Chapter Twenty-seven: Benediction

Chapter twenty-Seven: Benediction

Levistus is dead.

The announcement in the great hall, read aloud amid the roster of the fallen, was not a sound but a physical blow that gutted her. It stripped her of what little meaning she had left in her existence, leaving her hollowed out and adrift. She was alone, completely and utterly alone.

The silence in the Malsheem was a living, suffocating thing. It had a weight that pressed on Benzosia’s chest, a heat that devoured all sound, all hope. Weeks had bled into a gray, featureless eternity since the siege of Avernus had broken, since the last, desperate missive from the front lines had reached her. Since Levistus had been fed to the maw of his king’s ambition. He was gone. She repeated the words in the dead of night, a mantra of despair against the phantom touch of Asmodeus’s cold hands on her skin. Levistus, her fierce, impossible hope, was gone. Azadiel, her reckless, beloved brother, was lost to the void. And Lucifer had, again, forsaken her. This pain, this solitude was a deeper, truer damnation than any infernal flame.

Her days became a blur of opulent emptiness. She drifted through the labyrinthine corridors, the crimson silk of her gown whispering against the golden floors that shimmered with a malevolent heat. The weight of her crown was a physical ache in her skull, a constant reminder of her gilded cage. The courtiers watched her, their eyes like the hungry, knowing eyes of vultures. They could smell the King’s displeasure, the cooling of his favor, and their whispers slithered in her wake like invisible serpents.

“Barren…” The word was a hiss of steam, scalding her pride. “Faded…” A cruel blade that scraped against her soul. “Replaced…”

That one was the true poison. Basileus, now the King’s Herald, was a constant, smirking presence at Asmodeus’s side. He moved with a new, proprietary grace, his eyes lingering on her with a triumphant malice that made the bile rise in her throat. He was the favored pet, the reflection of the King’s darkest desires, and his elevation was a daily, public humiliation. Yet, a strange, hollow calm settled where the hot sting of jealousy should have been. The vast, echoing emptiness where her love for her husband had once resided had been replaced. The only face that rose unbidden to her mind was Levistus's. The memory of his fierce, protective gaze, the impossible tenderness in his touch—each recollection was a fresh shattering, his image burned into her soul, a beautiful, agonizing brand. Hope had withered. Despair was her cold, constant companion.

Her footsteps were silent on the golden floor, a whisper in the echoing expanse of the gilded halls. She moved without purpose, her gaze unfocused on the shimmering walls, a ghost in her own opulent prison. A hand, sudden and brutally firm, shot from a shadowed doorway. It clamped around her arm, not gently, but with a possessive strength that yanked her off balance and dragged her into the suffocating darkness. Her gasp died in her throat, a trapped sound in the abrupt gloom. She stumbled, pressing her back against the rough, cold stone of the alcove. Her vision, adjusting to the deeper shadow, slowly coalesced a form before her. A silhouette. A figure. And as her eyes found his, as the soft light from the hall caught the familiar, impossible line of his jaw and the cold fury in his eyes, the oppressive gloom vanished. It wasn't just him; it was the world itself, fracturing and reforming around this single, impossible truth. She was looking at a ghost, a corpse, a memory... and he was breathing.

He was a ruin. His armor was askew, the sharp plane of his cheek spattered with fresh blood. But he was a miracle. He was alive.

"I... I thought you were dead," the words were a choked, broken whisper torn from her soul, his name a prayer she hadn't dared to speak.

"Benzosia." Her name on his lips was a raw, guttural sound of profound relief.

A shared madness seized them. There was no tenderness, only a frantic, desperate need to confirm the impossible. Her hands flew to his armor, tearing at the buckles, the leather straps. 

"Are you hurt? Let me see." His own hands were at her gown, his movements just as rough, just as urgent, pulling at the fine silk, searching for wounds beneath. It was a frantic inventory of the flesh, a desperate cataloging of limbs and skin, their fingers tracing every line of each other’s bodies, searching for the fatal wounds their nightmares had promised.

"The blood…” she gasped, her fingers smearing the crimson on his cheek. 

“Not mine,” he growled, his gaze devouring her, his hands mapping the unmarred skin of her shoulders, her waist. “And you? He hasn’t harmed you?”

