I take his hand, letting him lead me back to hell but something tells me the next time we kiss, his secret might just destroy any chance of a future.
Chapter 19
Lilith Thornblood
“Faster.”
Eziel’s shadow hangs over me as I obey his command and slam my fists into the gut of the rubber dummy. The burn from my muscles aches in my arms all the way to my stomach. I don’t know how long I punch the damn thing until Eziel places his hand on my shoulder, signalling for me to stop.
Breathlessly, I turn around. “What… what’s next on your torture list?”
“An assault course,” he replies, and my stomach drops.
Eziel walks away and curls his hand, another signal, this time for me to follow.
I ask, once I’ve jogged to his side.
“Nope.”
Damn, this dude is on a serious mission to break my body. I’m just worried he has no intention of putting me back together.
We head through the courtyard, past two pillars, and then down a stone path. We pass the Crescent Mother statue, and I naturally look her way. Two candles are held in her hands, both of them lit with a red flame. The Crescent Mother is always a woman in a cloak, her face hidden, but I imagine she is beautiful.
“I remember my mum telling me stories of the Crescent Mother and how she created shifters,” I say, needing to fill the silence. I don’t dare look at Eziel, but I feel his gaze on me all the same. “The story of a simple human woman who found a crystal on her beach, washed up by the sea—”
“And over time the crystal started whispering things to her, promising her the world if she only asked,” he interrupts, but I don’t mind. He’s telling the story way better than I can. We both pause on the path and gaze at the statue. “When the woman’s only son got sick, the crystal promised it could save her child but for a price. The woman made the deal, unaware of the consequences.”
“She died the second the deal was made, and her son was transformed into a wolf,” I carry on. “I always felt sorry for the young son. He must have been so scared and alone.”
“The story didn’t end there in my tutorage,” he says, and I swiftly look at him. “I was told the wolf was unable to shift and spent ten years running around the woods by his house until he met a demon who escaped Hell. A succubus demon.”
“They don’t exist anymore,” I say. “Succubus demons are considered too dangerous to be kept alive.”
“I’m well aware of pack law,” he reminds me.
Right. He’s a prince, after all.
“What happened next in your story?” I ask softly.
“The succubus used her magic to turn the wolf back, and he was a man by this point. Of course, the demon and the wolf fell in love, and a child was born from that love. The second the child was born, the curse of never being able to shift was broken. I imagine that part of the story isn’t told much to wolves outside of Hell.”
“In my experience, it’s not,” I admit.
He shrugs. “You said you’re from Stormfire, so how would you know?”
I quickly come up with the practised excuse Caspian and I went over. “My mother liked to travel the packs to sell her wares.”
He side-eyes me. “What did she make?”
Fuck. We didn’t cover that part.
“Erm… jewellery and stuff,” I say quickly.
“Like that pretty bracelet?” he asks.
“Yeah. It was the last gift from her before she was killed.”
Something in his expression changes; he almost softens in his eyes.
He pulls out the silver necklace he always wears and shows me it. At the end is a red pendant rock. “This was the only gift my mother left me.”
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper, enchanted by gold flecks inside the rock.
He smiles and tugs the pendant to his lips. The second it touches his mouth, red embers burst from the crystal, floating around us as I step closer to him.
I smile and run my hand through the embers. “This is incredible.”
“Indeed,” Eziel replies, but when I glance at him, he isn’t looking at the embers. The sparks reflect in his eyes, making them seem like a fire is burning the entire world down beautifully. The world seems to go still at this moment, and my heart pounds.
The alpha’s son is really handsome.
Eziel suddenly jolts back as though coming out of a spell, and it drags me from my reverie, too. What the hell was that?
“Let’s get moving,” he says, already walking away.
I force my unsteady legs after him.
“I hired seven wolves to clean out the old assault course for our training and I’m interested to see how you fare on it.”
“You should firstly show me how to use it,” I suggest sweetly.
Maybe topless, too, because I could totally watch that.
Intensely.
He looks down at me, serious expression marking his handsome face. “If you feel that would benefit your training.”
“It would,” I say with a nod, trying to be as serious as he is. “Very much.”
We finally come out of the pathway to an arena built into the land, and in the centre of it is an assault course made for anyone but me. I count seven rock climbing towers, two pools of deep water, and five mud pits with nets above them. I don’t even peek at the rows of jumping hoops and logs I’m sure he expects me to hop over.
No—fucking—way will I be able to cover that.
I turn to Eziel, but he’s already heading down the stairs to the arena, unclipping his jacket and pulling it off as he walks. I follow him with keen, slightly nervous interest. He places his coat on one of the many stone benches and pauses.
“Sit here and mentally take notes on how this assault course should be done.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, sitting
