by Bella Klaus
“Right.” I glanced from side to side. “How do we find him?”
“One more jump.” He placed both hands on the sides of my helmet and met my eyes with an encouraging smile. “I wanted to ease you into this part of Hell.”
“Are you still worried I might run away?” I asked.
“For the first time in over two thousand years, I’ve found love.” His words were thick with sincerity. “The more time I share with you, the more terrifying the prospect becomes that you might leave. I realize now how much you value truths, even if they are distasteful.”
An ache formed in my chest, and I placed a palm on his breastplate. “I’m nothing like Persephone.”
Hades lowered his gaze. “We’re still in the honeymoon phase.”
“We survived our first argument,” I said. “And no matter what happens, I always come back, even if it’s to make you grovel. That should say a lot about the future of our relationship.”
“You’re right,” he murmured. “Come on. Let’s focus on getting the information we need from Belphegor.”
Part of me wanted to remain in this dark spot and talk through the doubts he had about our relationship, but what did I know about being with someone over the long-term? Hades was my first everything, and he’d lived through tens of thousands of years with Persephone and probably thought I would walk out on him the way she did.
I looped my arm through his and rested my weight on his side. Didn’t having a penthouse in the living world constitute not wanting to stay? And he still hadn’t seen me eat anything within Hell. Hades was right to have doubts, and it was up to me to prove my commitment.
“Ready,” I said.
In the blink of an eye, we stood within a thirty-foot-wide ledge that overlooked another chasm with smooth rock walls instead of terraces. Where the place the fire creatures dwelled was full of light, Hades produced a ball of Hellfire to illuminate our space.
I glanced down, expecting to see a creature of some sort, but all I found was the swirl of black mist.
“Hades,” bellowed a voice as deep as the ocean. “What brings you to my domain?”
“Tell me how to kill an angel,” Hades said.
Belphegor chuckled, the sound making my bones vibrate. “Finally mustered the balls to rise up against your angel overlords?”
“Something like that.” His voice was light, considering the implied insult.
A stream of smoke rose from the abyss, breaking off to form the shape of an eight-foot-tall man who floated twenty feet away from us in mid-air. Wisps of long hair hung down to a chest even more muscular than Hades’ that ended in taut abs. Although Belphegor had fashioned a loincloth out of mist, he still managed to make it thin enough to reveal the outline of a long, thick penis.
My gaze jumped back to his face, which formed a mask of amusement. “I see you have brought your mate,” he said, sounding like a normal man. “Congratulations on finding one so powerful.”
“Do you know how to kill an angel or not?” Hades said, sounding bored.
Belphegor rubbed his chin. “That would depend.”
“On?” Hades asked.
“What you intend to offer me in return for the information.”
“Name your demand,” Hades said.
Belphegor’s gaze turned to me. “Your mate.”
Stiffening, I tried not to squirm at Hades’ side but instead squeezed the bident with my free hand. The demon probably said that to intimidate.
“Not funny,” Hades drawled. “Since you’re happy cracking jokes that fail to miss the mark, I can only surmise one thing. You’re content. Content enough to dwell here with nothing to do but plan your next attempt at escape. If that’s the case, I’ll take my mate and leave.”
The primordial demon threw his head back and laughed. It was a dry sound that reminded me of Samael. “You have no sense of humor.”
“One would think that a bastard who slithers out of here once a century like clockwork would jump at an opportunity to negotiate,” Hades muttered into our bond.
“Maybe this is the wrong time in his cycle?” I asked.
Hades snorted.
“Would you like to share the joke?” Belphegor tapped his foot.
“I’d rather not,” Hades drawled. “If you don’t know how to kill an angel, then I’ll return to the surface with my mate, and—”
“Wait.” He stretched out a palm.
Hades folded his arms. “Yes?”
“I will tell you on one condition.” Belphegor pointed at us.
“Name it.” Hades said.
“Let me taste her.”
My stomach tightened. I didn’t care where he pointed that finger. He had to be talking about a female mass of primordial evil kept in a different abyss, because something as ancient and as vast as evil as he was couldn’t be referring to me.
“Out of the question,” Hades snapped.
Belphegor rubbed his chin. “Then you may work out how to kill Samael by yourself.”
I gulped. “How on earth did he know?”
“He’s bluffing,” Hades said.
“Am I wrong?” The primordial demon spread his arms wide. “Your power levels have diminished by at least thirty percent since I last saw you, and the situation in this Faction of Hell has become so dire that you’ve sourced a mate to help you maintain the integrity of his throne.”
“He’s taking everything out of context,” Hades said through our link.
I laced my fingers between his. “Isn’t that what evil people do?”
He turned to me and smirked through his helmet.
“She is smitten,” Belphegor said, his voice laced with disappointment.
“This conversation would go a lot faster if your price for the information wasn’t so unreasonable.” Hades folded his arms across his chest.
The ground rumbled, and the mist below us swirled. “Why would I help you when Samael wishes to unite the Factions? Beings such as I will become his lieutenants, and when I rise to prominence, your mate’s soul will belong to me for all eternity.”
I clenched my teeth. “What a load of bullshit.”
