“I’m way overdue. If this ring makes me heal, how will I know if I’ve turned?”

“Every month I will remove it and test you,” he said.

Her lips thinned. “Every month.”

Was the duration of her imprisonment just sinking in? “Why didn’t you confess your age and weakness in the beginning, then beg for mercy from your tasks?” Even with her two lives added together, she was only in her forties. “I might have been moved to grant it.”

“Beg for mercy?!” She charged forward, breasts bouncing—again, not helping his erection—to stand in front of him. “I would rather bite out my tongue and bleed to death than beg.”

Her talk of dying checked his arousal. “You’re quick to choose death.”

“You’re quick to threaten me! And since you won’t tell me what my ‘crime’ was, why shouldn’t I believe you’ve set me up? Maybe you get off torturing young females so much that your deluded brain makes up excuses to justify your twisted needs!”

She continued to make him into the villain. Yes, she was young, but he had been as well, a mere sixteen years old. Yes, he’d been harsh with her, but no permanent harm had been done—unlike his own mutilation. “You are either very stupid or crazed to continue challenging one like me.” Evidence mounted that she was simply maddened.

And that she was no spy.

Between Sian and Calliope, only one of them was considering seduction.

If he could somehow get her in bed with him, he’d rut her till he’d slaked his need, then discard her, cutting her from his life completely. He’d leave her to rot in this tower.

The only drawback to his plan? He didn’t know how to seduce. For most of Sian’s life, his only difficulty with finding a partner had been getting rid of her amorous friends, since he never slept with more than one at a time.

Hands balled into fists, she said, “All I keep hearing about is my supposed former life, when I supposedly wronged you. You’re a demon who lives in hell and a Møriør on top of that; something tells me you’re not the most trustworthy male!”

“Since when have the Møriør been known as untrustworthy?”

“Since they decided to invade our universe and conquer everyone in Gaia.”

“Someone needs to rule you because you are all doing a bloody bad job of ruling yourselves.” Especially under Nïx’s guidance. Why didn’t they realize she was leading them to an apocalypse?

“I’ve hated and feared all of the Møriør since I was a girl. Now that I’ve met you, I see I was right to.”

“Hated and feared? Then you know nothing of my alliance.”

“I know the one thing that counts.”

He grated, “And what’s that?”

She held his gaze. “You’re all monsters.”

SEVENTEEN

Day seven in hell.

As warm water ran over her underwear-clad body, Lila rolled her head on her neck. She’d just taken the edge off with a quick orgasm—her first since arriving here—while trying to avoid thoughts of Abyssian.

But the ring was a constant reminder.

She glared at it. “Fucker.” Healing wasn’t unwelcome—all of her bruises, burns, and abrasions had mended—but she had no idea what other spells the ring might carry.

Plus it felt like a mark of possession, a tiny slave collar.

Despite her healing, she was fading overall. Her head ached, her muscles were stiff from sleeping on the floor, and she still hadn’t eaten. Nor had she figured out an escape. Which meant she didn’t know enough.

She raised her face and rinsed her mouth. Perhaps she shouldn’t antagonize the demon king—a source of information—if he returned?

She exited the makeshift shower, wringing her hair out, and almost stepped on an encroaching runner of fire vine. Before long, she would be hemmed in at the center of the tower.

Yesterday she’d used the edge of a food tray to sever a branch, and four more had taken its place, like a hydra’s head.

How to defeat it? As she pondered solutions, she scratched another slash on the wall to mark her captivity.

Two spiders poked out from holes to watch her.

They no longer terrified her, thanks to her immersion therapy. She’d named that pair Chip and Dale and fed them jellyfish-soup-creature-thingies.

None of the others would approach her, still pissy because of her venom harvesting.

How different life here was from her life in Sylvan Castle when she had strolled out to her private garden and coaxed fawns to eat lilies from her hand. She must be missing her home badly; she’d dreamed of a deer last night.

In her reverie, she’d been sprinting circles in the tower when a fawn came bounding into the courtyard, its tiny hooves clickety-clacking on the stone floor.

Bits of grass had dotted its muzzle, the young fawn still a clumsy forager. Lila had gazed around, mystified by how it’d gotten into a tower with no doors. And what would a woodland creature be doing in hell?

She’d breathlessly eased closer to it, inching out a hand. . . . Just as she’d been about to pet its head, it’d disappeared.

Was her subconscious trying to tell her about a possible exit from this place?

Focus, Lila. Fire vine. She began to pace. The threat of the vine was like a puzzle devised to test her. How to conquer a poisonous vine that spread nonstop but couldn’t be cut?

Maybe she could build a stone barricade out of the remaining relics. A bulwark of raunchy statues. Lovely.

The ancient inscriptions on the walls were just as dirty as those statues. She’d read some, everything from She seized his horns, guiding his mouth to her nether lips, demanding the wonder of his tongue to In a frenzy of possessiveness, he rubbed his aching horns all over her breasts, marking her with his scent to Licking the pierced head, she sucked him greedily, awaiting the heat of his promised seed.

Judging by the bulk of them she’d read, demons were obsessed with horns, claws, piercings, and—

A loud splashing sound carried from the lava river below.

She meandered around vines to the edge of the terrace. At least the ash had started to settle outside. She hadn’t coughed a single time today, and the foreboding feeling of this place had lifted somewhat.

She gazed over the railing. Blinked.

A dragon—multiple times bigger than any she’d ever seen—was swimming in the lava. Metallic blue-gold scales covered its gargantuan body, and two rows of black horns protruded from its head.