33. Chapter 33

Chapter 33

Beleth

I t had been almost two thousand years since I was last tickled. It was a strange sensation—not exactly unpleasant, but definitely not something I cared to repeat, either. Still, it was annoying enough to make me want to jerk away. Only I fucking couldn't.

I tried to get up and punch whoever was touching me, but my body was too heavy, too stiff. Did I even have a body? I must have. They couldn't tickle my… goddamn soul.

My brain was so muddled, I was starting to sound like Cyrus. Wait…

‘I'm here,' Cyrus spoke as if he had been waiting for me. ‘We are alive, I think.'

‘I'm not sure if I'm happy about it or pissed,' I grumbled.

Tickle, tickle, tickle.

I wanted to yell at them to stop, but it was like someone else was in control of the vessel. And whoever it was, they had done something to it, because I had never had such a hard time getting it to move. Not even when I was dying.

Seconds turned into minutes, and with every passing one, I was growing more and more pissed. After what felt like an eternity, I managed to open one eye, then another. A bright light blinded me and I hissed at the needles that pricked my brain.

The tickling stopped, or so I thought, before something touched my face, my neck, my chest. I desperately clung to the sensation of my fingers touching something solid before I finally forced my hand to move, grabbing the source of that maddening touch. A soft gasp had me opening my eyes again and as I blinked away the grogginess, a pale face, framed by red hair, appeared in my field of vision. Staring at the woman leaning over me, I had a hard time deciding if I was awake or dreaming.

"Red?" I croaked, my throat tightening with dryness and pain.

Her expression didn't change, but when her eyes finished inspecting me from head to toe, she sighed in what sounded like relief.

"I need to finish this. Let go."

I did it without thinking and the moment I was no longer holding her, it felt like all my strength had drained away again. My hand fell lifelessly to the side of my body, the rest of me lying stiff and aching everywhere.

She reached toward my chest and tickled me. Well, tickled wasn't the right word. She swiped her fingers over my naked skin, her eyes trained on the path she created with the faintly glowing paste she was spreading. Her magic was pulsing around her, powerful yet soft, and the lightest brush of her fucking touch had the hair on my arms rising.

"What are you…?" I started, but she hushed me. I was ready to curse her and push her off me when Cyrus intervened.

‘Don't. She's healing us.'

Snapping my mouth shut, I watched her hand move to my neck. I could feel a weird tingling in the lower part of my body, and after I made sure I wasn't hard as a rock, I realized it was her magic that was doing this.

"Stay still," she murmured, catching my chin between her fingers and turning my face away from her. I didn't like the idea of not seeing what she was doing, but I forced myself not to move. If she really was healing us, which would be absolutely insane, then I doubted she'd kill me now. Unless she was waiting for me to wake up so she could make me watch while she did it.

Her palm stopped at my jugular, and the tingling intensified. My throat constricted and just when the sensation became too uncomfortable to bear, it suddenly stopped. The moment her weight on the mattress disappeared, I turned, watching her cross the room and wipe her hands on a towel.

My eyes snatched on another familiar form lying on the edge of the bed, and Cyrus sighed in relief while I held Nym's tense gaze. He said nothing, just lay there, curved into a ball, until something clanked on the other side of the room and we both looked.

Celeste said nothing as she fussed around a long, rectangular table, overflowing with dry flowers, books, and strange vials. I allowed myself a quick look around—the room I was in had to be a bedroom, but maybe also a storage room, since the table wasn't the only thing overflowing with magical objects and ingredients.

"Where am I?" I asked. She didn't reply, just picked up something and strode back. My gaze narrowed at the bowl in her hand, but when she placed it on the bed beside my head, I realized it was just water.

"Earth," she said flatly, sliding her hand under my neck and lifting my head so she could place a pillow beneath it. I wanted to ask her if she was sure because I didn't see any other place other than goddamn Heaven where she, of all people, would be tending to my injuries, but I bit back the remark. My eyes darted to her table again and when she noticed, she added, "You're in my workroom in Roman's house. We had to contain you somewhere because we weren't sure if you were contagious."

I studied her face, trying to puzzle out what she was talking about. My head was still fuzzy on the details. I remembered going to the trials, winning, and then nothing.

