He didn’t wait for the deity to recover. Lifting his hands to his shoulders, Andre slid out the two swords sheathed to his back and approached the crumpled being.
The figure’s hood had fallen back, and beneath it he saw a petite woman with raven dark hair. It was the same woman who’d dragged Gabrielle to this room. One would never assume that she of all people was a deity. Too small, too dainty, her face too innocent. The most dangerous beings were wrapped in these sorts of packages.
“I’ve been looking for you, coward,” he said.
He lifted his swords to her throat, and she looked at him defiantly. Her lips moved. “I am … fate of death … cannot kill me.”
“I choose my own fate.” He sliced the swords across her neck, severing her head from her body.
He wiped his blades on her cloak and stepped away from her. He’d just beheaded the fate of death. She was immortal, which meant that she’d come back. And when she did, she’d most likely focus her wrath on him.
I’ll relish the day.
Andre sheathed his swords and stalked back over to the altar, eyeing Oliver on his way. The boy still guarded the doorway, his expression shocked. His hands, however, didn’t shake, and the stink of fear didn’t cling to him. He’d survive the evening’s horrors.
Grabbing a throwing knife from his belt, Andre began slicing his forearm open again. He wasn’t going to give up on his soulmate, damnit, no matter how impossible the situation was.
He lifted Gabrielle’s head, angling it so that his blood dripped between her parted lips. He was going to have to feed soon; he could only lose so much blood. Lucky for him there was a room full of blood donors. He glanced up briefly to glare at them.
He didn’t need to. All around him, the Eleusinian Order was coming apart. The remaining members clung to one another. Some wept, others wailed, and somewhere amongst them, the woman of ash and roses still hid. Now that he’d killed a deity, they’d finally grasped just how screwed they were.
Andre’s gaze dropped back down to his soulmate. “Gabrielle,” he whispered, staring at her too pale face.
No response.
It wasn’t working.
I blinked rapidly, trying to resolve my revulsion to blood and my attraction to this liquid. “What am I supposed to do with it?” I asked. Stare at it all day? ’Cause I could.
“Drink it.”
My fangs, which had descended at the sight of it, now throbbed, and my gut clenched painfully. I hadn’t even realized I was hungry. Hungry for blood.
I hesitated. I’d never drunk blood before.
“What are you waiting for?” The edge in the devil’s voice drew my gaze up to him. The face staring back at me looked calm, but there was an eager twinkle to his eyes.
“Why rush?” I countered. The smell of the liquid drew my gaze back down. It smelled like absolution, redemption, … God.
I almost dropped the chalice, and the blood sloshed around inside. Angelic blood. “This was why the victim’s blood had been collected.”
“Yes. It’s your wedding gift,” the devil said. Did he sound a tad impatient?
“Why?” I asked, enraptured by the sight and scent of holy blood.
“What do you mean why, consort?” he said. “It is yours because it is the most rare and exquisite gift I could give you.”
Angelic blood in the devil’s domain? That seemed oxymoronic. And how did it get here? My hands shook as the wheels in my mind began to turn.
“So, the killers didn’t drink the blood to absolve them of their sins?”
The devil gave me an amused look. “And why would they do that consort, when I can give them a place of honor in the Underworld?”
So the choice of victims and the way they’d died had to do with this wedding gift and nothing more. This strange and macabre wedding gift …
My grip on the chalice wavered as realization hit me. Threefold death was symbolic, the death of three sides of human nature—the body, the soul, and the spirit. Complete and total death.
Which meant …
I lowered the chalice. “This is food of the dead, isn’t it?” I asked, my voice accusing. Food that would keep me trapped here, just like food had trapped Persephone in the Underworld The devil snarled. “You agreed to make use of my wedding gift. You vowed it. Now drink, consort.”
I stared at him and then the goblet, still hesitating. If the threefold ritual had actually worked, then nothing living resided in this blood. But there was something alive in this blood … God. I could feel him in the liquid; I suspected it was what had captivated me when I laid eyes on the chalice.
I rubbed my heart again. I did not wish to be parted from Him. I definitely wouldn’t call myself religious, but lately God had seemed synonymous with love, happiness, life—things I desperately craved. If I drank this, I’d be giving that up. Love, life, God.
“No,” I said, my gaze rising from the chalice to gaze at the devil. I steeled myself for the devil’s famed wrath. This was it; this was where I’d begin to fight, even if it was pointless. Even if I was stuck here for an eternity.
“You’d break your oath to me?” he asked. The earth around us trembled. Something far in the distance screeched.
“Shouldn’t be too surprising that the Deceiver’s wife wouldn’t exactly keep her promises,” I said.
Gabrielle. I cocked my head at the familiar voice.
My attention snapped back to the devil, my mouth forming an “O”. I only had time to see the blur of movement before I was tackled to the ground.
“Gabrielle,” he repeated. Still nothing.
It’s not working.
Andre let loose an anguished cry and dragged Gabrielle’s body off the altar and into his arms. He cradled her to him, sobbing as her torn neck listed back.