Hell Bent by Cate Corvin

Author:Cate Corvin [Corvin, Cate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 54873502
Publisher: Vivia Press
Published: 2020-12-30T06:00:00+00:00

17

Melisande

I’d never felt pain like it before.

It consumed me, body and soul, ripping through every cell in me.

It ate the entire world.

I realized I was kneeling in a puddle. Darkness crept in at the corners of my vision, and all I could see was my own hands, pale as bone against the scarlet.

My blood. I was on my knees in my own blood, with what felt like the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders.

I took a deep breath, then another, trying not to pass out.

Above me, from what seemed like miles overhead, Ereshkigal cackled like a crow. She was a storm that seemed to go on forever, surrounding me with endless dark.

“You’re already healing.” She laughed again and something heavy hit the floor, clattering against the ebonite. “Return to the worm you once were. Neither demon nor fallen, and certainly not a goddess.”

I blinked through the haze at the dagger she’d dropped. My blood still coated the blade, but the pain was already fading.

The stumps of my wings were healing over.

All thanks to Inanna’s power.

At that moment, I hated the goddess who’d reached out to touch me. I hoped she was suffering where she hung on the wall, unable to live, unable to die.

Because my body felt so light. So weak. So… human.

And it was all because she’d linked us. She’d brought this on me.

I’d known it when I saw the chain between us, that she’d sealed my fate. Ereshkigal’s guards had dragged me out of bed when she made the final connection between us, the burst of power echoing through the city for those who could sense it.

I dragged in another breath, closing my eyes against the tears that threatened.

Fuck you, Inanna, for sending me dreams. For waking up at all.

I wish you’d stayed dead.

There was a last shock of pain that prickled through my shoulder blades, and I knew my skin had knitted itself together again. The remaining blood was drying on my back, over my sides, gluing my hair to my own flesh.

But there was other pain. It was dulled in the cross on my chest, in the spiral on my palm, but in the star on the nape of my neck…

I raised my head, still forcing myself to breathe in and out, in and out.

The bitch who’d done this had entrapped my men in her darkness. The spikes she’d whipped me with upon arrival to Kur had lengthened into deadly spears, and she’d thrust them straight through Azazel’s chest.

He was still living, half incorporeal, half bloody and solid. Lightning shone in his eyes, the crackles of pure light that only emerged before he became a creature of night. Something monstrous and full of unrestrained rage.

“Azazel,” I rasped, trying to crawl forward. I almost sprawled on my face, unbalanced by the lack of my wings.

It was strange how they weighed so much, but I had never noticed until they were gone. I was nothing more than a feather that could drift away now.

Ereshkigal hunched over above me, her wizened hands flexing like pincers.

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