The relief that crashed over them when they found each other whole was a physical force, a tidal wave that shattered their restraint. It was not a choice – it was a desperate, drowning instinct. His mouth crashed down on hers, not a kiss but a collision, a frantic claiming. He drank down her shock and fear, replacing it with a blazing desire that tore through her veins like magma. He shoved her back against the hard, unyielding door, their need a maddening, shared fever.

A voice, silken and precise, sliced through the humid air like a blade of pure ice. "Where are you, my Queen? The court awaits.” Basileus.

They froze, locked together in the shadows. The slow, deliberate scrape of his boots on the marble floor drew nearer, each footstep a death knell against the frantic hammering of her heart. The shared terror was a physical weight, pinning her to the spot. The footsteps paused just outside their alcove, then, mercifully, moved on.

The moment had nearly cost them everything. With a clarity born of pure desperation, she grabbed Levistus’s hand. "Come with me."

She pulled him through the labyrinthian maze of gilded corridors and shadowed alcoves with a surety born of desperate need and secret knowledge. Her mind, sharp and focused, charted their path as her heart hammered a frantic rhythm against her ribs. She found the hidden door of Eden with practiced ease. The key slid into the lock, a single, definitive click sealing the Malsheem behind them, and they were in their own world. The air was clean and sweet with the scent of moon-lilies, a stark contrast to the oppressive heat they had just escaped. The frantic search resumed, but now it was a frenzy of passion, a desperate need to feel him, to erase the horrors of the battlefield from his skin.

“You consume my thoughts,” he whispered against her lips, his voice a raw rasp. She saw it in his eyes then—the horrors he had just escaped. He wasn't just a desire; he was her anchor. “All I can think of is your taste… The way it feels to sink into your depths and the tight clutch of your inner heat…”

A moan was ripped from her throat. “Inside,” she groaned, his fingers stirring shockwaves of pleasure. “Need you… inside. Now.”

All at once, he was pushing inside her, his hands digging into her thighs as he held her up, bracing her against the cool, silvered bark of the nearest tree. He drove into her hard, control lost, and she had never felt so desired. He groaned deeply, his semen lashing her insides as he panted heavily between their mouths.

He pulled away, easing her down to the tender moss. He hovered over her, looking as though he wanted to eat her whole. With soft licks and gentle kisses, he made his way down between her legs, then made good on that promising look, licking and sucking—devouring her.

It was a form of worship. Where Asmodeus took, Levistus gave. Where Asmodeus emptied her, Levistus made her feel whole, overflowing. Every place his mouth touched, he was not just kindling pleasure; he was burning away the memory of Asmodeus's cold, violating possession. He was giving her body back to her, one agonizingly perfect sensation at a time. Pleasure burst through her like a shockwave.

“Fuck. More. I’m ready again, can I?” he asked, his dark eyes gleaming from between her thighs.

“Please. All you can give me.” Perhaps this will be the time I conceive, the treacherous, hopeful thought whispered.

For a single, breathless moment afterward, there was no war, no King of Hell. There was only the cool moss beneath her back, the weight of his body on hers, and the steady, miraculous beat of his heart against her ear. She felt completely safe.

The fragile peace shattered when she felt him tense. The steady beat of his heart against her ear, once a miraculous rhythm, now hammered with a frantic, cold anxiety.

"The King..." he rasped, the word a curse. "His command pushed our legions to a breaking point – a glorious, pointless sacrifice." His voice was a low snarl. "He wanted Zariel dead. She is the only Arch-demon powerful enough to be a thorn in his side." He lowered his head, a muscle in his jaw ticking. "I am his Prince, not his fool."

A cold knot formed in her stomach, the new dread a stark contrast to the burning heat that had just consumed her. Her most powerful ally in this cursed realm, the only one he hadn't yet touched, was now a pawn in his games. 

"You disobeyed him?"

"Yes," he said, his voice flat with chilling certainty. He pulled back slightly, his eyes dark with a cunning that sent a shiver down her spine. "I defied him. Reinforced the chasm when he commanded me to collapse it. I brought a victory where the only outcome was defeat. He cannot punish me without facing backlash from the nine circles."

Her hands, still tracing the lines of his body, went cold. She had believed their love was a secret garden, a sanctuary from the venomous court. Now, she saw the reality: it was just another battlefield. The sanctuary of their Eden suddenly felt small, its walls thin and fragile. She looked at the hidden door, the one that led back to the Malsheem. They were safe for this moment, but beyond it, Hell was still burning.