Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The belt cracked again. Not the kind of crack that echoed—it was the dull, thick snap of worn leather striking thin skin, bruised over bone. Harry didn't scream anymore. That had stopped around the fourth blow.

"You think you're clever, do you?" Vernon snarled, breath reeking of cheap brandy and spite. His pudgy fingers were red and trembling, curling the belt like it was a leash. "Wavin' those little scores in my face! 'Top of the class in spelling,' eh? Think you're smarter than Dudley, you little freak?"

Harry's mouth tasted copper. He didn't answer.

That was a mistake.

The belt snapped down again, this time across the boy’s thin back, dragging a gasp from his throat. His legs crumpled on the kitchen tile, but he didn't plead. That made Vernon angrier last time.

"You don't talk back. You don’t talk at all!" Vernon growled, grabbing Harry by the collar of his too-large shirt. "You’re here to work, not to show off!"

"I didn't—"

The fist came before the sentence could finish. A heavy, meaty swing from Vernon’s fat-knuckled hand, landing square across Harry’s mouth with a sickening crack. His head snapped sideways. Blood sprayed the refrigerator.

He hit the floor.

"Now look what you made me do," Vernon muttered, flexing his fingers, watching the boy spit red onto the tile. "Ungrateful little bastard..."

Petunia peeked from the doorway but didn't speak. She never did. Not when it counted.

A minute later, Vernon dragged Harry by the wrist—still bleeding, still half-dazed—through the hall and yanked open the cupboard under the stairs.

"You want to be better than my son? You can be smart in the dark."

He shoved him in. Hard. Harry hit the back wall, shoulder first, and crumpled into the pile of old blankets. The door slammed shut. A lock clicked into place.

Darkness swallowed him.

He touched his lip gently and winced. It was split. Swollen. The taste of blood was familiar now. The heat in his back pulsed, slow and angry, like a second heartbeat.

He didn’t cry. Not because it didn’t hurt. But because he knew Vernon would come back if he did.

Instead, Harry pressed his forehead to his knees.

And tried to pretend he was anywhere else.

The cupboard was a tomb. Cold, airless, heavy with the stink of dust and punishment. Harry huddled against the splintered wood, arms bruised, lip cracked open and still weeping blood. His breath came slow. Measured.

He hated them.

Every day was worse. Smarter than Dudley? Smack. Finished his homework before dinner? Locked up. Said “please” with too much attitude? That earned him a fresh welt and a boot to the ribs.

I want out. I don’t care where. Just let me leave… let me vanish…

And something answered.

It didn’t whisper. It pulled.

A heat like fire ignited in his chest, searing through his ribs like some great clawed hand was reaching through space, yanking him downward—past wood, past stone, past reality.

He tried to scream, but the sound never came. His world folded into black.

And then—impact.

Steel. Grit. Sulfur.

Harry slammed into hard pavement.

---

The stench hit him first.

Burnt oil. Smoke. Copper.

He coughed, rolled over—and stopped breathing.

His arms were wrong.

The flesh had changed. From elbow to fingertip, they had transformed into scaled wyvern limbs—black, thick-skinned, with veins of glowing ember-red pulsing faintly beneath the surface. Four long fingers curled into sharp, sickle-like claws—flexing with unnatural ease.

Attached from his back and stitched into the flesh of each arm, a vast stretch of wing unfurled—leathery and dark as a storm. The wings didn't hang like some burden. They moved with him, part of his arms, able to fold forward like a shield.

Instinct made him raise them—and when he did, the layered, semi-metallic membranes shimmered. Bullets would bounce. Spells would burn out. These wings weren’t just armor—they were purpose-built for war.

He stood, disoriented.

Six and a half feet tall. His bones had lengthened, restructured. His chest was broader, his muscles lean and corded with hidden strength. His legs were digitigrade, taloned. A long tail swept behind him like a living whip.

His reflection in a cracked window showed a wyvern-like demon: feral green eyes glowing from beneath dark ridges, rows of sharpened fangs glinting in the half-light, and a raw, unsettling intensity behind those reptilian eyes.

The city around him pulsed like a beating heart.

Neon lights flickered overhead. Graffiti marked gang turf. Razor-wire fences, rusting pipes, muffled gunfire in the distance. Shops sold body parts in jars. Bounty boards displayed flickering faces, all marked with high prices.

Mammon’s Territory. The Ring of Greed.

A place of endless ambition and organized rot.

Loan sharks laughed beside open furnaces. Imps in gold-laced suits traded souls on back-alley corners. A truck sped past with a mounted gun and a driver smoking a cigar made from powdered hellroot.

Harry's new body felt… right.

His mind had sharpened with it—processing the chaos, reading the gangs, mapping escape routes without effort. He was no longer a scared, bleeding boy locked in a cupboard.

He was something built for survival.

His claws flexed. His wings shifted.

And somewhere, deep in his new infernal blood, something stirred and whispered:

Welcome to Hell, Harry.

Now take what’s yours.

The wind howled through Greed’s skyline—carrying ash, fumes, and the low, pulsing thump of sin-soaked music. But Harry wasn’t listening.

His wings curled back against his shoulders as he stalked down a graffiti-laced street, talons clicking on steel plates and cracked concrete. He moved like a creature built for war—but something deeper was guiding him. Not thought. Not logic.

Instinct.

It buzzed beneath his scales. A fiery compulsion rising from the marrow of his bones. Like something ancient had awakened within him—old, proud, territorial.

And hungry.

He turned down an alley lined with imp beggars and addicts—none dared stop him. His eyes had started to glow, no longer just green, but blazing like emerald fire. As if embers had embedded into his gaze.

Then he saw it.

On the hill above the smoking skyline of Greed, past the chained factories and fuel-spewing towers—there it stood.

Mammon’s mansion.

A grotesque fortress of wealth and ego. Sprawling, baroque, and stupidly massive. Gold-plated gates the size of subway trains. Windows shaped like dollar signs. Statues of Mammon himself, flexing and grinning down at the city like some twisted god of excess.

Harry’s wyvern senses snapped to attention.

The firecracker in his chest, the glowing ember of his new soul, burned bright.

That. That place. It was supposed to be his.

He didn’t question why. He didn’t hesitate.

His wings spread wide.

And he began to change.

Bones groaned. Muscles tore and regrew in real time. Every breath became a furnace roar. Horns curled longer from his skull, his neck lengthening, body thickening, tail widening. He rose—higher, heavier—shoulders expanding like unfolding mountains.

Ten feet. Fifteen. Twenty.

He didn’t stop growing.

The earth cracked under his weight. Pavement shattered as his claws dug trenches. His wings stretched into the sky like stormclouds. By the time the transformation slowed, he stood the size of a small cathedral—his serpentine body massive and shadowed, the city of Greed blinking beneath him like a toy world.

A low, guttural growl rumbled from his chest.

Take it.

That single thought burned through his mind. Not in words. In instinct.

Harry charged.

His massive frame moved faster than anything that size should’ve been allowed. Buildings trembled. Metal groaned. He smashed through Mammon’s front gates like they were wet tissue, tail ripping up marble steps, horns gouging the support pillars clean from their foundations.

He didn’t stop.

BOOM—he exploded through the gold-laced front doors.

The grand hall burst apart in a shower of shattered chandeliers and diamond-crusted furniture. Gold coins scattered like sparks. Dozens of imp dancers and party girls screamed as the draconic horror filled the atrium, his wings spreading wall to wall, smoke billowing from his flared nostrils.

At the center of it all, Mammon stood—wide-eyed, in a ridiculous velvet suit, holding a martini glass and two imps on his arms.

"The fuck is this?!" he bellowed, blinking at the towering wyvern that now stood in his vaulted hall. “Did someone order a kaiju?! This is MY fuckin’ house! Who the fuck even are y—”

Harry opened his mouth.

And the fire came.

White-hot.

Not yellow. Not orange. But blue at the center, white on the edges—pure incineration.

The blast hit Mammon mid-sentence. His screams didn’t last long. The drink glass melted in his hand before his body atomized in a blaze that turned the entire gold fountain behind him to slag.

The house shook. The flames kept pouring out. Furniture caught fire. The ceiling turned black with soot.

And Mammon’s girls?

Gone. Screaming down the halls in heels and fur coats, stumbling over each other in their rush to escape the inferno.

The lord of Greed had been reduced to nothing more than a smoking black mark on the marble.

Harry stepped forward—massive, smoke-wreathed, and grinning.

His tail curled around the melted throne.

And in that moment, as the flames settled and the mansion echoed with silence, only one truth remained:

This place was his now.

Hell had a new monster in town.

----

The golden corpse of Mammon smoldered in the street, his twisted limbs still leaking molten ichor as the last of his essence boiled away on cracked pavement. Smoke curled from the crater his body had made—framed by the gaping ruins of his once-mighty front gate.

High above, black wings spread across the skyline.

Harry stood within the shattered grand hall of Mammon’s mansion, chest rising with each slow breath as the power inside him shifted and clicked into place like pieces of a massive gear.

He didn’t just feel strong.

He felt enthroned.

The mansion itself groaned with the weight of a new master. Gold melted. Infernal contracts seared away. The flames he’d breathed still curled along the ceiling beams, but they were cool now—blue and unnatural, licking the air like eager servants awaiting command.

Harry raised his right arm—winged, clawed, scaled to the elbow—and motioned once. The last remaining tapestries of Mammon’s grotesque ego—self-portraits, statues, a fountain of him pissing pure gold—crumbled.

He walked through the remains like a god made flesh.

---

Across Hell, the Sin Lords felt the shift.