‘Alastair,' Cyrus explained. ‘All those spikes that sunk into us, they cursed our body. That's why we were so weak, even though we weren't that badly hurt.'

‘How do you know?' I asked.

‘I was awake a little longer than you were. They were talking.'

‘They?'

A door opened somewhere, and steps echoed through the room. The familiar smell of flowers told me who it was even before he appeared in my view.

"You're awake! That's a relief." Malakai smiled brightly before striding to the opposite side of the room. More light flooded the space, and I hissed in annoyance as I squinted my eyes. By the time my sight adjusted, he was standing beside the bed, looking me over with critical eyes. Nym barely spared him a glance, his eyes trained on Celeste. "He's healing well. "

"Mhm," she murmured, pressing something cold against my sizzling skin. A curse was already on the tip of my tongue when I noticed the floating rag in the bowl she had brought was now on my chest and she was wiping the paste she had been spreading a few minutes ago.

"Do you want me to do that?" Malakai offered, but to my surprise, she shook her head.

"It's fine. I got used to it. It keeps my mind busy." She smiled brightly at him before glaring at me. "You can deal with his bad bed manners, though. Or I might put him under again."

I was still contemplating whether I should tell her to fuck off or… keep my mouth shut, but only because she was helping me, when Malakai sat on my other side and put a hand on my shoulder.

"You really ought to be nicer to her," he said in a tone that would have been patronizing coming from anyone else, but somehow he made it sound like a gentle suggestion. "Because of the nature of your body, her necromancy is what saved your vessel. I only provided the means."

I looked back at her, but she pointedly ignored me. She had saved my body? Why would she after everything? Our deal ended the moment I won my crown and brought them here. She had no obligation to help me.

Malakai's fingers tightened, and I hissed. His eyes were as sharp as knives when I met them.

"Thank… you." I forced the words out, and the smile immediately returned to the Fae's face. Celeste snorted, but when she returned to wiping the paste, she was a tad bit gentler. The moment her hand reached my abdomen, though, I turned my attention to Malakai, trying to distract myself with him.

"How long was I out?" I asked him while he studied the scars on my arm with a mix of disgust and pity.

"Three days," he replied. "And before you ask, you cannot go back to Hell yet."

"Why the hell n…" I started, but he interrupted me.

"We have been suppressing your powers since they were feeding the curses, and your vessel would need at least a few days to rid itself of the toxins that are keeping them at bay."

I blinked in confusion, reaching instinctively for my shadows, only to find them gone .

‘What the hell?'

Panic squeezed my chest, then anger, then desperation, but as Malakai's words sank in, I forced myself to relax. They were going to return. I wasn't powerless again.

"So that's why I'm so weak," I murmured without realizing that I said it out loud.

Celeste and Malakai exchanged a quick look before she got up and carried the bowl away.

"You got it from here?" she asked, drying her hands on a towel before straightening her shirt. Nym got up, stretching his back before jumping off the bed and following after her.

"Yes, dear, don't worry." Malakai smiled at her. "Get some rest."

She made a strange noise that sounded like a mix of snorting and laughing, then threw me a sharp glance before leaving the room along with the hellhound. I was still staring at the door when Malakai cleared his throat.

"I don't presume to know why you took her to Hell, but I believe you owe her a proper apology. She's the only reason you still have a body." He raised an eyebrow as if waiting for me to agree, but I just averted my gaze. As expected, he did not let the subject go. "I'm not just talking about healing you. Roman does not look kindly on those who threaten her and I'm sure Isaac would agree when he gets back."

"I didn't…! Maybe if they were a little better at protecting her, I wouldn't have had to do it myself!" I snapped, regretting my words immediately. They were true, of course. Everything I did was because the world of the living had become too dangerous for her. I wouldn't… I wouldn't have cared if she had more lives but… I could feel the sand in her hourglass trickling down. And there would be no reset this time because the glass was already cracking.

The smile that pulled on Malakai's lips made me want to punch him. When I continued to ignore him, he got up and took a stroll around the room. The way he looked around suggested he was familiar with the place.

"She couldn't save your vessel," he said as he stopped by the table, running his long, pale fingers over the page of one of the books there. "She only slowed its deterioration. You'll need to find a new body soon."

