Prologue
My father once told me there is no such thing as a good life.
Whoever thinks he has it, definitely doesn’t. Whoever believes he needs it, definitely wouldn’t. Whoever chases or craves it, will end up bleeding all over the stones you once called home.
I never truly understood his words. Isn’t a good life what we all want to strive for? A life worth living? A tale to be told to future generations of adventures and abundant laughter filling hallways and carrying wayward feet onwards and upwards?
It wasn’t until my eighteenth birthday, that I truly understood his intent.
When the glittery crown full of diamonds he had posed so elegantly on my head, started to shimmer red and began to vibrate on a dull beat. I heard drums and violence from somewhere beyond the present, beyond the veil.
I felt my bones pulse—my eyes water. A dark presence was in the house, and my family and friends surrounding me at our living room table as I stood over my birthday cake, needed to be ushered somewhere safe. Fast.
My entire being screamed of the danger lurking in those shadows beyond my living room door. I saw a presence move beyond the frame, and an instinct deep within just knew.
I dropped my hands to my sides as I stared at my father. He had done the unthinkable. A faith you wouldn’t wish upon anyone, let alone your own child.
He, at least, had the awareness to look ashamed.
So this is what you paid it with, I thought as the bitterness of the betrayal lay thick on my tongue. The luxury and lavishness me and my three younger brothers had grown up with. The mansion we were now standing in, the success he had established with his band, and the many trips around the world—the excessiveness of his empty life.
My soul.
The moment I realized I was one of the fallen, I felt so incredibly stupid. I had read the terrible tales. I had heard the elusive stories about the firstborn in some families being offered to Lucifer. A soul paid, a firstborn child offered, to the king of hell for a long prosperous life.
My soul belonged to the depths of hell, to the armies of the fallen.
The door opened, and a man covered in dark shadows stepped forth. He was wearing a charcoal suit, and his hair was as dark as the darkest night, sucking all light out of the room as it fell to a neat but shiny swoosh next to his prominent jawline. His eyes had an Asian tilt to them and shone purple when he walked underneath the lamp next to the doorpost, yet when he kept walking, they turned pitch-black. He had the emblem of a green snake on the side of his jacket.
The Excetrae.
The seventh house. The house of the snake. The court of the deadly vipers and even deadlier spells. Lucifer had marked my soul at birth and decided I was worthy of the court of spellcasters.
Why?
I had zero magic. Zero bad-ass skills.
“Octavia Greyson,” his voice was deep like two boulders colliding. “By the binding spell placed upon your essence on the date of the fifth of November two-thousand three, you are called upon the unyielding oath to our Dark King. I’m here to collect you and take you to the halls of Murdoch.”
I would be going to hell.
Literally.
How was this my life? I gave my father one dark look, conveying all hatred I could muster. I knew it had no point in running. My soul was marked. He would find me anywhere.
Yet, I still did just that. I took the only thing I could think of and threw it at the dark presence’ handsome face—a single piece of red velvet cake, which landed on its intended target with a sickening thud. I watched for one second, how the red cake dripped down the dark man’s face, slowly, as if it purposely was putting on a show.
I turned on my heel and ran for my life.