Not a ripple. Not a whisper. A full, shuddering quake in the fabric of the infernal order.

---

In the Ring of Lust, Asmodeus dropped his flute mid-note. The entire club fell silent as he turned, eyes glowing pink with narrowed pupils. “Ohh darling… that wasn’t just a power change. That was a fucking coup.” His dancers looked at each other in terror. He smiled. “Looks like Mammon finally got what was coming to him. Wonder if the new boy likes music…”

---

In the Ring of Gluttony, Beelzebub was midway through devouring a demon the size of a small truck when she paused, blood dripping from her chin. The temperature shifted. Her antennae twitched. She inhaled deeply—sensing the burn of purified greed now rippling through Hell’s layers.

“Well shit,” she burped. “The pig finally got roasted.” Then she laughed. “About damn time. I was gonna eat him next week.”

---

In Envy, Leviathan coiled tighter around his throne of seawater and stolen secrets. His pupils constricted into slits as the ocean around him boiled. “Who dares?” he hissed. “Greed is mine to loathe! Mine to covet!” He bared his fangs. “I’ll flay this new upstart and make his wings into a trophy.”

---

In Sloth, Belphegor barely stirred, his half-naked form buried in velvet cushions. He cracked one glowing red eye and groaned. “New Sin… Great. Now I gotta remember a new name.”

---

In Wrath, a molten warroom trembled. Mountains cracked.

Satan—the embodiment of fury, flame, and divine rebellion—threw his battle axe into the wall hard enough to level half a fortress.

“Mammon’s DEAD?” he bellowed. His armor flared with brimstone light, his molten horns glowing brighter. “And it wasn’t me?!”

He paced like a beast, fists clenching. “Who the fuck dares take a crown in MY Hell without bloodletting me first?” His armies fell to one knee without being told.

---

And in Pride, deep within a mirror-laced tower that touched the core of Hell’s burning sky, Lucifer Morningstar opened his crimson eyes slowly.

He stood from his throne with elegance, his feathered wings spreading behind him like an eclipse. The ancient king’s expression did not change—but the room around him froze.

Even the air seemed to bow.

“So…” he said softly, his voice layered with old divinity and bottomless command. “The boy made his move.”

He reached for a crystal glass, sipping slow, gaze fixed beyond the walls.

“Interesting.”

---

Back in Greed, cameras buzzed like flies. Hovering news drones hovered near the gates, keeping distance from the burning ruin of Mammon’s mansion.

“BREAKING NEWS—THE BODY OF LORD MAMMON HAS BEEN SEEN LAUNCHED FROM HIS OWN FRONT DOORS—!”

“—Sources confirm a gigantic wyvern-shaped creature was spotted inside the property, breathing fire and claiming the building—”

“—Is this the end of Mammon’s reign? Is there a new Sin of Greed? What does this mean for the balance of Hell?!”

A tremor rolled through the street as the mansion gates split open.

All eyes turned.

Harry stepped through—towering and resplendent in infernal glory. A wyvern-demon crowned in raw fury, his wings folded high, his eyes glowing with emerald and gold flame.

Each step cracked the marble.

He reached the top of the stairs. Looked into the cameras. Into all of Hell.

And spoke only two words.

“I rule.”

The cameras cut out.

Greed burned.

The mansion reeked of fear now. The scent of it rolled thick through the gold-charred hallways as Mammon's surviving inner circle—his most loyal imps, lieutenants, and sycophants—scrambled like rats through the corridors, clutching stolen trinkets, bundles of gold, enchanted safes strapped to their backs.

They weren’t running for help.

They were fleeing with whatever they could grab—like the vultures they were.

“Get the fuck outta here!” one hissed. “We’re not staying for the dragon freak! He’ll gut us!”

“I told you all this’d happen!” another whimpered, arms full of cash. “You don’t screw with sin magic! He took it, you saw it—he’s the new fucking Greed now!”

They didn’t make it far.

A blast of heat stopped them dead in their tracks.

BOOM.

The fireball didn’t just fly—it screamed. A living comet of white-hot flame roared from the far end of the hall, arcing over gold-crusted rafters before slamming into the center of the fleeing imps like a divine hammer.

One of them—too slow—was caught dead-center.

He didn’t even scream. Just vanished in a burst of crackling white fire, bones and ash scattering across the marble as the gold coins he carried melted into a single, quivering puddle.

The rest froze mid-sprint.

The hall was filled with smoke, thick and glowing.

Then came the footsteps.

Thud.
Thud.
Thud.

Harry stepped through the haze like a god of war, towering, his wings curled upward like a crown of flesh and shadow. Each step scorched the floor. His eyes burned brighter than hellfire, twin brands of dominance and fury.

His voice came deep, laced with molten calm:

“Where do you think you’re going?”

None answered.

One imp whimpered. Another dropped his loot. A third tried to turn invisible—but his magic fizzled out the second Harry looked at him.

“You serve me now.”

Harry stopped just in front of them, towering over their shaking forms. He looked down at the gold one of them had dropped, toeing it gently with a massive claw.

“I haven’t dismissed you.”

He leaned in slightly.

“You don’t leave my house without permission.”

Another imp began crying softly. One tried to kneel, fell over himself.

Harry raised a clawed hand, letting a tiny flame flicker between his fingers—casual, controlled, dangerous. “I suggest you start acting like you're part of the new order…”

The fire danced closer to the nearest imp’s snout.

“…or you’ll be ash like your friend.”

They all hit the floor at once, bowing, shaking, begging.

Harry smiled.

The fear smelled perfect.

The silence in the hall was thick and suffocating. Smoke drifted lazily through the broken windows and scorch marks still sizzled along the golden floors. Mammon's remaining staff—all trembling—watched as Harry lowered his wings slightly, flame fading from his claws.

He didn’t need to stay massive. Not now. Not to make a point.

With a slow exhale, Harry allowed his frame to shrink—scales retracting, muscles coiling tighter, wings folding closer into his arms. Still monstrous by mortal standards, he now stood just under eight feet tall—lean, sharp, commanding. The weight of his presence didn’t shrink with him. It condensed, sharpened into something worse.

Something focused.

He rolled his shoulders, scales clinking faintly. “You,” he said with a claw aimed lazily toward a pair of trembling imps near the wreckage of a melted vault door, “polish my scales. All of them. Any spot you miss, I’ll roast your tail hairs one by one.”

They scrambled, nodding furiously.

“You,” he said to another, a female imp who still clutched a burnt platter of hors d'oeuvres from the earlier party. “Get me something fresh. Meat. Rare. Big. If I see another shrimp cocktail in my territory, I’ll ram it down your throat and make you choke on the stick.”

“Y-Yes, my lord!” she squeaked and bolted out the hallway, nearly tripping over the charred remains of her own heels.

Harry turned his glowing eyes back toward two specific imps standing at the rear of the group—one tall and thin with trembling hands, the other short, stocky, and covered in soot.

Both male.

His gaze narrowed.

“No,” he said lowly, lips curling, “not both of you.”

The shorter imp blinked. “W-what…?”

“I want my own species,” Harry said plainly, stepping forward. His claws tapped the floor as he passed by them, circling like a predator. “Loyal. Useful. Breedable. I don’t see another of me walking around here, do I?”

He stopped between them. Wings half-lifted. Magic curling like steam from his body.

“You’ll do.”

The tall imp opened his mouth to object—too slow. Harry’s claw glowed white-hot, then stabbed forward—no blood, no pain. Just raw, crackling power. It surged through both imps at once, magic clawing into their forms like iron nails twisting in flesh.

They screamed—but it wasn’t agony. It was transformation.

Their limbs shortened and thickened. Claws reshaped. Fur and hide gave way to scale. Tails thickened, ridged. Horns reformed, snouts extended, eyes burned orange-gold like their new master.

In seconds, they collapsed to their knees, panting—one now a lean, feminine kobold with curved horns and soft crimson scales, the other broader and darker, a male with armor-like plating and a heavy tail.

Harry looked down at his work, satisfied.

“There. Much better.”

The female looked up at him, blinking in awe. “M-Master?”

He stepped forward and hooked a claw beneath her chin, lifting her face. “You’re mine now. You’ll serve all my needs.” His voice dropped, molten and dark. “Both of you will. In time, I expect you to multiply. Build my bloodline in private. When I need more, you’ll provide.”

The male kobold lowered his eyes. “Yes, my lord.”

Harry smirked and let them go.

“Good.” He turned back to the others. “Now get to work.”

The new kobolds bowed low. The rest of the imps scattered into frantic motion—fetching food, dragging cloth, carrying polish and enchanted oil.

Harry stepped onto the blackened throne platform. The broken chair of Mammon was gone—melted.

He didn’t need it.

He crouched there, half-shadow, half-god, wings curling around him like a second skin.

This was his.

All of it.

---

The scorched hall of Mammon's mansion swelled with motion again as the surviving staff scrambled like ants under the weight of a new apex predator.

Harry stood tall on the melted dais where Mammon’s throne once loomed—nothing left of it now but a black smear and smoldering slag. His wings coiled lazily against his back, tail flicking once as he turned toward the two freshly-formed kobolds kneeling before him. The flames licking from his breath hadn’t cooled. If anything, his hunger for dominance had just begun to ignite.

He looked down at them—newborn creatures of scale and fire, shaped by his will.

“You,” he growled, his voice echoing like thunder through the ruined hall, “are the beginning of my new order.”

