So. Back at it again, trying to lay some groundwork without cramming too much info into one chapter. Stick around! This thing is going places!

She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak

I've been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks

I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap

I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black

Nirvana, "Heart-Shaped Box"

I woke up slowly, first incapable of movement, then disinclined to it. Everything hurt. The rope burns. The lashes. My slashed hand. My throat. Pretty much every part of my body that had contact with Crowley's cock. Most of all, a burning, stinging, scorching force pushing its way through my veins with every beat of my pulse that gave me no relief whether I moved or held still.

Groaning, I put a hand to my aching head and sat up, looking around me as my eyes came into focus. Still on his bed, still naked, but...alone? Where had he gone?

I cast my eyes around the room and let out a scream, nearly falling off the bed as I scrambled away.

A massive, monstrous dog stood at the foot of the bed. Its exact size and build were nearly impossible to tell through the haze and smoke that surrounded it; I couldn't even say for sure what color it was, but black seemed a safe bet. Livid red eyes flamed like hot coals in its head and thick ropes of drool dripped from fangs longer than my fingers. And the low, menacing growls it made only grew louder as it caught my fear.

"Juliet, sit."

My eyes snapped over to the armchair by the fireplace. Crowley sat staring into the flames, chin in his hand, elbow on the armrest. He was dressed again, albeit in shirt and slacks, and if I felt terrible then he at least looked a little less composed than usual.

"Lovely thing, isn't she?" he asked, and it took a moment to realize he was addressing me. "Wondering why you can see her now?"

I fumbled for words, staring at the hound like a rabbit that's spotted a...well. A hound.

"Speak," he snapped.

"Yes," I answered, high-pitched and rushed.

"You should have been able to this whole time," he said without looking up. "Only the damned can see the hounds. Oftentimes, they die of pure bloody fear as soon as they clap eyes on one."

I couldn't keep from casting another nervous glance at Juliet. She had obeyed her master's command to sit, though she still watched me with those fiery eyes and let out the occasional snarl in my direction.

"You see, darling," he went on, "I was thinking of letting you off the hook. I've been keeping tabs on you long enough, you might say I'm a fan of yours, and no one, no one, has ever had the stones to touch one of my hounds. I was impressed. I thought I'd see how far I could push you until you tapped out, since you seemed so hard up for it, and given that you had the pure nerve to bargain for it, I was planning on voiding your contract when it was all said and done. All out of the goodness of my heart. But then you try something like this?"

He lifted his right hand, the cut unbandaged. It had stopped bleeding, but it looked...wrong. The veins in his palm seemed faintly luminescent, so faint I wouldn't have noticed if the room wasn't so dim, and the cut itself shimmered. Or was ripple a better word? I couldn't decide how, but the effect was familiar and I couldn't put my finger on why.

"Care to enlighten me?" he asked, finally looking up and staring me down from where he sat.

"It's a..." I looked down at my own hand and while it didn't shimmer or ripple, something about it flickered oddly, and I noticed the stinging and scorching I felt in my body seemed most intense around the cut. "It's a binding spell..."

"Yes," he said tersely. "I know that, Glinda. What kind of binding, and to what end? You have twenty seconds to tell me before you and I spend eternity learning exactly what kind of pain you don't enjoy."

I gaped at him for a split second and he began counting. "Nineteen, eighteen..."

"It's a binding of wellbeing," I hurried to answer. "Blood of my blood, bone of my bone, that kind of thing-"

"Fourteen, thirteen..."

"-if something happens to one, it carries over to the other and they feel it too-"

"Ten, nine..."

"-sometimes it creates an empathic connection-"

"Six, five..."

"-like every traditional idea of, well, soulmates..."

"Two-" He halted and narrowed his eyes at me, as if in sheer irritation, then gave an annoyed huff and snapped his fingers.

My blood ran like battery acid in my veins. My bones turned to hot iron. The air I breathed became choking, poisonous fumes. I felt knives under my skin flaying me from the inside out. I let out one long unbroken scream as the pain grew and grew until I thought I'd shatter and it would escape and spread to claim another victim-

Then it stopped and I was a quaking, twitching tangle of limbs on the bed, the echoes of my scream reverberating off the walls...along with echoes of another. I moved my head just enough to glance toward the fire and waited for my eyes to focus.

Juliet had risen and moved to the armchair, nudging at something in front of it with her snout. It took effort to lift my head enough to see, but Crowley had fallen out of the chair and collapsed to the floor, and for the first time I had ever seen, he looked shaken. He took one deep breath after another and absently reached out and patted Juliet, moving her aside as he did so. The cut, I saw from across the room, seemed a little brighter than when I first noticed it.

My relief was tinged with awe. The spell worked. I didn't envy him whatever pain he felt through our new bond, but under the circumstances...I hoped it hurt like hell.