Hades shook his head. “He and I already negotiated terms for the new regime.”
“Then why doesn’t he inform you on how to kill an angel?” Belphegor sneered, calming the mist and rendering his half of the Abyss silent.
“Samael needs me to prove my loyalty.” Hades wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “Since you’re unwilling or unable to give us the information, we’ll take our leave.”
Belphegor swooped toward us, his smoky arms outstretched. I aimed the bident at his chest and poured my power into its handle.
Chains of lightning wrapped around his form, lighting up his features. He screamed, the edges of his body turning to mist, as though trying to escape my power. It split into tiny branches, holding him in place. He twitched and thrashed and twisted within the cage of my magic, his cries of agony loud enough to shake the pit of my stomach.
Hades stood at my side, his arms still around my shoulders. I continued the stream of power, guessing that he would teleport out if the mist rose to consume us.
He reached for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Enough, now.”
I pulled back the magic, waiting for the demon to strike out, but his eight-foot-tall avatar exploded into mist and then disappeared.
“Delicious.” Belphegor’s disembodied voice spread across the chasm.
“Your answer?” Hades snapped.
“A single blow in the right spot will shatter an angel,” he replied. “It has been this way since before David slew Goliath with a slingshot.”
“Which spot?” I asked.
Belphegor’s laughter filled the entire space, making my skin tighten. It seeped through my flesh, my muscles, my bones, and penetrated me to the marrow. My stomach lurched. I’d never felt something so hideous, and I was glad to be wearing the armor. As Belphegor’s chuckles died down, I strained to listen to his whispered wo
rds.
“If you wish to know exactly where to strike the angel dead, you will jump into my depths,” he said in a voice as thin as a breeze.
“Out of the question.” Hades wrapped his arm around me and teleported out into the walkway above the fiery cells. He turned to me, his eyes wide. “Are you all right?”
The warmth of the surroundings seeped through the armor. “I will be in a moment. Does Samael really intend to let those creatures out?”
Hades grimaced. “Even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to release them into Hell, but he would certainly lead them to believe he would.”
I swallowed back a bellyful of bile. The scent of brimstone filled my nostrils, cleansing me of the primordial demon’s taint. It was odd to think that the general atmosphere of Hell was preferable to anything, but that creature had been horrific.
“Is he going to say anything else?” I asked.
“Not unless you do what he wants, which is never going to happen.”
I curled my lip. “Let’s leave.”
Hades nodded, wrapped an arm around my middle, and transported me to one of the palace’s bedrooms. This one had a huge bed with a quilted headboard that reached the ceiling. Ivory furnishings adorned the room, and golden table lambs sat perched atop matching cabinets, providing gentle illumination.
His helmet disappeared from his head, and his armor melted away, leaving him completely bare. I shook my limbs and imagined myself naked.
He stared down at me, his eyes alight. “You hurt him.”
“Well, he shouldn’t have said all those things,” I said, bristling.
“No.” He cupped my cheek. “Your power caused him physical pain.”
“So?”
“Belphegor doesn’t have a corporeal form.”
My eyes narrowed. “Are you saying he’s never felt anything like this?”
“Perhaps when possessing other demons,” Hades said, his voice breathy. “But otherwise, no.”
My gaze dropped down to my hands. “Do you think it’s my lightning magic?”
He wrapped his fingers around my wrist and pressed a kiss on my palm. “Or a combination of everything you are,” he murmured. “Your ability to wield thunderbolts, your affinity with plants, the fact that you spent so much time as incorporeal before being put together.”
Hades stared at me through eyes hooded with desire. “I always knew you were special, but I didn’t understand until now that everything you’ve experienced makes you unique.”
Hades exhaled a long shuddering breath, reminding me that it had been some time since he’d pulled out his intravenous supply of panacea.
I stared up at him, my brows etched into a frown. “Are you all right?”
He chuckled. “When you punished Belphegor with all your wrath, blood rushed to my cock at a rate so fast I nearly fainted.”
“Stop exaggerating and tell me how you’re feeling.”
“It’s true. Right now, I want to fuck you so hard—”
“While you’re still convalescing.” I placed a hand on his chest. “No.”
“Do you know what sexual frustration does to a god with testicles like mine?” Hades asked. “All that pressure might cause an explosion through the fabric of reality.”
A huff of laughter erupted from my chest, but I clamped my lips shut and held it back. “You’re exaggerating.”
Hades scowled. “You should have seen the hole I blew through the palace the first time I allowed myself to cum during my two thousand years of celibacy.”
I couldn’t help laughing. “All right, but you’re going to sit back and let me do the work.”
He teleported us to the mattress and settled himself into a seating position with his upper half propped up against the headrest. “Is that what you’ve been planning all this time?” he drawled. “A long, hard ride with Hades as your stallion?”
My gaze traveled over his full lips, down his jaw, over his broad shoulders, and lingered on his sculpted pecs. His chest rose and fell with rapid movements, the dips between his abs tightening and contracting with his breath.
I couldn’t help gazing at his erection, which stood stiff and alert. A bead of clear fluid gathered on its tip, making me salivate. Belphegor must have gotten to me somehow, because I blurted, “Right now, it’s you I want to taste.”