The kobolds bowed lower, the female whispering, “Yes, Master…”

Harry raised a hand, claws gleaming with residual power. “The imps that worked under Mammon… they were pawns. Weak. Bought and rented by Satan’s Wrath rings whenever convenient. They took orders from outside my kingdom. That ends now.”

He looked out across the hall where dozens of imps were frozen mid-motion, holding trays, cleaning soot from walls, sweating under the heat of his gaze.

“I’m not Mammon. I don’t need rats pretending to be wolves.”

A ripple of fire passed across the floor, brushing past the imps. None moved.

“These kobolds,” he continued, placing a clawed hand on each of their scaled heads, “are the future of Greed. Mine by blood. Created from my magic. They owe their lives to me—not Satan, not Wrath, not the Old Order.”

He turned his full gaze on the imps then.

“The rest of you? Serve, and you’ll live. Fail, and you'll be replaced. Eventually, all of you will be.”

No one dared breathe.

Harry exhaled, a wave of heat flooding the chamber.

“Now,” he said slowly, stepping down from the dais, each thud of his clawed feet cracking the scorched floor, “bring me the mob bosses.”

The room went still.

“Every capo. Every don. Every crime lord that ever kissed Mammon’s bloated ass. I want them here. Now.”

His eyes flared brighter, wings stretching just enough to block the melted windows and cast the room in shadow.

“This is a regime change. And I don’t give second warnings.”

One imp sprinted out, a communicator in hand. Others followed, shouting down the halls, summoning drivers and messengers.

Harry watched them go, his new kobolds silently kneeling behind him, awaiting command. A kingdom was forming beneath his claws.

And tonight, the underworld would learn what real greed felt like.

The great hall of Mammon’s desecrated mansion had been rebuilt in record time—half by flame, half by fear. The walls still bore scorch marks, but new banners now hung in their place—sleek obsidian cloth stitched with emerald thread, bearing a sigil no one had ever seen before: a wyvern coiled around a blazing vault, mouth open in a roar of ownership.

At the center of it all, Harry sat on a new throne. Not Mammon’s gaudy golden one—but a throne of black iron, obsidian, and scorched bone. Massive. Heavy. Fused into the earth by magic and raw infernal will.

All around him, the mob bosses of Greed stood in a ring—invited or dragged, didn’t matter. They had come.

Imps in silk suits, shark demons with golden teeth, heavy-horned debt collectors, corrupt succubi, hellhound enforcers, even a bone-covered centipede demon with twelve eyes and a cigar clamped between jagged jaws.

They all felt the same thing.

The shift.

This wasn’t Mammon’s turf anymore.

This was his.

Harry leaned forward on the throne, his glowing eyes scanning the room like a predator sizing up his meal. His voice cut through the silence like a slow dagger.

“I’m not interested in loyalty by habit,” he said. “I’m not Mammon. I don’t throw parties to hide how hollow I am.”

He raised a claw.

“Swear to me—by soul and sin. Or be incinerated here and now.”

The first to kneel was a shark demon with silver piercings and blood-stained slacks. “I swear,” he muttered, eyes down, sweating.

A ripple followed. Others dropped to knees, some eager, some trembling. Oaths were spoken aloud.

But one didn’t move.

An older imp in pinstripes with golden rings on every finger, known as Grasso the Collector. He sneered. “You think you scare me? I’ve been here since before Mammon took the title. You’re just a loud lizard who caught a lucky fire.”

Harry smiled slowly.

One snap of his claw—FWOOOOM

Grasso didn’t scream long. His body vanished in white fire, leaving nothing but ash and a gold tooth rolling on the floor.

The others didn’t hesitate.

The last to kneel was a horned brute from the brass smelters. He didn’t even speak. Just dropped, head bowed, sweating through his armor.

“Good,” Harry growled, rising to his full height.

He spread his wings with a boom that sent loose papers flying across the chamber.

“You all serve me now. Your businesses, your turf, your operations—they continue… but you pay up. Weekly. No exceptions. No delays. Every coin, every soul-contract, every black market credit goes into my vault.”

He paced slowly down the steps of his throne.

“Why? Because this is Greed. The more I have… the less you do. And that’s the law now.”

He motioned to the kobolds standing near the pillars—armed, disciplined, watching.

“I’m replacing the imp filth Mammon relied on. They were soft. Lazy. Loyal to Wrath.”

He turned his gaze toward the imp crowd gathered beyond the boss circle.

“You. You’re mine now too.”

Some flinched. Some bowed instantly.

Harry lifted a claw—and magic surged. Dozens of them were caught in its glow. Their bodies twisted, howled, and shifted.

One by one, the imps were reshaped. Their forms shortened, scaled, became sleek, horned, clawed. Kobolds. More refined than the first pair. Tailored for loyalty.

Each new kobold gasped, eyes flickering with golden hue and a brand on their souls marking them his.

“You’ll be my tax collectors. My enforcers. My gatekeepers. You’ll bleed my will across this ring, and you’ll bring the tribute every week. Vault-side.”

A new structure had been erected beneath the mansion—a vault of obsidian and infernal runes, devouring wealth in silence. Every kobold knew where it was.

Every coin brought there was his.

The kobolds saluted. “Yes, Lord Greed.”

Harry looked out across the hall, wings still stretched.

“No one hides. No one cheats. No one steals from me. If you skim, I’ll know. If you lie, I’ll taste it. If you run…”

He smirked.

“I’ll make what happened to Mammon look merciful.”

Silence.

Obedience.

And Greed, at last, had its true king.

The throne room had gone quiet again. Not from fear—but from expectation. The air shifted. A pulse, faint and echoing, rippled through the very walls of the mansion like a heartbeat from the Pit itself.

Harry felt it before anyone else did.

Something ancient. Watching. Coming.

His wings twitched, nostrils flaring. A soft growl stirred in his throat. He stepped off the dais slowly, raising a clawed hand and snapping once.

A kobold—one of the recently reshaped former imps—scurried to his side and dropped to one knee, eyes glowing faintly with infernal gold.

“Master?”

Harry placed a scaled hand on the small creature’s shoulder, his molten eyes still fixed on the vibrating air around them. “They’re coming,” he murmured. “The other Sins. All seven. No one’s done this before. Not even Mammon.”

The kobold’s voice trembled. “Should I ready the guard?”

“No,” Harry said. “They’re not here for war.”

He grinned, baring jagged teeth. “They’re here to see if I’m real.”

---

They didn’t arrive through doors.

The air split.

Seven rifts opened at once, reality torn along lines of sin and cosmic influence. The temperature dropped, then surged. Light flickered. The gold in the room twisted unnaturally under the weight of incoming power.

And then they stepped through.

Lucifer Morningstar came first—tall, elegant, wrapped in crimson and black, his wings spreading like shadows woven from divine silk. His mere presence made the room kneel. The King of Pride, father of demons, lord of the Inferno’s oldest traditions, studied Harry with those cold, ancient red eyes… and said nothing.

Next came Satan, bare-chested and wreathed in flame and fury, his horns massive and gnarled like a ram forged in war. His aura screamed wrath incarnate.

Asmodeus slithered in behind them, dressed like sex, glowing like temptation itself, lips curled in a smirk that couldn’t quite hide the curiosity in his sharp pink eyes.

Beelzebub landed hard, insectoid wings buzzing with distortion, teeth chewing something wet and raw. Her antennae twitched. “The fuck kinda dragon-looking mutt is this?” she muttered.

Belphegor blinked slowly, half-asleep even while floating.

Leviathan emerged with a hiss, surrounded by mist and scales, eyes slitted and narrowed with poisonous envy.

And lastly, Lucifer stepped forward again, surveying the burned opulence around them. He looked at the massive throne, then at Harry—and then at the kobold at his side.

“A firedrake,” Lucifer murmured. “Or… no. Not quite. You don’t smell of dragonblood.” He tilted his head. “You made yourself, didn’t you?”

Harry smirked and squeezed the kobold’s shoulder. “More than that. I made this.”

He turned to the others, his voice rising, confident, slow. “The imps Mammon used were weak. Borrowed from Wrath. His whole structure was a loan. From you, from your influence, from every favor he stacked and sold off.”

He held the kobold forward by the shoulder and growled proudly. “I don’t need borrowed flesh. I made a new species. Mine. Born of my fire. Bound to my magic. No other ring can claim them.”

Asmodeus arched a brow. “Kinky.”

Beelzebub snorted and rolled her shoulders. “So you really did kill that loud gold-plated bastard.”

Satan stepped forward now, nostrils flaring. “You killed a Sin and claimed his seat without challenge.” His voice rumbled like a mountain cracking in half. “That usually starts a war.”

Harry didn’t flinch.

“I’m not interested in war.” His tail flicked behind him, slow, heavy. “I’m interested in dominion. I claimed Greed. It’s mine. And I don’t owe any of you shit for it.”

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed, but there was… approval. In the silence behind them.

“And yet you called us,” he said, finally. “You wanted us here.”

Harry nodded once. “I did.”

He turned, walking back up the steps to his throne. Each footfall echoed with growing pressure. When he sat, his wings folded like a curtain of dark power, horns scraping gently against the metalwork above him.

“I wanted you to see it with your own eyes.” His voice dropped lower. “That Greed belongs to me now. No games. No debt. No compromise.”

He leaned forward, one claw idly tracing the arm of the throne. “So I’ll ask you once… Are we going to have a problem?”

Lucifer’s lips curled. Not into a smile. Not into a sneer. But something sharp.

And the Sins stared at their new equal—shocked, silent, calculating.

Because for the first time in eons... a new Sin had been born.

