Page 68 of Sinner's End

“Yes?” he asks with a raised brow.

“I agree. But…”

“There will be no caveats,” he cuts in.

“I want to keep him,” I say pointing at the hellhound now sleeping beside Daisy. “You were right. She needs a companion.”

His laughter booms through my home once more. “I can see why he likes you.”

Asmodeus snaps his fingers. The change is instant. One moment I am sitting in my kitchen, dressed in yoga pants and sneakers, the next I am standing on the main dance floor in Harken, dressed in a blood-red gown that caresses my skin and clings to every curve.

“Manashesh!” Asmodeus’s voice carries through every inch of Harken.

I’m not sure Mana heard him. Silence reigns, enveloping us. It’s soul-deep, and I have never heard the building sound so … dead. There has always been movement, sound. Now, there is nothing.

A moment later, Mana appears from a hallway, flanked by Lethe and Kaleb. His gaze collides with mine, anger flaring.

“Sire,” he says lowly, stopping a few steps away.

Kaleb and Lethe keep their eyes downcast as they stop behind him.

“Spawn.”

I remain at Asmodeus’s side, waiting to see how this will play out. But beneath the lush material of the dress, my legs shake with the effort of standing still and not running to them.

“How can I serve?” Mana asks stiffly.

Asmodeus chuckles. “So demure. Your woman has more backbone than the three of you combined.”

I watch Mana bristle at his father’s words and a low sound builds in the back of my throat. The demon beside me laughs loudly, drawing the gazes of all three men. Shock scrolls acrosstheir features.

“This is what I mean,” he explains. “She has been terrified since the moment she met me, yet she bargains and disapproves.”

“Leave her alone,” Mana says lowly.

“Why? She is here by her own choice.”

“Does she know the cost of her choice?” Lethe asks.

“I do,” I say before Asmodeus can reply with some non-answer. “I’m here to claim what is mine.”

“There is nothing here for you,” Mana says flatly, not looking at me.

“She will be bound to you,” Asmodeus cuts in before I can reply. “Or she will die in front of you.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

I Am My Father’s Son

Mana

Fuck my father, and fuck this place. My soul burns with the need to tear the building apart, reduce every stone to ash, and my sire to bare bones his dog can chew on for the next millennia while I hang my head and beg her forgiveness.

Not that she’d accept my groveling, from the look on her face as she stares me down. Her head is held high and she looks nothing less than a queen of this realm in a dress I know my father designed not for her but for my mother when he offered her the same deal. The deal she politely declined, and walked away.

He didn’t speak for the next forty years until her bones were interred beneath the earth, but his reign during that time had never been crueler. I wonder if I will be as pathetic or harsher than my sire should I perpetuate that same cycle.

The other part that raises every hackle in me is the way my sire looks at the woman I’ll bend the knee for over an eternity. Like if I don’t take up the mantle, he’ll willingly replace the mother who walked away from us both with her. And from the way she watches me, then him, my little hell queen is all too willing.

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