He brushed himself off as he seated himself again, taking another moment or two before turning to me. "Undo it," he ordered, his voice a little less steady than usual. "Now."

"I can't," I replied, trying to keep my own voice from shaking. "Blood magic is stronger and more complex, Rowena always said-"

"You didn't learn anything from her I don't already know!" he burst out. "There's always a reversal, a loophole, there's always something!"

"She didn't tell me," I insisted. My hand burned like I held hot coal in my palm and the scorching kept pushing through me; I cradled my hand against my chest and tried to quell the nausea rising in my stomach. "If there's a way to undo it, I don't know it."

He sat staring at me for several minutes, watching me in my pitiful state. The pain from whatever he had done to me slowly faded, but the fatigue and sickness I felt could only be aftereffects of what it had taken to cast the spell. He finally heaved a sigh. "You humans are so bloody fragile..."

"What are you doing?" I asked as he slowly got to his feet and crossed the room.

"I don't fancy you spewing on my carpet," he replied, going to the liquor cabinet. He poured a whiskey and water and brought it to me, adding, "And since your illness is my inconvenience, the sooner you lose the urge to puke your guts out, the sooner I stop feeling queasy, so drink."

I looked at him and looked at the liquor, my hesitation plain on my face.

"Oh, for the love of-" He rolled his eyes. "Do you think I'd be stupid enough to poison you after seeing for myself how effective your little spell was? Do me more credit than that, I beg you."

I took the glass, holding it in both hands to keep it steady, and took a careful sip. The burn was mellow on the way down, pooling into warmth when it hit my belly, and while it sounded counterintuitive, it helped to settle my stomach. I took another swallow and frowned as the thought occurred to me. "You're queasy? I didn't think you could get sick."

"Well, that makes two of us," he replied with a sarcastic attempt at a smile. "You're under the weather and we're bound. Do the math, Endora, it's your spell."

I winced as my pulse continued to send the scorching force through my body. "I didn't think it would hit me the way it did..."

"Wait, wait, you didn't think?" he repeated, giving me a look like I had spontaneously grown antlers. "A binding spell, in blood, while boning a demon, with that much magic hanging around to, what? Give it a little extra juice? And you didn't think? There's a bloody understatement if I've heard one."

"If I was going to bind the King of Hell, I needed all the extra juice I could get," I shot back. "Rowena warned me it would pack a punch, but that was the understatement."

"Consider, love, that the old crone has had three centuries of practice with spells that would vaporize you for even attempting them." He fell silent for a moment, then gestured to whiskey. "That's working. Keep going."

I glanced down at the drink. I did feel better, but it was odd, to say the least, that he could feel it too. "How...how long has it been?" I asked hesitantly. "Since you, you know...saw her?"

I felt a flicker of heat from him, but no other sign of emotion, and he sounded bored when he replied. "Sometime around three hundred years ago when she left me in a workhouse after her coven expelled her. I heard of her now and then after I started working the crossroads, but never anything more than rumors until you."

I nodded absently, casting a nervous look at Juliet, who had taken up her post at the foot of the bed and still watched me closely. Only the damned could see the hounds, and she had been invisible the night before when he taunted me with her. He was telling the truth, then. He was going to release me from my deal-whether it would have been as easy as all that was irrelevant. If I could see Crowley's hellhound, my soul was condemned.

"You look so gloomy, darling," he said. "And you feel godawful. I can't remember the last time I was this depressed."

"How are you so well-adjusted to this?" I asked. I still felt drained after the spell ravaged my strength, but I...I could sense him, only a sense, and he felt...calm. Calculating. Angry, yes, but more inconvenienced than truly enraged, and I didn't doubt he was already planning to make this work in his favor.

"You're hardly the thorniest thorn I've had in my side," he replied. "And I've plucked every last one of those out just the same. You've won a point, that's all. I'll still take the match."

I swallowed hard, my throat dry and the whiskey doing nothing to help. "So, what next, then?"

"Until I find a way to reverse this spell, and believe me, darling, I will find a way, I have a vested interest in keeping you out of harm's way. Unfortunately, if you're to be even remotely useful to me, in harm's way is exactly where I need you." He caught sight of my confused expression and said, "You volunteered yourself as a spy, did you not?"

"I did..."

"And you'll hold up your end of the deal," he assured me, "or I'll hold up my end of your original contract. You're so much more delicate than the lowest of demons, you know. I can hurt you until you're choking on your own blood, to within an inch of snuffing you out over and over again, and as for me? I've done worse to myself and called it playtime. So don't test me, sweetheart. I still own you."

"Are you sure about that?"

He paused and I held my breath. The second part of my gambit, and if this didn't work, I didn't want to think of what he would do to me for trying. "I would say we're on a level playing field," I told him, "considering you made me your queen."