Chapter Text

A thick silence lingered in the chamber, stretched taut like a wire waiting to snap. Power rolled through the room in palpable waves, every breath brimming with the unspoken weight of what had just changed in Hell.

The throne beneath Harry groaned as he leaned back, claws resting on the armrests—casual, composed, and completely in control. The kobold he’d lifted remained kneeling beside him, silent and reverent.

Lucifer’s gaze was hard and ancient, his aura unreadable—but he didn’t speak. He was watching. Measuring.

It was Beelzebub who broke the tension first.

The Queen of Gluttony paced forward in her heavy-heeled boots, wings buzzing faintly behind her, antennae twitching with amusement. Her sly smirk split wide as she looked Harry up and down, her compound eyes glittering.

“Well now…” she murmured, voice like honey drizzled over broken glass. “Finally, a Sin of Greed who doesn’t waste his time sniffing his own coin purse.”

Asmodeus chuckled behind her. “Amen to that, sweetie.”

Beelzebub turned her full attention to Harry and grinned. “You understand something Mammon never did. Business isn’t about hoarding—it’s about control. Flow. Circulation. Dominance. You’re not stacking gold. You’re building infrastructure.”

Harry nodded once, slowly. “I want the whole Ring moving to my rhythm. Greed isn’t excess. It’s extraction.” He motioned toward the kobolds. “They collect. They report. Nothing bleeds without my say-so.”

Lucifer watched with narrowed eyes. “A practical approach. Efficient. And dangerous.”

Harry’s smirk grew.

“I intend to be all three.”

Without a word, his body began to shift again.

The sound of tearing metal and shifting bone filled the throne room as his muscles expanded, his wings grew wider, sharper, darker. His horns scraped against the ceiling, tail snapping like a falling steel cable. Heat rose in waves from his body, magic warping the very light around him.

The kobold dropped flat, trembling. Several of the mob bosses still in the back of the room retreated instinctively.

Now fully transformed—his size rivaling the vaulted ceiling—Harry’s massive form loomed above the gathered Sins like a storm made flesh. His fangs glinted as he leaned forward slightly.

His voice, when it came, was deep enough to shake the floor:

“This is what you’ll face if you try to take what’s mine.”

Smoke curled from his nostrils. The gold veins in the wall began to glow faintly—responding to him.

“I rose without permission. I took a throne by right of power. I didn’t ask. I earned it. And I’ll defend it until Hell itself cracks open beneath me.”

The growl that followed echoed like thunder.

Then—with a blink—his body shimmered, collapsed inward, and within seconds he was back to his earlier, smaller form.

Seven feet tall. Lean. Coiled. Deadly.

“Don’t mistake diplomacy for weakness,” he said softly, flicking soot from his clawed fingertips. “I choose not to start a war. That doesn’t mean I’m afraid to finish one.”

The Sins remained silent for a beat.

Then Beelzebub let out a low whistle. “Shit,” she muttered, turning to Lucifer. “I kinda like this one.”

Lucifer’s gaze finally softened. Barely.

“I didn’t expect to say this,” he said slowly, “but… Greed may finally have teeth again.”

Harry tilted his head. “So. Are we done here?”

Satan huffed, crossing his arms. “For now. But if your reach crosses into Wrath, I will come knocking.”

Harry flashed a row of white-hot teeth. “Then bring an army. I’ll burn it with the rest.”

The rift behind the Sins shimmered again—signaling their departure.

Lucifer gave one last nod. A subtle show of respect.

Then the Sins turned, stepping one by one back into the infernal breach.

As the final rift closed, silence returned to the throne room.

Harry exhaled slowly and looked down at his kobold enforcers, who now gazed at him with something more than awe.

Something like worship.

“Summon the treasurers,” he ordered. “We’ve got a new economy to build.”

The throne room of Greed simmered with silence—tense, heavy, and laced with power. The scent of burnt ink and demon flesh still lingered as Harry sorted through Mammon’s mountain of debt-ledgers and soul-bonded contracts. The kobolds around him moved in efficient silence, cataloging names, marking assets, and tracking payments like loyal accountants forged in fire.

But then Harry stopped cold.

His claw hovered over a long, dust-covered ledger sealed in old infernal wax. He peeled it open slowly.

Rows of names. Tributes. Mob payments. Siphoned funds.

And a long list of absentees—bosses who had failed to appear when summoned.

Harry’s eyes narrowed.

“Crimson,” he said, voice low and sharp as a blade.

The nearest kobold stiffened. “The shark lord of Greed’s southern docks. Former investor in Mammon’s empire. Still commands five smuggling syndicates and a private army.”

Harry’s jaw tensed. “He didn’t come. He didn’t pay. And he didn’t answer.”

He shut the ledger with a resounding crack.

“Find him. Drag his ass here.”

The kobold bowed. “Yes, my lord.” Then vanished into smoke.

---

The gates slammed open nearly an hour later.

And Crimson was dragged in—spitting, snarling, his expensive red-and-black suit torn at the seams, his wrists bound in contracts that glowed with infernal fire. His teeth bared as two armored kobolds shoved him to his knees before the throne.

Behind him came his entourage—armed sharks, grinning devilish bodyguards—and walking among them…

Was a short, nervous imp.

Moxxie.

Harry’s eyes sharpened.

So that’s who it is.

The resemblance was faint—but there. The high cheekbones, the flicker of intelligence in the eyes. Moxxie kept close to the back, shoulders tight, clearly not comfortable being here.

Harry’s wings shifted slightly as he descended the steps of his throne. Claws clicking. His scaled body radiated pressure as he approached the snarling crime boss.

“Crimson,” Harry said calmly. “You didn’t answer my summons.”

“I don’t take orders from lizards in armor,” the shark growled. “I answered Mammon. You’re a fucking squatter with a fire fetish.”

The room bristled.

But Harry didn’t flinch.

He just smiled.

Then he reached out, seized Crimson by the collar—and lifted him with one clawed hand.

Crimson’s boots scraped the marble as Harry’s wings flared wide, casting a shadow that swallowed the floor.

“I am Greed,” Harry hissed, low and deadly. “This Ring is mine now. Your syndicate? Your blood money? Your loyalty? They belong to me—or they burn.”

He dropped Crimson hard.

The shark hit the floor with a growl, coughing.

Harry turned his gaze then—not to Crimson—but to Moxxie.

The imp stiffened as those blazing green eyes locked on him.

“You’re his son,” Harry said, voice quieter but no less intense. “I’ve heard about you.”

Moxxie flinched. “I-I didn’t know he ignored the summons. I wasn’t—”

“I don’t care,” Harry cut in. “I don’t deal in excuses. I deal in debt. And blood.”

He stepped closer. Moxxie stood his ground—barely.

“You seem smarter than your father,” Harry murmured, lowering his voice to a simmer. “Maybe one day you’ll run something worth respecting. But know this, Moxxie…”

He leaned in close enough for the imp to feel the heat off his breath.

“If he defies me again, you will be the one burying him.”

Crimson’s eyes blazed with rage. “You threaten my blood, you fuckin’ freak—”

Harry turned and roared. Not a scream. Not a yell.

A blast of flame burst from his maw—white-hot, controlled, a wall of fire that stopped inches from Crimson’s face, scorching the floor between them.

The entire chamber shook.

Crimson’s smirk vanished.

Harry pulled back slowly, smoke rising from his fangs. His voice dropped again—calm, deliberate.

“You owe me tribute. One week. Vault delivery. Fail… and your territory becomes kobold farmland.”

He stepped back toward the throne, wings folding behind him like drapes of blackened steel.

Crimson rose, fuming, but said nothing. Moxxie followed—eyes wide, pale-faced, silent.

As they exited, Harry gave one final order to his kobolds.

“Shadow them. I want everything. Locations. Contacts. Numbers. And if that shark so much as breathes against my name…”

He didn’t need to finish.

The kobolds nodded and disappeared like smoke.

Greed had changed.

And everyone—including the old blood—was now learning the hard way…

You don’t defy a dragon who burns for profit.

The throne room had barely cooled when Harry’s claws flexed again on the arm of his iron throne.

His mind shifted—not to mercy, not to patience, but to efficiency.

Crimson had been warned. He had defied the order. He had shown his teeth and offered nothing in return but defiance and insult. That kind of behavior was poison in a new regime. A weak link in a chain built for conquest.

And Harry never let rot spread beneath his rule.

He stood. Slowly.

The kobolds at his sides immediately froze, heads bowed.

“Stop them,” Harry ordered.

The doors had just begun to close behind Crimson’s retinue when the walls lit up with infernal glyphs. A barrier of pure green hellfire exploded up from the floor, cutting off the exit.

Crimson and Moxxie both spun around—Crimson snarling, Moxxie startled.

“You already had your say,” Harry said darkly as he descended the steps once more. “But I’ve had time to reconsider.”

The floor trembled beneath his feet.

“I don’t think you’re going to learn your lesson, Crimson,” he continued, his tone calm but growing colder. “I don’t think a week will help. I think what you need… is purpose.”

Crimson’s eyes narrowed, his gills pulsing with rage. “You think you can reform me like I’m some broken dog—”

“I’m not here to reform you,” Harry cut in. His wings spread, fire crackling from his shoulders. “I’m going to repurpose you.”

The magic gathered in his claws like coiled lightning. The kobolds all stepped back instinctively as hellish symbols burned around Harry's talons, shaping reality like wax.

Moxxie’s eyes widened in panic. “W-wait! What are you—?”

The spell launched forward, striking Crimson full in the chest.

He screamed. Loud. Violent.