“You want my cock in your mouth?” he said, his words penetrating my soul. “Are you going to swirl your tongue around the glans, lap up the precum from my slit, or will you take me deep in your throat?”
The pulse between my legs thudded a frantic beat, and I tore my gaze away from his shaft and met his eyes. Eyes that burned with lust yet shone with the intensity of his love.
Hades belonged to me, but I belonged to him. There was no question. He could have gotten the key to defeating Samael today by negotiating with a primordial source of evil, but he had shut down any possibility of using me as a bargaining chip.
His desire to protect me from Belphegor had set back our victory over Samael, but it had communicated the extent of his devotion. Hades had once said I was more important to him than the Fifth Faction, but I hadn’t fully believed him until now.
My lips trembled as I said the words, “I want you in my mouth, then I’ll get on top, and we’ll connect our magic while we have sex.”
“Kora,” he whispered. “Do you mean to say—”
“What’s mine is yours.” I paraphrased something Hades had told me when I’d first summoned his bident. “Those twenty-one centuries of power I’ve been carrying around also belong to you.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “I wanted you to hang onto that until I proved myself.”
I straddled his hips and stood up on my knees so our faces were level. “You withheld the fact that you’d been keeping this body in a glass coffin, and I didn’t tell you I knew about the origins of my soul. We’re even.”
The corners of his eyes tightened with confusion. “But—”
I placed my fingers on his lips. “Is there anything else I should know that will affect my decision to stay at your side?”
He shook his head.
“Then let’s connect,” I said. “Maybe this power boost will help you heal faster.”
Hades leaned back into the headboard and grinned. “Let’s. But first, there’s the not-to-little matter of my aching cock.”
Drawing back, I placed a line of kisses down his toned shoulders and chest and abs before pausing at his shaft. “No matter how many times I see it up close, I’m always mesmerized by its magnificence.”
Hades snickered. “Some would say it’s the eighth wonder of the world. I wouldn’t be so grandiose, but even I have to admit that it’s a work of art.”
My gaze flickered up to his dilated pupils, black pools ringed with a line of fire. His thick lashes framed his eyes, casting shadows over their whites. The effect was both familiar and otherworldly.
“This work of art has a new owner.”
“Who now gets to enjoy more than just a private viewing?” he said.
“Of course.” I leaned toward him, feeling the heat of his shaft.
Did Hades have fire in his blood? His erection swelled under my gaze and protruded with thick veins that promised to feel delicious inside me when I took him for that hard ride. My tongue darted out to lick my lips, and I bent my head toward the fluid glistening on his cock-head.
Hades moaned, his breaths ragged, his muscles straining with anticipation. “Don’t torture a man on his sickbed.”
I swiped my tongue over his slit, gathered the salty fluid on my tongue, and hummed my appreciation.
His answering shudder was my reward. “Kora,” he said, the word choked. “I need you.”
Wrapping my fingers around his thick shaft, I gave him a lingering kiss just where the shaft met the head. His appreciative moan made my nipples tingle, and the muscles of my core tightened in preparation for more. I swirled my tongue around the hot, smooth skin of his bulbous tip, chasing the la
st of the saltiness.
This was just as pleasant as the naked breakfast, but this time I was enjoying him without the chocolate. I ran the flat of my tongue along the underside of his purpling mushroom-head, marveling at how silky it felt compared to the shaft.
Heat pooled in my core, which continued to clamp and clench around nothing. His deep pleasured noises filled my ears, and wetness gathered in my folds. I wanted to spend the rest of the day exploring his body with my tongue, but my inner furnace needed that ride more than ever.
The muscles of Hades’ torso quivered with restraint. “You weren’t joking when you said you wanted a taste.”
“But now I want the main course.” Releasing his shaft, I rose up to my knees and closed the distance between us so we were chest to chest.
Hades reached down and held himself by the base. “You want to fuck?”
“More than anything.”
With my hands on my shoulders to steady myself, I positioned myself on top of him. His thick cock-head brushed against my clit, sending an explosion of pleasure down my slit.
A pleasant shiver traveled down my spine. If he could do that to me with one touch, the rest would be spectacular.
I reached down, replacing his hand with mine, and guided the tip of his erection to slide down my slick folds and to my opening.
We locked gazes as I sank onto his shaft, both of us breathing hard and fast and in sync. The first stretch bordered on pain, making my breath catch. I dug my nails into his flesh and continued impaling myself. The discomfort gave into a delicious pleasure that made my toes curl.
I was so hot, so wet, so eager to be filled. Panting through my parted lips, I pushed down and hungered for more.
Hades clutched my hips, holding me steady. He smirked, his eyes burning with desire. “I’ve committed this body to memory, and it’s haunted my most fervent dreams, but I don’t ever recall it being quite so tight.”
I clenched my teeth. “Would you believe Mother restored my virginity?”
“Yes,” he snarled. “Move up, and I’ll ease you in with my fingers—”
“No.” I grabbed his shoulders with all my strength, and lowered myself further, taking him inch by expanding inch. “Bloody Hell,” I growled. “Even my last body wasn’t this oversensitive.”
