Chapter 11

Six days went by far faster than I would have imagined possible. It was an odd feeling to know there was nothing that could be done. It was my job to sit here and wait.

But also kind of nice. It gave me an opportunity to reconnect and to ask questions I rarely had the luxury to ask.

All of my present Virtues took turns reclaiming lost time, talking, and drawing straws for the coveted task of "aftercare." On the third day, they figured out how Kaito was cheating, and someone else got to give it a go.

All of my Virtues could be surprisingly gentle and selfless when given the chance.

There was plenty of sex all around, not that I was complaining. It was hard to ignore the tension when I had missed them all so much, as well as when there was an incubus in the vicinity. And the daily pain quotas required by the crystal were best performed in groups. It became routine for the guys to separate into pairs.

Asher had fed the crystal the first night, so he couldn't do it again until everyone else had a turn.

The second night, Cole had volunteered. Kaito joined, mostly to protect me, while my mentor demonstrated his knowledge in torment.

It scared me, but when it was done, they both soothed my fears.

The next night, Cole took his revenge, doing a number on Kaito, and that had pissed me off at first, but then I realized how much Kaito enjoyed a real challenge. I was seeing a different side of my Virtues that I'd never seen before.

Logan took his turn next, not needing to pair with anyone to hurt him. He simply shifted over and over again, panting until it was done. I took care of him after that. He said he hated to see me cry, but I did not want to ever see my wolf do that again.

Dante had a similar skill in generating pain. He explained to me how he was able to make his older wounds bleed. It was an alteration of the magic that had created him, something he understood better now that the full extent of the magic was inside of him.

I learned what had happened to him and Hendrik in Hell's Heart and how Dante had protected Hendrik's soul when they'd died. He'd met his mother; she had sacrificed herself and taken with her all the witches who had turned him into a Hunter. As a result, it had given him all of their combined power.

He'd barely had to hurt himself after he finished the story. Talking about what happened had generated enough agony that the crystal had sputtered, nearly full, until Dante had capped it off with a couple of rounds of making his scars bleed.

Hendrik was an expert in Blood Duty, taking on the brunt of it with Dante when it was his turn. I made sure to temper the pair, because they were more competitive than ever, and that made things interesting when a Dark Mage and a Hunter decided to make each other bleed.

That ran us full circle and it was once again Asher's turn tonight, and that meant he was going to have to talk about my death a second time. So far, we'd avoided the topic when we'd been together, instead learning more trivial things about each other.

I'd discovered that Asher had gotten his piercings on a dare, which meant he liked to play games, that he enjoyed a good cup of coffee almost as much as sex, and that his incubus had never fed on a man before. He'd made me promise that I wouldn't reveal that last bit to Dante. The Hunter had enough of an ego—according to Asher. He wasn't wrong.

But talking about more heavy-handed history wasn't easy. I knew it would help him heal if he could accept what had happened, but I also didn't want to push him if he wasn't ready to talk about it again.

Still, I had a feeling that the string of fate that tied us all together was growing taut as if someone, somewhere, was pulling on it. I couldn't shake the sense of urgency that time was running out.

Balthazar wanted me weakened for a reason. I didn't know why.

Which put me at a disadvantage. So I needed answers.

"How long ago did I die?" I asked, huffing for breath as I ran as fast as I could on the oversized treadmill.

Cole was the kind of demon who had plenty of steam to blow off, so it didn't surprise me that there was a fully equipped gym that overlooked the other side of the high-rises. Every piece of machinery was custom-built to be wider than usual, probably to accommodate his wings. When he'd had wings, of course.

Now it made me feel small as I tried to stay centered on the wide treadmill, which I had amped up to the fifth setting. There were twenty, so I was definitely doing a pitiful job of taking care of this human body of mine.

After learning I'd been set up by my own murderer, I had decided to work on that. Just because I was human didn't mean I couldn't kick some ass.

Asher stabbed one of the buttons, putting the setting two notches lower. "You're going to die in five minutes if you keep up that obscene pace," he retorted.