His body convulsed, cracked, reshaped before their eyes. His bulk shrank. His frame narrowed. The rough lines of his shark form softened and reshaped—scales shifting, bones snapping into a more delicate, curvaceous frame. The snarl on his face broke into a gasp as his jaw shortened and muzzle refined. His teeth dulled. His eyes widened. His voice cracked—

Until a smaller, smoother feminine cry escaped his lips.

She fell forward on all fours, panting, covered in steam, red skin slick with sweat, her frame now fully kobold. Compact. Sensual. Still trembling from the transformation.

Harry stepped toward her, looming.

“Congratulations,” he growled. “You’ve just been redeployed.”

Crimson—now crimson-scaled, slim, horned, and helpless—looked up, eyes still burning with hate. “You... bastard... what the fuck did you—”

Harry grabbed her jaw, forcing her to look up at him.

“I made you useful.”

He gestured to a group of male kobolds standing near the hall’s edge, watching with awe and rising interest.

“You’re going to a new position. A pleasure barracks outside my vault. Your job will be to… relax my enforcers. And more importantly…”

He leaned in close, his voice almost tender with sarcasm.

“You will be breeding. Often. Proudly. Every new kobold born of you will strengthen my claim on this Ring. You wanted to be part of my economy? Congratulations. You’re production now.”

Crimson trembled, glaring, teeth bared—though they were smaller now, curved into something dainty, incapable of harm.

Moxxie stared, pale and stunned. “You… you turned him into a—her. She’s… You’re making her breed for you?”

Harry turned his gaze on Moxxie—stern, but not cruel.

“She’ll survive. And she’ll be valuable. That’s more than she offered me in life.”

To the kobolds, he snapped, “Escort her to the barracks. Prepare the chamber. She’ll start immediately.”

Two kobolds stepped forward, grinning, taking the trembling ex-boss by her arms. She hissed and cursed, but they didn’t flinch.

As they dragged her out, Crimson’s eyes met Harry’s one last time. Hatred. Rage.

Harry met it with cold disinterest.

“You should’ve bowed when you had the chance.”

The doors slammed shut.

And Moxxie?

He just stood there, shaking, uncertain whether to hate Harry—or thank him for not doing worse.

The doors closed behind the freshly made female kobold with a heavy, final clang, the hiss of fire-runes sealing her fate as effectively as the transformation had reshaped her body. The room slowly relaxed—save for one figure still frozen in the haze of what had just happened.

Moxxie.

The young imp stood awkwardly near the wall, eyes wide, posture stiff, uncertain if he should run or bow—or throw up.

Harry turned toward him slowly, the heavy tap of his claws against the scorched floor echoing like a metronome of power.

“Moxxie,” he said, voice calm again—far too calm after what had just taken place.

The imp swallowed. “Y-yeah?”

“You’re not going with them.”

Moxxie blinked. “…I’m not?”

Harry stepped closer, wings folding behind him like shadows stitched to muscle. His green-glowing eyes locked onto the imp’s.

“You’re young. Smart. Still untainted by your father's filth. Which makes you useful to me.” He crouched slightly so his gaze met Moxxie’s directly. “You’re staying. As my eyes and ears inside the imp population.”

Moxxie blinked again, confused, jaw slightly agape. “You want me to spy on the imps?”

“I want you to observe,” Harry said with a slight smirk. “Monitor movements. Whispers. Plots. Anything that smells like rebellion or old loyalties.” He tapped a claw to Moxxie’s chest. “You’re going to be my little echo in the alleys.”

Moxxie flushed slightly at the gesture, nodding dumbly. “Y-Yeah. I mean, okay. Yeah. I can do that.”

Harry straightened, satisfied.

Then his gaze flicked toward one of the remaining enforcers—Crimson’s former right hand, a shark demon in a bloodstained coat with a cybernetic eye and clenched fists. The bastard had watched the transformation of his boss without so much as a twitch.

“You,” Harry called.

The shark looked up sharply.

“You’ll be running Crimson’s operations now,” Harry declared. “Under my banner. Every credit, every shipment, every dirty deal is mine by default.”

The shark’s jaw twitched, but he gave a short nod. “Understood.”

Harry stepped toward him, towering. His breath was hot and thick with sulfur. “And you will keep it profitable. You will not skim. You will not stall. And if I so much as suspect you’re pulling your own string behind my back…”

He raised a claw—and a burst of green hellfire curled around it in the shape of a snarling female kobold.

“…you’ll end up just like Crimson. Or worse—dead and recycled.”

The enforcer’s throat bobbed. “No betrayal, Lord Greed. I swear it.”

Harry nodded, satisfied. He turned back toward the throne, his scaled shoulders rolling as he sat once more. The firelight made his horns shimmer like blades.

“To everyone else still breathing,” he said loudly, “remember this day. Greed no longer tolerates weakness. We build. We burn. We breed. You’re either adding to my kingdom—or becoming part of it.”

The kobolds hissed in approval, and Moxxie, shaken but still standing, realized something cold and clear.

Greed wasn’t ruled by corruption anymore.

It was ruled by command.

The last of the enforcers departed in silence, the heavy iron doors sealing shut with a deep thunk that echoed through the freshly restored fortress of Greed. The firelight dimmed in the grand throne room, its gold-veined walls now etched with banners of wyvern sigils and rows of kobolds performing their final duties before nightfall.

Harry stretched slowly, his broad wings unfurling once before folding tight to his back. The pressure of the day—the political weight, the resistance, the reshaping of a kingdom—settled deep into his bones. But it wasn’t burden. It was satisfaction.

A new bed had been installed in the private chamber behind the throne, a colossal structure of black stone and hellsteel, layered in scaled furs, molten-silk sheets, and enchanted cushions that could withstand the heat of his blood.

He stepped in, exhaling smoke from his nostrils, and with a low, guttural sigh, climbed atop the bed. His scaled arms curled around his chest as his tail looped along the frame. His body coiled like a drake in repose, and the moment his head touched the curved edge of his headrest, the world around him faded.

But sleep did not dull his senses.

His mind stretched outward—over vaults and smuggler lanes, through black markets and alley dens. He felt the flow of gold, the contracts being signed, the kobolds patrolling. He could taste greed in the air like perfume. Every whisper of rebellion. Every ounce of devotion.

The Ring pulsed beneath him like a living beast, and in his dreams, it bowed to his flame.

---

Far above Hell—on a plane long abandoned by its gods—Earth carried on.

And in a narrow alley behind a Manchester marketplace, soaked in the glow of neon lights and oil-slick puddles, two girls huddled beneath a rusted fire escape.

Daphne Greengrass clutched her coat tighter around her as wind howled through the brick corridors, dragging trash and cold across her worn shoes. Her blonde hair, once so clean and styled with pride, now hung in knots over her face. Her cheek was bruised. Her lip still bled from where a shopkeeper had caught her.

Astoria coughed behind her—a weak, wet sound that made Daphne’s heart ache worse than the cold.

She turned back to her sister, crouching beside the makeshift bedroll of cardboard and layered rags. Astoria looked pale. Too pale. Her eyes were sunken, skin almost translucent under the dim lamp above the alley.

Daphne opened her fist—revealing three sickles and a single knut.

“Managed to grab these when that hag looked away,” she whispered. “It’s not much, but maybe enough for a sandwich and some medicine if I mix lies with charm.”

Astoria blinked slowly, lips barely moving. “They’re gonna chase you again…”

“Let them,” Daphne snapped softly, eyes flaring with determination. “They took everything else. They won’t take you.”

Their parents had disowned them. No warning. No letters.

When Daphne had stood her ground and refused the blood-binding marriage contract to a pureblood relic of a man thrice her age, her father snapped.

He’d pulled their accounts. Burned their vault access.

And when Astoria’s sickness flared again—he abandoned her too.

Two daughters, thrown to the wolves for being inconvenient.

Daphne now crouched, teeth clenched, knuckles raw from the street brawls she’d gotten into trying to keep them fed.

But it was getting worse.

The nights were colder. The food thinner. And she could feel something deep inside her starting to fracture.

She looked up toward the distant sky—gray, choked with smog—and whispered to the dark:

“If anyone’s listening… we need help. I’ll pay, I’ll serve, I’ll do anything—just… don’t let her die.”

Somewhere, far below the crust of that world, deep in the molten dark of Greed’s vault-ridden Ring…

A fire stirred.

Even in the depths of sleep, Harry's consciousness was not fully at rest.

The bed beneath him breathed with infernal heat, his body wrapped in scaled silence as his tail coiled along the mattress. But his soul… his flame—that lived on in Greed’s magic, in the network of contracts, oaths, souls, and desperation that rippled across his dominion.

And farther.

Much farther.

A whisper stirred in the dark. Not from his kobolds. Not from his vaults.

Something older. Purer.

A plea.

It slipped between the cracks of mortal life, rising up like smoke through a broken chimney—fragile, nearly lost—but it reached him. Somehow, it reached him.

“If anyone’s listening… we need help…”

The voice echoed through the embers of his mind—shaken but proud. A girl’s voice. Young. Human. Desperate.

His consciousness turned toward it instinctively, pulling through flame and veil, cutting through layers of planes and magic until his vision pierced the mortal veil…

And saw her.

She sat in an alleyway slick with rain and reeking of garbage, her clothes torn and mismatched, the bruises on her face barely beginning to swell.

A child. Ten, maybe. Blonde hair matted, greenish bruise on her cheek. She held her arms around another girl—smaller, paler, sickly and shaking.

Behind them, the full moon hung heavy above the alley, its light drenching the two of them in silver and sorrow.

