her ability to give birth to Vila and Shadowchildren, but from the Darkness that had been unleashed upon their land. The very things he’d come to love most about her—her innocence, her supposedly open heart—had been compromised. She treatedthe Shadow’s shade like a possession or a pet. And though she claimed to love him, how Sammael saw her treat him wasn’t love.

This wasn’t the woman the spark of humanity inside Sammael had fallen for. But his demonic nature still drew him to her, like a glossy, crisp, red apple full of poison. It was a terrible, addictive thing.

And yet it wasn’t him she wanted. It was the shade of this broken, desperate man.

“Rise,” Elena said to the Shadow at her feet. “Rise, and serve me.”

Niko Alekhin rose at her command, all of his natural grace gone. It was as if his body was being yanked to its feet by a pair of uncoordinated puppeteers. But Elena didn’t notice. She was too busy smiling up into his face, tucking a lock of hair coyly behind her ear.

“First, tell me you love me,” she demanded. “Say it now, so Sammael and I can hear. In front of a witness, declare your love for me, Elena-of-the-Void, beautiful even among Vila, sworn Queen of Darkness.”

Sammael cleared his throat. This was a terrible waste of time, especially now, with Darkness devouring two of the Seven Villages and showing no sign of slowing. He had a realm to attend to, and a mystery to solve, but truth be told, he didn’t trust Elena alone with the shade of her Shadow. She had shown herself to be capable of dreadful things. And increasingly, Sammael was beginning to believe he would need Niko Alekhin as a bargaining chip. It wouldn’t do to have Elena damage him.

“Elena, you’ve had your fun,” he told her, getting to his feet. “Let the Shadow be. We have more important things to attend to.”

But she shook her head, eyes fixed on Niko’s. “Tell me you love me,” she said again. “I know you do. She corrupted you.Despoiled you. But here, with me, we’ll make it right. I’ll save you. You’ll be pure again.”

Not for the first time, Sammael began to wonder if Elena had lost her mind. After all, she had been the one to wield the knife that had brought the Shadow down. He had never seen a creature of the Light converted to the Dark, not since the Watchers and the Archangels fell. Maybe her soul had been unable to withstand the transformation.

“Say you love me!” Elena insisted. “Say it!”

But the Shadow remained stonily silent, his gaze fixed somewhere over Elena’s shoulder and his face expressionless. Even when Elena’s hand cracked across his cheek hard enough to leave an impression behind, still he did not speak.

“I’ll make you tell me,” she snarled at him. “You’ll howl it when I’ve finished with you.”

The Shadow curled his lip, his eyes refocusing squarely on Elena’s. And then, at last, he spoke. “I’ll never love you,” he said, each word tipped with venom. “You can force me into the form of my black dog and back again, but I’ll never protect you. No matter what you do to me, what lengths you drive me to, my heart will never be yours.”

Fury overtook Elena’s features. “Even still, you’re under her spell! Even here, with me, she wields her power. But I’m stronger than she can imagine. And I have all of eternity to outlast her.” She caressed Niko’s cheek. The Shadow flinched from her touch, but Elena grabbed his chin and held him still. “Say you love me,” she said again as the Darkness poured from her, curling around every syllable, rich with compulsion. “Speak.”

The Shadow’s jaw worked, the expression in his gray eyes furious. Then his mouth opened and his voice came, reluctant and low, as if ripped from his throat the way his human body hadbeen torn from the form of his black dog. “Elena, I…” he began, choking on the words like it poisoned him to speak them.

Sammael could watch no more of this. He strode from the cottage, pulling the door open and stalking toward his palace, the place he’d called home before Elena had come to the Underworld. It was made entirely from black stone, with tiny silver chips that glinted in the light of the white-hot sun that lit his realm. On the way, he passed demons impersonating farmers, healers, artisans, butchers. He wanted to pulverize them all, and they shrank from him, turning nervously to their appointed tasks.

Sammael strode past them, past the administrative offices that dealt with the everyday responsibilities of running his realm—requisitioning of wayward souls for purgatorial labor, recruitment of minor demons into his armies—and down the road that led to his palace. He nodded at the bird-headed guards who flanked the entrance and stomped inside, letting the doors slam behind him. They were studded with the eyes of his vanquished enemies, which blinked balefully as he disappeared into the cool darkness of the place where he felt most at home.

He drew a deep breath, settling himself. And then he squared his shoulders and made his way down the hall, to his scrying room. Much as he hated to admit it, he needed to talk to Gadreel. As the two most powerful Grigori, they needed to discuss what was becoming of the world above ground, and why the veil between the Underworld and Iriska was thinning. The implications could be dire, and ultimately, the two of them were on the same side. It would do neither of them any good to see the realms they’d so carefully built sucked into the Void. Especially now that Sammael had Elena to look after, such a thing would be disastrous. It would take millennia to rebuild.

He made his way down the opulent hallway of his palace, past the room that he had hoped one day to make Elena’s. It wasbefitting of a queen, with its canopied, four-poster bed, mosaic tile floor, and lush, sweeping murals. Perhaps, when she tired of her plaything of a Shadow, when she ceased grieving for her old life, he could bring her here. Together, they would start anew. He would rule with her at his side.

At last, Sammael came to his scrying room. He pressed his palm to the door, which swung wide, and stepped through, locking it behind him.

The room was just as he had left it. The floor was covered by a thick burgundy carpet, inlaid with an intricate pattern of vines. Bookshelves lined the walls. And in the middle of the room stood a fountain, the water flowing downward from a pitcher held by the nude statue of Lilith that stood in its midst. Lilith, Sammael’s first love. He wondered what she would think if she could see him now.

Crossing to the fountain, which served as his scrying pool, Sammael lifted both hands. He passed them across the water, and it rippled in response. “Show me Gadreel, Dark Angel of War, Wall of God, Silent Sentinel, among the first of the Fallen Watchers,” he said. It was quite a mouthful, but then that was Gadreel for you. Never one accolade when four would do. “Invite me into his sanctum, where I will come, bearing assurance that I mean him no harm.”

Typically, this was like knocking on a locked door; Gadreel could choose whether or not to answer, and frequently ignored Sammael, just for sport. At the least, he often chose to keep Sammael waiting, like a peon relegated to lingering in His Majesty’s antechamber. Sammael had resigned himself to this, and was examining his nails in an effort to manage his impending boredom when the water in the fountain flickered, rose in a wave, and then reformed, allowing him entry into Gadreel’s tower.

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