"I don't think so, darling," he replied. "Your contract still stands and I'm only sticking to this 007 charade until I lift your damn spell. You've done nothing but buy yourself a little more time."

"Not quite, your Highness. We agreed. In your own words, you said 'my queen,' and we sealed the deal. I never told you before, my king," I added, "but you know how to give one hell of a kiss."

Heat flared and that sense of anger inside me spiked higher, and he said, "And you're so sure that's how it works, are you?"

I felt like I was jumping out of an airplane with only a hope that I had a parachute, scared, resigned and resolved, and he could feel all of that. I held his gaze and replied, "That's how it worked last time."

The anger exploded into rage and I knew I was right. I saw the red in his eyes flicker and felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to maim, destroy, to cause as much hurt as possible, so absolute I nearly lost sense of myself. The heat rose to an inferno and I saw him raise his right hand, lifting my own hands out of reflex-

The atmosphere hummed and shook with energy and I felt a white-hot surge of power, through me but from him, and in answer I threw up a feeble wall of my own with no hope at all that it would even slow him down-

Our combined power collided midair, sending a shock wave through the room that threw me back on the bed and sent him staggering before he regained his balance. The rush took my breath away, a hot, dark tidal wave that was unlike anything I had ever felt before, at least until Crowley turned up in my living room. And as when I cast the binding spell, neither of us could break away. My slashed hand burned and the energy moving between us felt like an electric current, with that dark and hot wave along with another that was cooler and more familiar passing back and forth, and while my eyes were wide open, my mind was filled with thoughts and images that weren't mine...

A syringe filled with blood...a broken slate with strange markings carved into it...a blonde woman that flickered with orange light before falling dead...that blood-filled syringe again...an old-fashioned revolver...a red-headed woman that I thought I recognized...more blood...more blood...

More blood...

There was a ripping, tearing pain in my arm and the connection broke; Juliet had lunged at me and sank her teeth into my forearm, severing whatever had linked her master to me. I cried out and at a word from Crowley the hound backed off, hackles raised and teeth bared, smeared with my blood. I looked down at the bite marks, red oozing from the torn flesh, and I wrapped my other hand tightly around it to try and stop the bleeding, but Juliet's jaw was larger than my hand and I couldn't cover the wound.

"Come here."

My head snapped up at the order. As far as I could tell, Crowley hadn't moved, but he stood motionless with his eyes riveted on my injured arm. There was something intense and desperate about him, and he said again, "Come here."

I hesitated. It was hardly the most threatening he had given me thus far, but something about that look seemed a little off. Through the pain in my arm and the whirlwind of magic, I could sense a need, a hunger, wrapped up in bitterness and loathing.

"I can help heal it, you twit," he snapped.

"It's fine," I protested, my fingers slipping in the blood. "I can handle it, I just need my familiar-"

"Now!"

Further argument died on my lips. I scrambled off the bed and hurried to him, past the still-snarling Juliet to offer him my arm. He didn't take his eyes off the wound, encircling my wrist with one hand and passing the other over the bite. The blood disappeared and the skin knit back together, and I felt a prickle of warmth through my body. His brow furrowed for a moment, then he snapped his fingers and I was fully clothed again.

"We have business to discuss," he said, "but you'll have to excuse me for a moment."

"What business?" I asked.

He gave me a look shot full of irritation. "Bound to the King?" he replied. "Bargaining to be queen? Does that ring any bells? You might have gotten the drop on me but this spell of yours works two ways, and you're just as stuck with me as I am with you. No pun intended, but if you don't cooperate, I can make your new arrangement hell for you. Do I make myself clear, love?"

I nodded slowly.

He stared at me in silence for several long minutes, and while I couldn't sense him so clearly anymore, he was still there in my blood. If the consequences of the binding spell had taken him by surprise, it was nothing to how I felt. Everything that had happened since last night had me inside out, upside down, and backwards. I couldn't process all of it on my own. "I need my familiar," I repeated quietly. "Please. I can't...I can't make this work without her. Let me go back to my house for her, and I'll come back without a fuss. Or come with me if you insist, or send somebody to make sure I don't try anything-"

"And let anyone know that some ten year associate in the craft pulled a fast one on me?" he demanded. "I don't bloody think so, sweetheart."

"Crowley, please..."

He kept staring and I sensed him again, only the faintest trace of annoyance, and still that hunger, growing stronger and stronger. I felt heat, around me and through me, strongest at the cut on my hand, and he finally turned away with a muttered curse. "You have one hour," he said. "Don't try anything stupid." He raised his hand and I caught a brief glimpse of his cut palm, and I realized that odd ripple reminded me of sunlight on moving water.

"One hour," he repeated, then he snapped his fingers and I felt myself disappear.

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