Harry’s sleeping brow twitched. His wings tensed against the bed.

He knew that moonlight.

And he knew the creatures that hunted beneath it.

His mind drew closer, and his attention turned sharper as his draconic eyes traced the scene. The older girl—Daphne—looked straight up at the sky, whispering her wish into nothing, unaware that something in the world had heard her.

He scanned her, his magic brushing through her essence like heat through fog.

Her blood was pure. Old. Subtle, yes—but there. Magical lineage. Possibly untrained, likely isolated.

Then his gaze dropped to the younger one—Astoria.

She was worse. Skin pale. Heartbeat slow. Lungs rattling like cracked porcelain. Whatever illness plagued her wasn’t Muggle. It dripped with residue—dark magic, a curse perhaps, bound into her bones from birth.

Harry’s mind roared low within his sleeping form.

Worse still—wolves.

He sensed the way the city reeked of hunger and sickness. He saw the claw marks behind the alley’s dumpster. The scrape of paws on brick. The tang of old silver. The scent of blood not yet spilled.

And the full moon.

Hanging high.

Watching them.

Waiting.

His claws twitched against the bedspread. His wings trembled. Breath caught in his chest as he realized what fate would befall them if left unchecked.

One girl broken. The other hunted.

And their blood—unspoiled. Still valuable. Still clean. For now.

But that would change.

If a werewolf found them, bit them, tore them...

Not even death would be as cruel as what came after.

Harry’s mind burned hotter. Greed's fire flared in the heart of his Ring. His kobolds stirred around his chambers, sensing the pulse of their master’s wrath before they even understood it.

He didn’t just want gold.

He wanted what others threw away.

And these two had been cast aside.

Discarded.

Forgotten.

But he had heard her.

And Harry did not ignore a proper deal... especially one born from desperation.

Even in sleep, his voice echoed low in the chamber—like a growl from the depths of his molten chest:

“Find them.”

Somewhere in the archives, the infernal registry flickered.

Two new souls had been marked.

And Greed had taken interest.

----

The alley fell silent. The only sound was the wind threading through broken fire escapes, brushing the curled edges of damp newspaper and rattling old soda cans. The city didn't care about two abandoned girls huddled against brick and concrete.

But something else did.

The moon hung directly above Daphne and Astoria, its silver light spilling over their fragile forms like a judgment.

Daphne had stopped speaking. She just held her sister tighter, trembling from the cold, jaw clenched against the sting of her own uselessness. The coins in her pocket clinked softly as she shifted, pathetic in their weight.

And then the air changed.

No wind. No sound. Just a vibration.

Low. Deep.

It started beneath them—beneath the world itself.

Astoria blinked, eyes fluttering. “D-Daph… the ground’s humming…”

Daphne sat up, heart suddenly pounding.

Then the pavement beneath them cracked.

A line of fire shot up through the alley floor, carving a rune of ancient hellscript around their shivering forms. The sigils pulsed once—then opened.

The air collapsed inward, reality shredding into spiraling light and shadow—then sucked them down.

Daphne screamed and grabbed Astoria. The girls plummeted into the unknown.

---

They landed hard.

Not on concrete. Not on dirt.

But marble. Warm. Polished. Lit from beneath by veins of molten gold.

Daphne hit first, her back slamming against the floor. She grunted and rolled to her side just in time to catch Astoria in her arms, breaking the fall for her sister.

Everything was red. Black. Gold.

The air was thick with incense and fire. Torches lined the curved obsidian walls. A stained-glass ceiling above them glowed with images of a dragon wrapped around towers of treasure.

And then came the thud.

A heavy, echoing step. Then another. And another.

They both turned—eyes wide, hearts hammering—toward the towering figure approaching from the far end of the chamber.

He moved like a living fortress. Seven feet tall, all muscle and scaled power. His wings were folded back like shadowed blades, his horns gleaming like polished obsidian. Smoke drifted from his nostrils. His claws tapped slowly as he approached, tail coiled behind him, green eyes glowing like twin furnaces.

He looked down at them.

Not with contempt.

Not with pity.

But with calculation.

Harry stepped closer until the floor beneath the girls seemed to tremble. His voice rumbled low—deep, ancient, coiled in power.

“You called for help.”

Daphne stared, still cradling Astoria. “W-we didn’t… we didn’t mean to end up—”

He tilted his head slightly.

“But you did call,” he said. “And Greed always listens when someone offers desperation.”

She hesitated, lip quivering. “My sister’s sick. I—We didn’t know what else to do…”

Astoria coughed, curling against Daphne weakly.

Harry stepped forward, lowering into a crouch—still massive, still powerful, but now closer. More present. His molten eyes flicked between the two girls.

“I can fix her,” he said softly. “I can give you shelter. Food. Power.”

Daphne’s lips parted. “You can…?”

“I can,” Harry said. “But everything here has a price.”

He reached out and gently lifted Daphne’s chin with a single clawed finger. She flinched, but didn’t pull away.

“So tell me,” he said.

“You want my help…?

What are you offering in return?”

Daphne trembled, her breath caught in her throat as the massive wyvern-demon crouched before her. The heat of his body radiated off him in waves—like resting near a furnace held back by nothing but willpower. His voice had curled around her like smoke. Ancient. Demanding. Final.

She swallowed hard, arms still tight around Astoria, whose small chest rose and fell with shallow, painful breaths.

Then she asked, with a voice that cracked under its own fear, “Who… who are you?”

The great beast tilted his head, wings flexing slightly as molten green eyes narrowed.

“I am the Sin of Greed,” he said, voice echoing off the gold-veined walls. “The Lord of this Ring. The new master of Hell’s economy. I burn for dominion. I feed on desire. I own what others throw away.”

He leaned closer, nostrils flaring as he studied her face with a predator’s intensity.

“And you… are standing in my domain. Asking for my power.”

Daphne blinked up at him. She looked like a street-worn angel—filthy, bruised, but still proud. Her lips trembled as she licked them once, unsure what answer would even matter in this place.

“I—I can serve,” she said quickly. “I can clean, I can fight if I have to, I’ll work. I don’t care what it is, I just want her to live—please—”

Harry’s low growl rumbled the floor beneath her knees.

“Not enough.”

Daphne froze.

Harry stood, slowly, towering once again. He turned slightly and began pacing around the girls, wings dragging just above the ground like great silken blades. His tail swayed with thought, his claws tapping rhythmically.

“She’s dying,” he said flatly, gesturing to Astoria without even looking. “A curse deeper than your magic can break. Even the best healers wouldn’t touch her without a thousand galleons and a written blood pact.”

He stopped and looked over his shoulder at Daphne, eyes burning brighter.

“But I can heal her now. Right here. Without pain. Without delay.”

Daphne’s lip quivered. She nodded, hopeful. “Yes—yes, anything—”

“Then understand what that means.”

He turned fully back to her, crouching again so she couldn’t look anywhere but his face. “To heal her… will be considered a life-debt paid in full. That means you owe me, girl. Entirely. Without question.”

She flinched under his stare, but nodded again, tears threatening. “Then I’ll pay it.”

Harry grinned. Slowly. Fangs gleaming in the firelight.

“Good.” He leaned forward again, close enough she could smell brimstone and ancient magic on his breath. “Because I want more than a servant. I want a female beside me.”

Daphne’s breath caught.

Harry let his gaze roam over her, slow and deliberate.

“You’re a pretty little thing. Strong blood. Untamed. It's a good start. But I don't need maids or martyrs. I need legacy.”

He brought his clawed hand to her cheek, brushing away a tear she hadn’t noticed had fallen.

“Give up your humanity,” he said, voice like a coiled dragon’s whisper. “Become mine. Let me mold you. Let me breed you. Give me heirs of fire and scale, born from your womb and blessed by Greed itself.”

Daphne’s lips parted, eyes wide with shock, disbelief, fear—and something else buried deep within: temptation.

“In return,” he continued, “you’ll never beg again. You’ll never suffer. You’ll sleep in velvet, feast like a queen, and walk beside a god. I will make you untouchable. Your sister will be healed, made whole, kept in splendor all her life. All you have to do…”

He leaned closer, breath warming her face.

“…is submit.”

The fire in the hall dimmed. The world narrowed to one moment. One question.

And the weight of Greed pressed down, waiting for her answer.

The silence stretched between them like a drawn bowstring. The flickering gold light of the chamber glinted off Daphne’s tangled hair and streaked face as she stared into the burning green eyes of the Sin of Greed.

Her lips parted, but no words came. Just breath.

Then slowly, shaking, she turned.

Astoria lay there, curled in her thin coat, lips pale, forehead slick with cold sweat. Every few seconds she let out a shallow, rattling breath. She looked like a ghost of the little sister Daphne once knew—fragile, fading.

And she remembered her words—don’t let her die.

She looked back to him.

This creature. This demon. This dragon in the shape of a man.

He was terrifying. Ancient. Everything her parents had warned her Hell would be.

And he had offered more than anyone else ever had.

With tears still wet on her cheeks, Daphne nodded. Just once.

“I agree,” she whispered. “Whatever you want from me… take it. Just save her.”

Harry’s smirk was slow and predatory—but it held something deeper. Satisfaction.

He stepped forward again, his massive clawed feet whispering over the polished stone. As he moved, his form began to shift—scales flexing, muscles shrinking slightly. The massive wyvern frame condensed, reshaped, still otherworldly, still draconic… but now only a little taller than Daphne. Human-sized. More personal. More intimate.

Power contained. Focused.

He stood before her, hands at his sides, wings folded down his back like black velvet. His head tilted as he leaned in slightly and gestured with a flick of one long, dark claw.

