The air in Lucifer’s throne room was thick—choking, oppressive, alive with something that coiled around Sariel’s limbs like unseen chains. The weight of it pressed against her ribs, forcing her to steady her breath, to hold onto what little sense of self she had left.

  But she could feel it slipping.

  Lucifer’s gaze flickered to the burning, incomplete mark on her wrist. The sigil carved into her flesh pulsed, unfinished yet hungry, waiting. His smile was slow, deliberate, laced with a satisfaction that sent a cold dread crawling down her spine.

  “You’ve lingered between states long enough,” he murmured. “It’s time to put an end to this… uncertainty.”

  Sariel swallowed hard, her throat dry.

  She had known—deep down, she had known this moment would come. That no matter how long she clung to the fraying edges of her defiance, it would never be enough to keep her free.

  Lucifer had been patient.

  That patience had run out.

  With a lazy flick of his wrist, the shadows around them moved. They slithered across the obsidian floor, twisting and shifting until they formed a perfect circle around her. The throne room darkened, the walls stretching into something vast and endless.

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  Sariel's body tensed.

  She had seen this before.

  A binding ritual.

  “No more delays,” Lucifer said, standing from his throne. “No more unfinished marks.”

  His golden-red eyes gleamed in the dim light.

  “You are mine, Sariel.”

  The words settled into her bones, an inescapable truth.

  She wanted to deny it, to push back, but the weight of Hell itself bore down on her. The air thickened, pressing against her skull, filling her lungs with something acrid and suffocating.

  The sigil on her wrist burned brighter.

  Lucifer stepped closer, his presence swallowing every inch of space between them.

  “Kneel.”

  Sariel gritted her teeth, her body trembling from the sheer force of the command. It wasn’t just words—it was power, raw and absolute, laced with the authority of the one who ruled this forsaken realm.

  Her legs buckled.

  She crashed to her knees.

  Lucifer hummed in satisfaction, tilting his head. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

  Sariel clenched her fists, her nails biting into her palms. A war raged inside her, but it was a battle she had already lost.

  The sigil on her wrist began to shift.

  It crawled up her arm, the dark ink bleeding into her skin like veins of molten shadow. A shudder tore through her as the mark settled—complete, permanent.

  Final.

  A sharp, searing pain lashed through her chest, spreading outward like wildfire. She gasped, her breath stolen by the overwhelming force of it.

  The mark didn’t just bind her in name.

  It rewrote her very being.

  Sariel's grace—what little remained—was extinguished. Snuffed out like a dying ember.

  A piece of her shattered.

  Lucifer crouched before her, his fingers tilting her chin up, forcing her to meet his gaze.

  “There,” he murmured, his voice almost gentle. “Now, you are whole.”

  Sariel stared at him, her vision swimming.

  Whole.

  The word felt wrong.

  Twisted.

  Empty.

  Lucifer’s smile widened, his thumb brushing over the edge of her jaw.

  “Welcome home, little cherub.”

  And deep within her, something inside finally broke.

  —