“Agreed.” If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear Avari was rolling featureless eyes at me. “In fact, that is the offer I presented to you.”
Yes. But I needed his offer to me to stand separately—officially—from my real demand.
“Good. Second, I want your word that once I’ve surrendered, you will never again attempt to contact or hurt any member of my family or any of my established friends, in any way, shape, or form, personally or through any other agency acting on your behalf.”
Ira had helped me with the phrasing. Based on Avari’s still-escalating expression of fury—he was nearly speechless—the wrath demon didn’t regret offering me that little bit of assistance at no additional charge.
Avari growled through clenched teeth, and the familiar—and very human—demonstration of his anger almost pleased me. “For what duration?”
What part of “never again” did he not understand?
I propped both hands on my hips, pretending to think it over. “How long do you plan to keep my soul?”
“As long as I like. The blink of a hellion’s eye stretches well beyond a mortal’s understanding of the passage of time, and I intend to enjoy the torment of your soul for much longer than that.”
“So, forever, at least from a ‘mortal’s understanding’?” I said. “Is that a reasonable assumption?”
“Depending on your definition of ‘reasonable,’ yes.” He looked hesitant to admit that. Suspicious.
“Well then, I think ‘forever’ is reasonable in this instance as well. You will have nothing to do with my friends and family, forever, beginning the moment I surrender to you.”
“No.” Avari seemed to take a perverse pleasure in that one word.
“No deal, then.” He started to object, and I spoke over him. “Why should I give myself to you to save my father if you’re just going to go after my friends and family later? That’s not me saving my father—that’s me delaying his torture and inevitably painful death. I’m not going to sell my own soul for anything less than the absolute freedom—from you—of everyone I love.” My heart thundered within my chest. My pulse was the fevered race of fear through my veins as I turned to Ira to say the words that would either pull Avari into our trap or trigger the collapse of everything I’d lied, stolen, and negotiated for. “Let’s go.”
He nodded triumphantly, virtually glutted on Avari’s rage, and we started to turn.
“Wait!” Avari roared at my back, and the sound rolled over me like an arctic gust, raising chill bumps the length of my body even as it threw me forward. I stumbled to keep from falling, grinning the whole time. I could practically feel his greed, at just the thought that some other hellion might make off with the prize he’d been chasing for months—which obviously didn’t feel like a “blink of the eye” at the moment. “Fine. I agree,” he said, and the words sounded like icicles shattering on concrete. “Once I take possession of your soul, I will have no further contact with your friends or family members, directly or indirectly. From now, until the end of my own existence, should that day ever arrive.”
I glanced up at Ira. “Does that about cover it?”
“I believe it does.” His black orb eyes shined. “And that means this is goodbye, little fury.”
My pulse raced out of control, flushing my system with fear and dread. Panic tripped in my chest, and my heart skipped one beat, then another. My hands tingled, and I could no longer feel my feet. “Don’t forget what you promised....”
“Like it or not, I am a hellion of my word. We all are.” He shot an amused look at Avari, who seemed to hate the hellion of wrath with an all-new passion. “One more kiss for the road?”
I nodded, and Ira leaned down to kiss me one more time, in front of three other hellions and assorted creepy-crawlies that had gathered to watch, no doubt waiting for the chance to grab a scrap of flesh or a chip of bone should one be tossed their way.
But that kiss wasn’t just a goodbye between me and Ira, who was only playing the part of my friend because I was paying him. That kiss was a vital part of my deal with the hellion of wrath.
This time when his lips met mine, he inhaled and warmth seemed to flow from my body, pulled through my throat, then from my mouth into his. A bitter cold remained in its absence, and suddenly I couldn’t remember...something.
There was something I’d known a moment earlier, but couldn’t...quite...recall. Whatever it was, it was important. So important it had to be removed before Avari could find it in my head, when he took me apart.
And now it was completely gone.
Ira stepped back and licked his lips, and more ice spread across the ground toward us from beneath Avari’s feet. “Your father is waiting,” he said, and little crystals of ice seemed to fall from his words.
Greed is a cold emotion; wrath is white-hot. Stuck between them, I felt like an icicle on fire.
“Fine.” My head spun, and my stomach cramped. Avari had told me months ago that in the Netherworld, my existence could stretch into eternity, but I’d never imagined that my eternal existence would belong to him, much less that I would give it to him of my own free will.
But I had no other option. Nothing else would protect my friends and family, and if I’d learned anything about Avari over the past year, it was that he would not stop hunting us until he got what he wanted.
Until he got me.
“It has to be your choice,” he reminded me, and I nodded. I had to agree to stay. I had to give him my soul.
I took in a deep breath, more out of habit than any real need for air. Then I said the words that had been rolling around in my head for the past couple of hours.
“You’ll let my dad go if I give you my soul?”
“Yes.”
“And beginning from the moment you take possession, you’ll never again try to contact anyone I care about, forever and ever, amen?”
“This redundancy is exasperating, Ms. Cavanaugh.”
“Just say it.”
He growled in frustration, and Ira chuckled. “Yes. Beginning the moment I take possession of your soul, I will never again attempt to contact your friends and family for any reason whatsoever.”
I sucked in a deep breath and swallowed the massive lump in my throat to keep from vomiting. “Fine. My soul is yours.” My world changed in that moment. It...darkened. Narrowed. Spiraled toward infinite despair. “Come get it before I change my mind.”
Avari’s hand closed around my arm. Belphegore and Invidia released my father. The instant they let him go, his eyelids began to flutter. Ira disappeared from my side and appeared at my father’s, holding him up.
“Kaylee?” At first, my dad looked as confused as he sounded. Then he blinked, and horror came into focus in his expression as the Netherworld came into focus around him. He looked at me, then at Avari. Then at the demon’s hand around my arm. “No! Kaylee, no!”
Tears filled my eyes for the millionth time in the past four days. “This is the only way, Dad.” My hands shook. My teeth chattered. My entire body seemed to be convulsing with fear and dread. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t find some other way.”
I wanted to tell him not to worry about me. That I’d be fine. But that wasn’t true. I wouldn’t be fine. Avari would make sure of that.