Ties That Bind: A Muse Urban Fantasy (The Veil Series Book 5) by Pippa DaCosta Read Free Book Online Page A

with flame. I couldn’t fight fire with fire. I had to wrench it all out of him, to drain him as I had Mammon. I tugged, and it came.
    The elemental blade carved into my wing membrane. Blinding pain silenced my thoughts and instantly severed my hold on my father’s element.
    He knelt on my back, held my wing under his arm, and bowed low enough that when he spoke, I heard every malicious hiss. “There is no half-blood-chaos-girl here to save you. The only reason I allow you to live is to do my bidding. Do you understand?”
    “Yes.”
    His weight lifted. “You will destroy this one with lust, and prove your worth.” He released my wing. I levered my body up and watched through hooded eyes as my father walked away. The elemental blade dissolved. He didn’t look back. The door swung shut behind him. The lock rattled. And almost immediately, I retched up bloody bits of my insides. But I still had my wing. I ached and throbbed and burned. I wanted to cry and howl and roar. But I was alive.
    My agony paled when my gaze settled on Stefan. Half dragging, half crawling, I inched closer. He lay on his side, chains draped over him. His chest rose and fell, and his eyelids flickered. How long had he been chained down there? His demon protected his body, and even now healed his wounds, but that wouldn’t make any of this hurt less.
    His eyelids fluttered. His eyes opened, and he jerked back with a growl.
    “Easy.” I held out a hand. “It’s me.”
    “Muse.” And with the sound of my name on his lips, he sighed. “You’re alive.”
    “Against the odds.”
    “The battle… I wasn’t sure… And then, when he came—” He winced and probed at his jaw. “He hits like a truck.”
    There would be time or explanations later. I crawled closer and reached for the manacles. He flinched. I paused, fingers hovering close to the surface of the metal. “I won’t hurt you.”
    “I know, it’s…” His throat moved as he swallowed. Propped up on his elbow, he watched me with wary eyes. “He can twist my thoughts.” Stefan’s smile shifted restlessly on his lips. “Which he did. Regularly. Made me believe things…”
    I gritted my teeth and shuffled into a kneeling position, pulling my bruised wing in behind me. Apologies fought to be free, but I didn’t know where to start. I should never have left him on the battlefield. But the look on his face was about more than that. The fine lines around his fractured smile, around tired eyes—how his gaze skirted mine. Exactly what had my father made him believe?
    I reached for the manacles once more, feeling my way around the metal. I sent an experimental push of heat into them, but the glyphs deflected it.
    Stefan hissed sharply.
    “Sorry,” I uttered.
    “You can’t get them off without the key.”
    I kept my head bowed and focused on the metal. Curling my claws into the hinge, I tugged, picked, and pulled, but they didn’t move. I supposed I hadn’t really expected them to. I just needed to do something. Anything. “I can’t melt them.” The stall didn’t yield anything helpful. I’d have found more creature comforts in an Institute cell.
    “Muse.”
    Maybe if I could read the metal, I might discover a way to remove them? A cut, a little blood, and I might—
    “Muse…” Stefan pulled his wrist free of my grip and touched my chin. His icy skin tingled against the fire of mine, sprinkling shivers through my flesh. He tipped my face up. “Now would be a really good time to tell me you have a plan.”
    “I did.” I moistened my lips and watched tiny filaments of ice in his eyes capture the torchlight. “I do.” But I hadn’t planned on him. Asmodeus wasn’t going to accept anything less than Stefan’s mental obliteration, and there was no way in hell I could do that to him, even if I knew how.
    Stefan’s smiled steadied and slanted sideways. “It’s good to see you, y’know. And not only because you’re the only real company I’ve had for