Chapter 71 - Hell's Gate*

The Vampire King coughed, his heart still visible through the closing gap that was his chest.

Luna couldn't help but stare at the Archdemon of Gluttony's form when he separated from The Vampire King.

His face . . . Luna had never seen anything like it.

The entire left side of his body was covered in an exotic tattoo composed of fine dots and swirling curves, the ink pure black against his glowing brown skin.

It was a deep, sooty black.

The wing didn't reflect light but seemed to absorb it, the edges fading into the spreading gloom.

She recognized those eyes of molten gold, but there was no familiar light in them.

Ravin had left the Vampire King's body—his eyes are of madness.

Luna could make out Ravin's beautiful profile, backlit by a bright moon and a thousand stars winking through the crater.

"I'm sorry, Ravin, but you need to go," Luna whispered, her eyes soft as she tried to hold back her tears. She couldn't stop the teardrops streaming down her face as she cried her heart out, sputtering words at him like they were curses. "I don't need you."

As if the Goddess Hecate had sensed her faltering on her mission, she reinforced the possible scenario in her mind if the Archdemons' stayed in the Vampire Realm.

It wasn't Luxen this time.

Luna had seen a future where Archdemons lose fatal control, walking through devastated realms full of rotting corpses, watching an entire world fall into a dark age in which all hope was extinguished, children's eyes dull with despair.

Luna strengthened her resolve as she repeated the incantations.

"I wonder what will happen if I kill your mate." Ravin cooed as he grabbed the little bronze dagger from the ground and knelt next to the Vampire King.

With one efficient motion, Ravin had slit the Vampire King's throat.

Luna felt a sliding, throbbing heat trace across her neck.

"You wouldn't die, but the cut is shallow enough that you wouldn't be able to speak," Ravin said a matter-of-factly, no longer amused. "I can't let you go while you are doing this to me, can I? Don't want to ruin it."

Luna tried to scream as she knelt, losing her strength.

A thin thread of blood shot out of her neck and sprayed across the ground.

Luna felt a vague swaying motion.

She could still hear her surroundings, and her vision was alright, but she couldn't move or speak.

She attempted to move her toes or lift a pinkie finger.

None of her limbs responded.

She told herself to blink, but she couldn't even close her good eye.

Luna was locked inside herself and completely conscious.

She knew she would have to watch as the events unfolded and wondered if this was some special torture that Ravin had devised for her.

Maybe he'd poisoned the blade when he slit the Vampire King's throat to paralyze her?

"I never expected to be free from you, Amare." Ravin grinned and licked his lips. "But I still claim you as mine even if the Vampire King technically owns you."

The Archdemon of Gluttony wasn't affected by her wounds, and the Blood Beast had claimed that he was her mate before.

It meant that the Vampire King was her true mate.

What the Archdemon of Lust had told her beforehand wasn't true.

Luxen had tricked her—telling her that if one of the Archdemons were harmed, she would hurt alongside them.

It was a complete lie.

The Archdemon had deceived her, and she believed that he had her best intentions.

Carefully losing hope, Luna wanted to die on the spot now that the blood brother ritual could be completed and the Vampire King was still inside the Devil's Trap, unconscious.

He was held hostage because they were connected.

"Never would I trust an Archdemon again." Luna flailed and coughed.

She only made it worse, spraying blood from her neck.

+++

Chest heaving and arms sore, the Archdemon of Lust had to wait, attempting to stand up from his weakened state, and even then, his feet almost slipped, the ground was slick with the blood from his torn-up wrists, Luna's, and the from the animal sacrifice.

Stretching his stiff limbs as far as he was able in the confined space, his wings still crumpled, Luxen pushed out of the Devil's Trap, but it wouldn't budge. 

Luna's cheek was hot—burning hot—as she tried to hang into the reins of her consciousness.

The atmosphere was thick with a mist that collected ice crystals, and she twisted her back from side to side when she perceived that the ice had burned her skin like fire.

The rest of her was cold, and she trembled, afraid that this was her last moment in this Realm. Something close to her smelled rotten.