“Kiss my snout,” he said. “Seal the pact.”

Daphne froze. She stared at the massive scaled snout hovering inches from her lips, his breath curling out like smoke in the warm air.

Her fingers clenched at her sides. Every part of her screamed to run. To resist.

But Astoria coughed behind her.

And that was the only reminder she needed.

With trembling hands, Daphne leaned forward… and pressed her lips to the smooth, warm scales of his snout.

It wasn’t long. Just a moment.

But the moment burned.

When she pulled back, her heart was hammering in her ears. Her lips tingled with residual heat. Her cheeks flushed.

Harry’s eyes closed for just a breath, and a low, satisfied growl rumbled from deep in his chest. Not angry. Not aggressive.

Claiming.

“Good,” he said softly, voice thick with approval. “You belong to Greed now.”

He turned slightly, snapping his claw.

At once, two kobold servants entered through side corridors—bowing low. They moved to Astoria’s side, cradling her with surprising gentleness.

“She will be taken to our healers immediately,” Harry said. “But this is no ordinary sickness. I will write to Stolas personally. His archives know more about ancient curses than anyone else in Hell.”

He lifted his claw and summoned a floating tablet of hellpaper—already burning with a quill of smoke. With a flick, he began writing.

“She’ll be whole again. I swear it.”

He snapped his fingers again—and more kobolds emerged, now with folded silks, warm cloaks, a tray of steaming roasted meat and fresh bread. A basin of scented water.

Daphne’s eyes widened as the servants approached her.

“Get them bathed. Fed. Properly clothed,” Harry ordered. “Then show them to their quarters. Daphne’s chamber will be beside mine. She is not a prisoner.”

He turned back to her then, eyes glowing with something more controlled—possessive, yes, but no longer threatening.

“She is my chosen.”

The kobolds bowed again and gently began ushering the stunned girls away—Astoria cradled like glass, Daphne still looking back at the dark dragon lord she’d just bound herself to.

She didn’t understand everything yet.

But she knew this much:

Hell had taken her in…

And he was her new master.

Chapter Text

The chamber slowly quieted as the kobold servants vanished down the fire-lit corridors, carrying Astoria toward the private wing of the sanctum. Daphne remained behind, her hands still trembling from the heat of the kiss she’d placed on his snout. She stood in a fresh robe of black velvet trimmed with infernal gold, eyes shifting across the walls lined with glowing runes and flickering soul-lamps.

And still, she felt his presence like gravity.

The dragon demon remained beside her, calm now—watchful. Not looming, not threatening. Simply there, his molten eyes tracing her every breath. The weight of command radiated from him like embers off an eternal flame.

She finally found her voice. “You never told me your name.”

He paused at that.

A flicker—not of hesitation, but of memory.

For the briefest second, the cold certainty in his eyes faltered.

He remembered. A different name. A different boy. Locked in a cupboard. Bruised. Bloody. Shoved into darkness again and again for being smarter, faster, for existing.

“Names carry weight,” he said finally, turning away slightly, wings shuddering faintly behind him. “The one I was born with... I left behind long ago. That name came with chains.”

He looked at her over his shoulder, the corners of his scaled lips curling into something that wasn’t quite a smile.

“Here… I go by Vireon.”

He turned fully to her then. “It means firebound vault in High Infernal. And it suits me better than the one I was beaten for.”

Daphne stared at him, lips parted. She didn’t know what he’d been before… but whatever it was, she could feel it still haunted him beneath the molten exterior.

He gestured to the path Astoria had been carried down. “Your sister will live. I made that promise.”

She nodded once, slowly. “Thank you.”

“But you,” Vireon said firmly, stepping closer, “you will remain at my side.”

Daphne blinked. “I wasn’t planning on running—”

His voice was gentler now, but still edged. “It’s not about running. It’s about place. You’re not just a guest. You’re mine, Daphne. You swore that the moment you kissed me and offered your womb to my flame. Your humanity will erode. Your form will shift. And when you carry my heirs, you will be more than girl—you will be dynasty.”

Daphne swallowed—but nodded. “I… understand.”

Vireon moved past her, his claw gesturing toward the polished black bench that overlooked the lava garden beyond the windows.

“Sit. Talk to me.”

She followed without question, lowering herself onto the velvet-cushioned bench. He stood beside her, arms crossed, wings twitching slightly behind him.

“I want to know why two pureblood daughters were sleeping in an alley on Earth. How did it come to this?”

Daphne’s jaw tightened. For a moment, she didn’t speak.

Then it came out.

“Because I said no.”

Vireon tilted his head. “No?”

“To my father. To tradition. He wanted to marry me off to some crusty old pureblood in exchange for another estate—another vault filled with old money and dead names.” Her fingers balled into fists on her lap. “I refused. And when I refused, I was disowned. Cut off from everything.”

He didn’t interrupt.

Daphne went on, voice shaking but furious. “Our mother didn’t fight him. Not once. And when Astoria’s curse started showing symptoms again, they didn’t even send a healer. They didn’t want to waste the galleons on someone ‘damaged.’ They left us on the streets like vermin.”

Her voice cracked. “I thought I could survive. I thought I could protect her. But I was running out of time.”

Vireon looked down at her. Her shoulders trembling, eyes defiant even behind the tears. He exhaled slowly—smoke curling from his nostrils.

“Now I understand.”

He moved closer and sat beside her, his mass making the bench groan.

“You didn’t just fall into my Ring by accident,” he said. “You were thrown away. Which means you’re already mine.”

She turned to him, eyes narrowed. “You still want me to give up everything I am?”

He reached out and traced a single claw down her jaw. Not cutting. Just... claiming.

“No. I want you to become more than you were.”

And deep down—she wasn’t sure if it was the hunger in his voice, the certainty in his touch, or the promise she’d already made—but Daphne Greengrass felt the first flicker of something terrifying…

Hope.

Vireon sat beside her on the velvet bench, the heat of his scaled form radiating through the air like a living forge. His wings shifted slowly, folding close to his back as he watched her speak—calm, but observant, as if measuring every breath she took.

Daphne wiped her cheek, but didn’t shy away. “I didn’t think I’d end up down here. I didn’t even believe Hell was real.”

Vireon chuckled low, a deep, smoky sound that thrummed in his chest. “It usually isn’t… until you call it by name.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, drifting over her again—lower, more focused. Not with lust, not now—but with recognition. He leaned in closer, nostrils flaring as he inhaled softly. Something in her scent changed.

“Interesting…”

Daphne stiffened. “What?”

“You have magic,” he said plainly. “Not just blood. Not just talent. I can feel it humming beneath your skin. Wild. Untrained. Coiled like a whip that’s never been snapped.”

She blinked. “I do know magic—at least, some. I was supposed to go to Hogwarts. But after what happened, my letter came and went. I couldn’t even afford a wand.”

His gaze sharpened.

“And your sister. I felt it in her too. Subtle… but powerful. Especially under pressure. That curse in her blood might have even awakened it further.”

Daphne looked down. “She never got a chance to learn.”

“Then we’ll change that,” he said.

He stood, his scaled legs striding across the chamber as he summoned a silver scroll with a flick of his claw. Runes danced along its edges, pulsing with raw infernal intent.

“I’ll contact one of the best scholars and magic tutors in all of Hell,” Vireon said. “Someone who understands human magic… and more importantly, the other kinds as well. Rituals. Binding. Celestial and infernal convergence.”

He glanced back over his shoulder, eyes flashing.

“Stolas.”

Daphne blinked. “The Ars Goetia? He’s real?”

Vireon smirked. “Very. And fortunately, I’ve already dealt with him before. He’s always intrigued by gifted mortals. Especially ones willing to learn outside the old, dusty traditions.”

He turned back to her and folded his arms across his broad chest.

“You’ll study here first. Astoria too—once she’s healed. But you, Daphne… you will return to the human world.”

She stiffened, surprised. “What? Why?”

“You were meant to attend Hogwarts. That matters—not just politically, but symbolically. You return not as a beggar… but as my chosen. Dressed in infernal silk, wand in hand, gold in pocket, and Greed’s flame behind your eyes.”

His claw extended, summoning a burning ledger from the floor.

“Your school robes, wand, supplies—all of it will be purchased here in the Markets of Greed. Enhanced. Enchanted. You’ll walk into Hogwarts like the world owes you.”

Daphne was speechless. Part of her wanted to argue—but another part felt the distant thunder of that promise singing in her blood.

Vireon stepped closer, his voice soft but firm. “No more running. No more crawling for scraps. You gave yourself to me. Now you rise as mine. You’ll carry my brand… and one day, you’ll carry my children.”

Her cheeks flushed, but her eyes met his—fearful, uncertain, yet not retreating.

He smiled slowly, claws resting lightly beneath her chin.

“You wanted salvation. You found power.”

Then he turned and walked toward the vault chamber.

“Rest tonight. Tomorrow, you begin your education.”

And behind his steps, the gold-veined halls of Greed whispered approval.

---

The Ring of Greed never truly slept—but Vireon did. For a few short hours, his massive form rested coiled upon his great bed of reinforced metal and molten silk, his breath rising in slow, steady waves. Every time he exhaled, the faint scent of sulfur drifted through the chamber, and the ground beneath the stronghold hummed with his presence.

But morning had come in Hell, and with it came duty.

He stirred awake in a low growl, talons scraping gently against the bed’s frame as he stretched his limbs and opened glowing green eyes to the red-gold light of the infernal sunrise pouring through his vault-like windows. His wings flexed once—broad, slow, powerful—before folding again along his back.

