Steam clung to Raven’s skin as she stepped from the shower, the warmth doing little to quiet the storm inside her. A year had passed since the ritual—since the night she’d stood in the circle, blood on her hands, defiance in her heart. Khoas had torn her soul apart like it was his to give, dividing it between his six sons, the Princes of Hell. Each one had claimed her as mate, as if her body and spirit were prizes to be shared. But Raven hadn’t surrendered. Not then, and not now. The sigils etched into her skin pulsed faintly, reminders of the bond she never asked for. I’m not theirs, she told herself, gripping the towel tighter around her. I never will be.

They came to her in dreams, sometimes in whispers, sometimes in fire. Wrath’s voice was the loudest—always demanding, always burning—but it was Despair who lingered, curling around her thoughts like smoke, soft and insidious. Pride tried to charm her, Greed to tempt her, Lust to unravel her, Envy to twist her. And yet, she resisted. Every day, every breath, was an act of rebellion. She learned their names, their domains, their hungers—not to please them, but to protect herself. To understand the enemy was to survive them. They called her “mate,” but she called herself “free,” even if the truth was more complicated than that.

Sometimes, when the sigils flared and her knees buckled under the weight of their pull, she wondered if she was lying to herself. If the fragments of her soul, now stitched into six thrones of Hell, had already changed her. But she refused to be a vessel. She refused to be a prize. She was Raven—flawed, furious, and still fighting. And if the Princes of Hell thought they could tame her, they had no idea what kind of fire they’d bound themselves to.

Raven stood before the mirror, towel wrapped tightly around her body, watching the fog slowly fade from the glass. Her hand moved in slow, deliberate strokes as she brushed her damp hair, each tug of the bristles grounding her in the present—mundane, human, hers.