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“The plans can fucking wait,” I snarled, leaving the archdemons to wreak whatever havoc they wished upon the Coven. None of them mattered. None of it mattered. Only the witch in my arms.
Sin wrapped up in skin, a body meant for luring humans to a place of endless suffering.
“End?” he asked, his voice going mystified. As if I were the one who had lost my sense, as if I were the one who needed a reality check. “There is no end for you and I, Witchling.”
“You need to sleep. Your body came back from death, no matter how brief. Sleep, my Willow,”
Who could sleep while the devil was watching them?
“I wish I could believe you. I wish I could trust that you wouldn’t leave me, but you tell such pretty lies, wife. I can’t believe a single one of them,”
“If I catch you, then you’ll give me the fight I’ve come to crave from you. If I catch you, we will go to war in the way our souls already know—until my body recognizes every inch of your skin by touch. When I catch you, I will fuck you, and we both know you’ll love every goddamn minute of it,”
“Contrary to what you may believe, I do not want you weak, Witchling. I want you to embrace just how powerful you are and rule at my side. The others of your kind may be beneath me, but you?” he asked, reaching forward to tuck two fingers beneath my jaw and raise my chin higher. “You could be my equal. You’re the only one standing in your way.”
“Only a fool would dare to underestimate you, my love,”
It wasn’t the physical activity that made my heart race, but my blinding panic at what I would do if Willow left.
Staring down at Willow’s face as she finally succumbed to sleep, her breathing evening out to a steady rhythm that felt like home, I wouldn’t have changed it for anything. No one else would have felt the way she did in my arms. No one else would have tempted me to go to the lengths I did to keep her alive. No one else would have mattered to me at all, simply a means to an end to achieve what I wanted, but Willow didn’t just matter. She was fucking everything.
“You’re courting her, not interrogating her. It’s give and take. You will have to give her your truth to get hers. Let her know you, Gray, or so help me, you will lose her in a way you cannot recover from,”
You deserved to be loved. You deserved to be worshipped.”
“I told you that you would let me fight for you. You gave up on us, but I never stopped fighting, Witchling,”
“I was willing to pay the price to keep you here! I was willing to murder anyone the balance demanded of me if it meant I had you, and I won’t spend a single moment regretting that choice. Who would you offer in their place?”
If getting rid of my husband was exactly what I wanted, then why did the thought of it make my stomach hurt?
“For once, I would like to be allowed to do something for myself, and not because the fucking Coven depends on me to fix its shit.”
With a single firm shove, I pushed Iban over the railing. And then I watched him fall.
“Gray, please,” she begged, finally giving me what I wanted. Willow could go rounds with me and fight me all she wanted during the day, but there was only one person in charge once our clothes came off.
“Careful, love. Jealousy like that would be hard to believe if you didn’t love me,”
Gray and I would burn the world to the ground if I allowed our love to grow, accepting it as part of me when it was unnatural.
“I love you, Witchling. For everything you are and everything you are not.”
“You are worth so much more than a fucking sacrifice, Willow. I’ve failed you if you don’t know that.”
“Nothing here has any value without you. You’re my home,” he said, unable to take his eyes off mine. I held that stare, waiting for him to continue. “They would gladly sacrifice you if it meant the world survived, but I wouldn’t. I would never walk this plane again if it meant I had you at my side in Hell.”
She made me a god, and her body was my altar.
“Then call me your queen of disappointment, and I’ll add that to the list of things I don’t give a fuck about,”
“I wanted to watch you break, and know you were willing to give them up to save yourself some pain,” I said, standing and adjusting my clothes. “I wanted you to know that even in this, you put yourself first.”
For her, I’d spend my life on my knees if she asked it.
“Giving me the excuse I needed to just do whatever the fuck I want from now on,” I said. I closed the distance between us, that magic of life flowing over my skin like a whisper of what was real. “Tell your father I said fuck you, messenger boy.”
“Fuck the balance. I’ll watch the world burn before I allow it to force you into something you do not want,”
“I choose you, every day,” she said, those words the reassurance of everything I’d wanted to hear. Everything I needed to be at peace.
“You can have anything you want, Goddess,” he said, taking a step closer to me. I stared up at him, his face so close to mine. “As long as I can have her.” He cupped my cheek in his hand, the warmth of that embrace sinking inside me. “Then all I ask is for you to be happy, dear brother,” the Goddess said, resting a hand upon each of my shoulders.
