Ruby Shadows (Born to Darkness #3)(125)

I think I may have gasped or cried out at that point—I don’t know. All I know is that something caused him to turn his attention to me. His face was beautiful and terrible—I felt like looking at it for too long might cause me to go blind and yet I couldn’t look away. I was caught—trapped in that impenetrable gaze.

For the first time I truly understood what Laish was—what I had allowed myself to care for. He wasn’t human, not in the least. But he wasn’t truly a demon either—or he hadn’t used to be.

He was a fallen angel.

Again I tried to look away and again I couldn’t. I had suspected something like this for a long time but to have it actually confirmed this way sent my mind reeling.

Holding my eyes with his flaming gaze, Laish reached over with one huge hand and casually pushed the door to the Abyss shut.

How? my mind gibbered. How did he do that? He said only someone with my soul signature could shut it. So how was he able? And what will he do now? Is he coming for me?

For the huge, black wings, as vast and broad as the wings on a commercial aircraft were beating slowly, stirring a hot wind from the pit that stank of sulfur and death. He was flying towards me.

“Laish?” I whispered, almost unable to get his name out. Was it really even his name? Was he called something else in this form—in his true form? Because this had to be his true form. Even in my dazed state, I could feel the realness coming from him—the authenticity.

This huge, flaming, beautiful, powerful, frightening being was the real Laish. The person I had let myself care for—the one I had given myself to—was just a shell—a fa?ade he put on when it was convenient for him. This being who had been alive since the dawn of time—since the creation of the world—was the true form of what I had thought was the man I cared for.

“Laish?” I whispered again as he came towards me, flying over the vast, yawning gulf of the pit. I realized suddenly that I was standing on the very edge of the Abyss—somehow I had been drawn forward as I watched him and now my toes were almost at the lip of the dark hole. Sharp rocks cut into my bare feet but I barely felt them. I drew back quickly, getting a safe distance from the edge and noticed Kurex was beside me. The big horse was pawing the ground and snorting at the sight of Laish as he really was.

Had he seen this form in battle, as he had seen the dragon? As frightening as the dragon had been, this form was worse—a thousand times worse. The dragon was just huge and scaly and ugly and scary—this being was beautiful—beyond beautiful. Perfect and yet marred so deeply it made me ache to look at him. Suddenly I remembered Belial’s words—His true form is a perversion of what he once was. Was that why it was so hard to look at him like this and yet so impossible to look away?

He had been flying in perfect silence but now, for the first time, the being Laish had become spoke.

“Gwendolyn,” he said and his voice was like the pealing of a thousand dark bells. On his lips, my name sounded like a word of power—a word that could kill or destroy or maim anyone who heard it spoken aloud. It made me flinch back and clutch the silver handle of the thrak more tightly.

Laish had told me that black-bladed knife could kill any being in Hell. Did that include himself in this new, frightening form? If he came for me, could I use it to defend myself? Was he coming for me? How could I know the true intentions behind that beautiful, inscrutable face, those flaming eyes and vast, black wings? Plus, he was still holding the long, fiery sword in one huge fist. What did he intend to do with it? It had cut through the HellSpawn like a hot knife through butter—I couldn’t imagine it would encounter much more resistance if it was slicing into me.

“Gwendolyn,” he said again in that terrible, beautiful voice that made me feel like I was going crazy every time I heard it. “Please, don’t fear me.”

“Stay back.” I took a step away, holding up the thrak. “I don’t know you like this—I don’t know what you’re capable of and I don’t want to find out.”

“Surely you don’t think I would ever hurt you?”

“You already have,” I pointed out. “And that was when you looked like a regular person. I’m not likely to trust you more now that you’ve turned into this…this…whatever you are.”

The beautiful, terrible face looked sad.

“This is my true form—the one I feared to show you.”


“I can see why. The other form—the one I thought I knew—that isn’t you at all, is it? You were this all along—this…this being.”

“Gwendolyn,” he began but just then a huge, slimy black tentacle snaked up from the Abyss and wrapped itself tightly around my waist.

It came so quickly that I didn’t know what to think. One minute I was standing there talking to him, the next I was high in the air, waving over the bottomless void and screaming.

Laish swung into action at once. He gripped my waist, where the tentacle was wrapped around me, and cut it with one swift slice of his sword. Even with my robe and the writhing tentacle between his hand and my flesh, I could feel his heat radiating over me. His touch burned but not for long—he was already putting me back down on the ground and pushing me gently to safety.

But another tentacle came and then another and another—at least ten of them sliding out of the pit like blind snakes bent on one thing and one thing only—finding me.