+++

Luna felt another stinging sensation—like a jab in the back of her neck—and a liquid pain pumped through her body.

Luna held very still and tried not to start shrieking.

She needed to think, but it was too late.

Feeling the effect of the Vampire King's pain as Ravin stabbed him in the back once again, her brain switched itself off in self-defence.

She had confirmed her suspicions that she was affected by her mate's suffering but not the full impact.

"Stop this, Amare. You will also kill yourself in the process." She heard the note of anger creeping into Ravin's voice, heard the threat in his move toward her, but he couldn't come near her.

They couldn't escape the Pentagram.

Waiting for her stab wounds to heal sluggishly as she laid on the ground, Luna clenched her jaw as she lay through her teeth. "I'm fine." 

"I know you are hurting." Ravin tried to flap his demon wings to fly away from the Devil's Trap, but it didn't work. "Set us free."

"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis legio, omnis incursion, infernalis adversarii. Ergo, draco maledicte, adiuramus te…cessa decipere creaturas, eisque æternæ perditionìs venenum propinare…Vade, daemonium, .…Humiliare sub potenti manu Dea Hecate." Luna worded the incantations once again, giving everything she had just for the magic to work.

The Devil's Trap hollowed out, showing a dark void—a pitch-black hole of death and darkness.

Ravin fell into the deep chasm, tumbling and spinning toward the icy portal that glowed faintly at the bottom.

They were at the entrance of the Underworld, in between dimensions.

It was neither here nor there.

Luna could see that the Archdemons struggled to escape from the portal to Hell in the flickering light of the glowing barriers.

"Omnipotentis Dea potestatem invoco. Dea te ut." Luna yelled, her voice breaking with exhaustion.

Launching herself inside the barriers, Luna raised her death scythe over their head, and the barriers of the Devil's Trap burst into flames. 

With a rush of adrenaline despite her suffering in the hands of these Archdemons, she had managed to carry the Vampire Kings and push him aside out of the Pentagram.

She wasn't even sure if her real mate was still alive, but she can't let these Archdemons drag him to Hell when he never even knew what was happening.

There was no prince-charming or knight-in-shining-armour to save her this time.

Luna needed to take matters into her own hands as the High Priestess.

She ground Luxen two feet down into the abyss, right at the edge of the pentagram.

Luxen tried to cut her head off, but she knocked the blade of his Hellfire sword away with her scythe, and his sword went flinging up over the edge of the chasm.

Luxen watched it moving away from him with his mouth hanging open.

Before he could recover from his shock, Luna dug her claws into his throat as she strangled him with all her might despite the bruised limbs.

His fire burned brighter like he was trying to scorch her, but Luna only squeezed tighter.

Her holy fire was ten times hotter than any flame, and to show him; she sent blazed the blue flames directly into his neck with both her hands.

She felt Ravin growing in size, getting larger and larger as he bellowed with fury, and she clamped on to him desperately.

+++

Just rust, The Archdemon of Lust tried to think, just rust, but he could no longer fool himself as black elongated claws raked their bodies and hundreds of crimson eyes were imprinted on the barriers of the Devil's Trap. 

It was the blood that covered his hands, his hair, his face, stiffening the black of his wings.

It was the blood that had seeped through his body.

It was murky blood that clogged his nostrils with iron as he gasped in ragged breaths.

It became tainted with rust when it touched their skin.

Luxen looked around desperately, but he already knew he was in the perfect prison in his mind.

Iron-rich liquid matting his hair, soaking into his body, sticking on his arms.

+++

Ravin screamed as he clawed his way back from the dragging darkness, not realizing how long it took to wedge his hands to the edge of the void.

He had twisted his body around in the hole, the skin rubbing off his wrists until he was holding the edge and pushing upwards.

He just knew he didn't stop until he shoved hard enough to get out of it.

+++

Both of the Archdemons were frozen and trapped inside the dark and viscous liquid. Dried and flaky ghastly hands, tried to reach for them, pulling them at the abyss.

"Open, take these Archdemons, Luxen and Ravin, and seal them up forever in Hell," she said.