And then the voice started.

“Three-hundred seventy-two gold coins, seven emerald-etched contracts, and two hundred Hellmarked pence entered the southern vaults in the night,” said a fast-talking kobold standing at a podium at the foot of Vireon’s bed. He wore thick circular spectacles, a red sash embroidered with ledgers, and a stack of parchment nearly taller than he was.

He didn’t look up once as he continued, flipping pages.

“Eighteen coins were transferred from the vault to the debt collection armory for mob payment reconsolidation. Four were spent re-outfitting the dockside enforcers with flame-sealed gauntlets. One gold coin was misplaced during an asset transfer between Crimson’s former storage hub and the vault cart en route to Block Twelve.”

The kobold paused.

Dead silence.

Vireon blinked once. Then lifted his head slowly.

“One coin?” he repeated, voice low and dark as a coal pit.

The kobold adjusted his glasses and nodded, still reading from the ledger. “Yes, my lord. One coin—logged but not received. Verified as missing by Vault Clerk thirty-eight. No external breach. Possibly internal miscount, but standard protocols demand elevation to high-level awareness.”

Vireon rose from the bed in one smooth motion, all wings and muscle and smoke.

His tail snapped behind him like a whip.

“Who handled that cart?”

The kobold checked. “Shift team Gamma-Twelve. Mostly kobold juniors. One… former imp, recently transitioned.”

Vireon narrowed his eyes.

“Bring me the names. All of them.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The kobold clicked his claws and three scrolls dropped from a portal above his head. He caught them without blinking.

Vireon stepped from his bed, walking barefoot across the warm iron floor. “I don’t care if it’s a coin, a credit, or a half-bit of cursed bronze. Nothing leaves Greed without my blessing. Nothing disappears.”

He turned, his wings stretching wide again as he loomed over the bookkeeper.

“I made this Ring mine because Mammon let it bleed from the inside. I will not.”

The kobold nodded furiously. “Of course, Lord Vireon. Shall I prep a punishment protocol in the event the coin isn’t recovered?”

Vireon’s fangs showed as he spoke low.

“If it's incompetence… one week of cage-duty and public discipline. If it’s theft?”

He leaned closer, voice now a dark purr.

“Turn them into coin. One soul per ounce. Feed them into the vault.”

The kobold grinned. “Very good, my lord.”

Behind him, Vireon’s private chamber opened—fresh robes prepared, and his personal kobold retinue waiting with charred meat, roasted fruit, and volcanic tea.

As he strode toward his morning routine, fire flickered in his eyes.

He ruled Greed with scales, claw, and flame. And even the smallest theft would be paid for in blood.

----

The fortress of Greed pulsed quietly beneath the crust of Hell, its obsidian walls warmed by the endless flow of molten gold and sin-forged magma deep below. High above the vault levels, near the central sanctum, lay the private residential wing—an area very few had access to. None save Vireon, his closest servants, and now... the sisters.

Vireon stood at the threshold of the chamber just beyond the main hall, one scaled hand resting lightly against the golden arch of Daphne's new bedroom.

He watched.

She was curled on her side beneath the velvet sheets of a lavish four-poster bed. Pillows of hell-silk supported her head, and the warmth of the chamber left her in just a thin layer of sleepwear—soft crimson robes that clung slightly to her youthful frame. Her hair, no longer tangled and caked with street grime, now spilled freely across the pillows in golden waves. The bruises from her time in the human world had already faded under his servants’ care.

She looked younger now. Vulnerable. Mortal. But no longer fragile.

She was becoming his.

Vireon stepped silently into the room, claws tapping faintly on the black stone floor. He stood over her for a moment, wings half-folded, heat radiating gently off his skin, careful not to wake her.

There was power in her—he could still feel it stirring even in her sleep. That untrained magic. Unshaped. And he would make it useful.

But first… her sister.

Vireon turned and strode out of the room, his long tail curling behind him as he passed the open arch into Astoria’s quarters. The younger Greengrass lay tucked beneath lighter sheets, her body thinner, frail—but her color had improved. Her breath, once shallow and rasping, was now even and low. The curse was still within her—he could sense it. Like a parasite embedded in her core.

It needed to be ripped out.

And for that, he required a specialist.

With a snap of his claw, a glowing scroll and quill materialized before him, floating midair in a ring of green infernal fire. The parchment unrolled itself, pulsing gently.

He dipped the quill, and began to write in a language older than most human tongues—smooth strokes edged in fire:

---

To His Radiant Highness, Prince Stolas of the Ars Goetia, Scholar of Stars, Keeper of Forgotten Tomes, and Patron of Lost Rites—

I write to you as the current Sin of Greed, Master of the Vaults, Guardian of Flame-Bound Contracts, and Curator of All That Is Desired.

A matter has arisen of potential interest to both our domains. A mortal child, recently brought into my care, bears a curse on her blood that is ancient, lingering, and buried in the marrow. Her sister has entered my service. The younger must be healed, utterly.

I suspect it is no simple affliction. It reeks of old mortal magic—family-bound, likely sacred, possibly tied to inheritance or purity rituals.

I require your knowledge.

Your price, if reasonable, will be met. Your presence will be respected. Your time, not wasted.

—Vireon, Sin of Greed

---

The quill vanished in a puff of green flame. The scroll rolled, sealed itself with a wax mark in the shape of a wyvern’s eye, and then snapped out of existence.

The message was sent.

He stood over Astoria’s bed one final time, watching the child shift in her sleep. Then turned his gaze back down the corridor, past the velvet shadows of firelight—toward Daphne’s resting form.

He didn’t speak aloud. But deep within, the vow echoed again:

I will make you whole.

And in return…

You will belong to me entirely.

The air shimmered as the dimensional veil tore itself open just beyond the marble gates of Vireon’s stronghold. The fire-veined floor hissed in reverence, and the great sigils etched into the walls of the estate pulsed brighter with each step of the regal figure emerging from the rift.

Stolas, Prince of the Ars Goetia, had arrived.

He wore his long obsidian-and-carmine robe with its enchanted embroidery of constellations, each one glowing faintly as if sewn from stardust. His plumage shimmered with shifting hues of dark indigo and deep ruby, and the twin gold cuffs at his wrists hummed with restrained power. His gaze—sharp, owl-like, ancient—swept the chamber with calm scrutiny as his taloned feet clicked lightly over the gold-inlaid stone.

What he saw surprised him.

Gone were Mammon’s bloated, ego-drenched tapestries and velvet-padded vaults that served no function but vanity.

Instead, the halls of Greed had been reborn.

Industrial forges in the distance poured smoke in organized bursts. Factory zones along the outer sectors no longer belched chaos—they pulsed in rhythm, regulated by Vireon’s kobold enforcers. Gangs were replaced by infrastructure. Tribute was no longer stolen; it was collected. The air wasn’t just hot with Hell’s fire—it simmered with progress.

Stolas smiled faintly.

“At last, someone who treats Greed like the engine it was always meant to be.”

He approached the main sanctum and passed through the obsidian archway guarded by armored kobolds, all of whom bowed deeply as he entered.

At the far end of the chamber, behind a massive infernal-iron desk etched with sigils of command and ownership, sat Vireon.

His draconic form was in his moderate shape—tall, powerful, but not towering—cloaked in dark-scaled robes of command. His wings folded neatly behind him, tail flicking idly as he reviewed a floating scroll of financial transfers. He didn’t look up immediately.

Until Stolas spoke.

“Quite the transformation, Sin of Greed.” His voice was smooth, lofty, yet always touched with wit. “You’ve done what Mammon never could—made this place function.”

Vireon looked up then and gestured smoothly to the obsidian chair opposite his desk. “Prince Stolas,” he rumbled, “always a pleasure. Please—sit. You’ll find the seat was custom-designed for your kind.”

The owl-like demon glided forward, robes whispering around his talons as he sat gracefully. The sigils on the chair lit the moment he touched it, adjusting with delicate magic for comfort and posture.

Stolas tilted his head slightly. “So… you summoned me. Not for politics. Not for shared vice. But for… mortals, yes?”

Vireon nodded, setting the scroll aside. “Two girls. Sisters. Recently cast out from the human world. The elder—Daphne—is mine now. Willingly sworn. But the younger…”

He leaned back slightly, his claw tapping once on the desk. “She bears a curse. An old one. Not hell-born. Something woven into her blood—tied to lineage, purity, maybe even mortality’s own failings. It’s persistent. Cunning. But I felt your name pulse the moment I sensed it.”

Stolas folded his hands before him, intrigued.

“You wish for me to examine her?”

“I want her healed,” Vireon growled softly. “Utterly. Her life has value. And her suffering is a thorn in the heel of what is now mine.”

The words weren’t gentle. But they were honest. Vireon didn’t waste time with fluff.

Stolas nodded once, feathers ruffling slightly. “And the elder? The one who swore herself to you—what of her?”

“She’s sleeping,” Vireon said simply, eyes narrowing slightly. “But she’s strong. Magical. Untrained. She’ll be educated in this Ring and then returned to the human world—Hogwarts—for legacy’s sake. She’ll walk in as something more than what she was.”

Stolas smirked. “You’re building an empire… one girl at a time.”

Vireon didn’t deny it.

“She offered herself to save her sister,” he said. “That kind of desperation isn’t weakness. It’s currency. And I never waste my investments.”

The two powerful beings locked eyes.

Stolas inclined his head. “Then take me to the child.”

And with a flick of his claw, Vireon stood.

“Follow me, Stolas. The curse is waiting.”