Gritting my teeth, I pushed myself up, barely holding back a groan. Despite all my wounds being closed, it felt like my insides were not nearly as lucky. I embraced the pain, grounded myself in it, so by the time I let my feet drop by the side of the bed, it had turned into a constant but dull ache .

‘Maybe you should rest. Our body is too weak,' Cyrus said quietly, his concern making me grimace.

‘Or what? We're already deteriorating,' I snapped. Clearing my throat, I added out loud.

"Not yet."

The moment I got up, I lost my balance, but Malakai somehow caught me before I hit the ground. He said nothing, thank the fucking hell, just supported my weight until I could stand alone.

"Why not?" he asked when I turned my back to him. "Now that you are a prince, your power is tied to Hell, so you can fashion your own body if you wish. Isn't that what you said?" I grumbled in agreement, bracing my hands on a table in the middle of the room when I felt like I might topple again. There were books on top of it, leaves, herbs, crystals, and a bunch of dirty mortars and pestles like somebody had mixed a lot of different concoctions. "Is there anything else keeping you here?"

I glanced at him over my shoulder. Judging by the smile on his face, he thought he already knew the answer. I hated how astute he sometimes was, even if it was rare for his mind not to be muddled by Fae wine. Talking about wine, he didn't even smell of it when he caught me. Weird.

"If I make myself a body, I can't leave Hell," I sighed, turning around and leaning my ass on the table. It occurred to me that I was naked, but then I remembered he had seen and tasted every part of me, so I doubted it bothered him. If he was affected in any way, he hid it well. "It will take me months, even years, to acclimate," I continued, trying to recall the crumbs of information I had gathered over the years. It wasn't like I could go to one of the princes and ask them to tell me. "And if I visit this plane, I'd be weak, weaker than I was even before I became a prince." There was a reason the Princes of Hell didn't leave their domain often—their true power lay in the space they ruled.

"That's only a problem if you want to stay in the world of the living." Malakai raised an eyebrow again . I sure hope he was having a stroke or something because that shit was starting to piss me off. "You don't even like humans, so missing a century or two shouldn't be a loss. Those of us you do like," his lips quirked up, "will still be here when you're ready for a visit." He strode closer to the table but stopped before he reached me. "You can finally have everything you fought for, Bel. No more serving, no more humiliation or pain. You will sit above them all. "

I pursed my lips, looking away from him. My eyes landed on one of the open books, written in Ecclesiastical Latin if I wasn't mistaken. The faded drawing on top of the page depicted a shadow entering the human's chest. I didn't have to turn the page to see what the title of the chapter was.

Vessels. She had been researching vessels. A doomed venture, for sure, but still, she…

"She is something else, isn't she?" When Malakai spoke, I glanced at him, but he was staring at the book, smiling. As if sensing my eyes, he met them, and his smile widened. "And once she has a taste of your heart, she sinks her nails into it and refuses to let go. So no matter the pain or the suffering, you can't help but love her."

Anger flared within me, mixed with something warm and uncomfortable that was no doubt coming from Cyrus. "Fuck off with that stupid shit."

"Mm," was all he said in response.

I couldn't remember the last time I wanted to hurt him more than I wanted to fuck him, but when I took a step toward him, it was my fist that tightened. Unfortunately, my body had other plans because my feet wobbled and I had to catch myself on the nearest chair before I fell right into his extended arms. Slumping in the seat, I seethed with rage at my weakness while he folded his arms over his chest.

Damn him.

"You said I owed her an apology," I said tersely, leaning my elbows on the edge of the table. "Well, then that's why I'm here."

"With words, Bel," Malakai chuckled softly. "She will accept it even if you just say it."

"You can't tell me how to give my apologies," I snapped. "Whether I decide to vanish without a word, leave her a note, or spend a few years making sure she doesn't get killed, it's my choice. I didn't become a fucking Prince of Hell to be told what to do!"

Malakai stared for some time, those unnerving purple eyes of his making me want to look away again, but I refused to. That only seemed to please him more.

‘That was very sweet,' Cyrus sighed happily.

‘Shut up.'

Malakai clapped his hands.

"I'm glad to hear that's how you feel," he said, stepping back to the bed and picking something up from its corner. Clothes, I realized as he returned to my side. I reached for them, but he made no move to hand them over. "Not so fast, Your Infernal Highness. Apologies can wait. You need a bath first."