Page 72 of Unholy Fate

“They’ve remembered.” I spoke the words with a low growl in my throat.

Flashes of memory assaulted me—Ian’s growing defiance, Levi’s pointed questions, Aziz’s rebellious streak barely concealed beneath a mask of obedience. The pieces fell into place.

“Of course.” I clenched my fists as the molten veins in the walls pulsed, responding to my building rage. “The Titans beneath the masks. They remember everything now, the ungrateful bastards. After all I did for them—saving their worthless hides, giving their existence purpose again.”

With a sharp flick of my wrist, I conjured a viewing portal before me. Swirling tendrils of black and crimson mist coalesced, forming an image that made my gaze narrow with suspicion and disdain. Ian, Levi and Aziz lounged about in some opulent penthouse like they hadn’t a care in any realm.

I leaned closer, studying their casual demeanor, the way they kept their voices low, their heads together as if sharing secrets. Plotting something, no doubt. I could practically smell their treachery from here.

A flash of pale gold in the portal drew my gaze like a moth to hellfire. I froze, not quite believing what I was seeing. Evelyn—my pawn, my perfectly pure, untainted mortal, sitting there among them, perched on the couch and sipping coffee as if this was normal. As if she belonged with them.

“Really now? Playing house with what’s mine?” The words came out in a dangerous hiss, my claws flexing.

I watched, transfixed, as she laughed freely at something that purple imbecile Aziz said, her face radiating happiness. Evelyn leaned into him, clearly at ease in a demon’s presence.

Impossible. What was this? I scrutinized her every move, every subtle interaction with the traitorous trio. Her poise, her quiet confidence...it was familiar, yet different. Evelyn glowed with a familiar inner light, something ancient and powerful awakening just beneath the surface.

Realization crept over me, cold and unsettling.

“Lilith,” I growled, the name ash on my tongue.

But no, this wasn’t Lilith herself. Close, but not quite. A fractured piece of her, reformed and reborn into Evelyn.

I paced the obsidian floors of my throne room, seething. To deal with this personally, to crush their little rebellion before it began...I’d have to do the unthinkable. Set foot on Earth.

The thought filled me with equal parts dread and fury. I’d sworn, all those eons ago, never to leave Hell until the day I finally ruled the world above. My rules, my iron code, had kept me sane. Powerful. In control.

“Rules exist for a reason,” I flexed my claws. The walls pulsed in response to my agitation. “Without them, I’d become a creature of chaos. Like the rest of my kind.”

I clenched my jaw, pride warring with cold necessity. But if I didn’t intervene, if I allowed those ungrateful curs to play out their little mutiny...they’d destroy everything I’d built. Undo centuries of careful planning and calculated cruelty.

My power wasn’t just raw strength. It came from discipline. The ability to control myself where others succumbed to their base instincts. Every punishment, every deal, every soul I’d claimed...all of it meticulously orchestrated. Precise. It’s what elevated me above the chaotic rabble.

“If I break my own edicts,” I said aloud, “I risk becoming like them. Stupid. Unformed. A slave to impulse.”

Yet the alternative, allowing Aziz, Ian, and Levi to keep Evelyn, to act without consequence, was unacceptable. I snarled, my reflection fracturing across the obsidian walls. I had no choice.I had to remind them who their master was, Earthly plane be damned.

I turned to face an ornate mirror, its surface shimmering like quicksilver. My form, terrible and resplendent, glowered back at me. Crimson skin, rippling with raw power. Obsidian horns, jagged as blades, curving behind my shoulders. Fathomless eyes, molten gold, promising eternal damnation to any who dared defy me.

This true form, magnificent as it was, would be too much for the mortal world to handle. With a thought, I shifted, my appearance morphing into something suitably Earthly. Imposing yet restrained.

I examined the final result—a tall, handsome man in a tailored ebony suit. Piercing amber eyes and raven hair that shimmered under the infernal light. An aura of authority clung to me like a second skin. I slid a single ring onto my finger, a potent artifact that would keep my presence from shredding the fabric of reality.

“They will remember who holds their leash,” I said, my human features set in icy determination. “And rue the day they thought to snap at my hand.”

Striding to the center of the room, I conjured the portal with a flick of my wrist, the air shimmering and twisting into a swirling vortex of obsidian and crimson. Raw power thrummed from its depths, a siren’s call tempting me to unleash my full might upon the unsuspecting world.

For a heartbeat, I hesitated, my hand hovering above the churning surface. Doubt, unfamiliar and unwelcome, crept intomy thoughts. To step foot on Earth now, after eons of self-imposed exile. A concession to the chaos I so despised.

And the feelings for Lilith were another, long buried concession.

“Rules can be bent,” I said, my jaw clenching, “not broken.”

With those words, I took the plunge and stepped into the maelstrom. Reality warped and twisted around me as I hurtled through the void between realms. The journey lasted an eternity and no time at all.

I emerged onto a bustling city street, the portal snapping shut behind me with a muted crack. The sudden assault on my senses was jarring, the air too thin, the energy of the mortal plane buzzing against my skin like a thousand angry wasps.

Towering skyscrapers loomed overhead, their glass and steel facades reflecting the insipid sunlight. Humans swarmed in every direction, blissfully unaware of the wolf that now walked among them. Their chatter and laughter grated on my nerves, a stark reminder of how far I’d strayed from my kingdom of blessed silence.

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