I only glowered at him. Or attempted to, because sweat stung my eyes and I stumbled as I tried to reach for the towel.

Asher yanked the cord, making the entire treadmill stop. I grabbed the towel and swiped it across my face and bent over the machine, catching my breath so I could yell at him, then start all over again.

"I don't really know," Asher admitted, apparently answering my question about how long ago I'd died. It occurred to me that we should probably have this conversation with the crystal around in case it was painful for him, but he sounded numb as he talked.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" I wheezed before grabbing a bottle of water and downing it.

He shrugged. "You don't keep track of the years when you're as old as I am."

"How many years are we talking?" I pressed. "Fifty? Five hundred? Five thousand?"

He chuckled. "Okay, well, I'll admit there was a period of time I also slept. In all reality, I have only been awake for around thirty years." He rubbed the back of his head. "Sleeping like that is usually something only vampires do, but after I lost you… I decided to try it. If I'm half-muse, I can do anything I put my mind to, right? And it worked."

My eyes widened and I stepped off the treadmill, finding my legs wobbly, so I steadied myself for a minute.

Asher easily slipped his arm around my waist, giving me something solid and warm to lean on.

"You put yourself into a magical coma?" I asked, blinking. "And when did you wake up?"

He shrugged. "It must have been around the time you were reborn. Something woke me up and I didn't know what it was."

I leaned back as I peered up at him. I was tall, but Asher made me feel like a short girl. Most of my Virtues did. "You said my father took you in when you were a newborn. Your mom had dropped you off at his doorstep."

He nodded. "Yes, but if you're hoping he'll remember when that was, good luck. I wasn't the first incubus left in his care. He has such a large army of sons for that reason. Some are only sons in name, not blood."

My mouth formed an "O" as I took that in. "So… you have no idea how old you actually are."

He kissed the crown of my head. "You're cute when you're flustered."

His praise sent butterflies fluttering to life in my belly. "I'm not cute," I protested. "I'm out of shape, so I need to get back to my exercise."

Asher was probably about to suggest a different sort of "exercise" when the temperature in the room dropped and a loud boom sounded from across the penthouse.

Cursing, I took Asher by the hand and burst out of the exercise room, heading for where the noise had come from.

Heading toward the sound of a magical explosion had probably been the wrong instinct to follow, because when my ears popped, I realized it was too late.

Hendrik was holding Seth's crystal as it cracked open. It made the air around it yawn as my Virtues stayed on the outside of the blood runes that Dante and Hendrik had painted.

This was supposed to be where the portal would open into Lucifer's compound, once we knew the exact location.

But something had gone horribly wrong, and I had a split second to make my decision.

I'd never seen Hendrik's eyes any color but pitch black all around. To see them white scared me to death. The crystal in his hands seemed to bleed the darkness from him, taking more than it should.

It was killing him.

It was devouring him.

Dante was shouting something, then agony raked across his face while he fell to the floor. All of his scars split open, including the long gash across his throat and the spiral on his chest that blistered with fresh wounds from a fireball that had burned him long ago.

The crystal had learned all of my Virtues, and now it was taking their worst pain and using it against them.

Logan howled as he fought a forced shift. It made his body fluctuate between wolf and human until he was somewhere in between with bones sticking out at wrong angles.

I blinked in horror as Cole burned alive, his red eyes blazing with hatred while Kaito shouted at him to do something. My mentor had been pierced by Cole's tail over and over again, and those wounds seemed to reopen, especially a particularly bad gash on his side.

Asher fell to his knees the moment the icy air hit us, his eyes glossing over with grief. "Lilith," he said as if my name were a lost prayer.

As if I weren't right fucking beside him.

Fuck this, I growled in my head and dove for the crystal before it could hurt my Virtues any further.

I ripped it from Hendrik's grip, then slammed it into the ground. All of the runes around my feet lit up, activated, and had me sinking into the floor.

I vanished as the darkness swallowed my screams, sending me somewhere into Lucifer's territory.

I just hoped it wasn't into the middle of a concrete wall.