by Dante King
“Auntie!” Mareth moved first. Any trace of the antipathy she’d had toward Lucifer’s ex-wife had been washed away by the hot, primal threesome we’d experienced. She actually looked happy to see Lilith—which was something I never thought I’d say about the succubus. She rushed forward and embraced her, both of them giggling at the look on my face. “I’m so glad you could join us!”
“How the fuck did you all do that?” I muttered. I could understand it if they’d all been out here half-naked and looking freshly fucked, but none of my harem girls had so much as a hair out of place. Even if they’d started bathing, dressing and applying makeup the moment I left Siobhan’s tent, they never would have been ready in time.
It was Maddie who answered. “Magic,” my angelic girlfriend purred.
“Duh!” Christina agreed, planting a demure kiss on my cheek as she gave what was between my legs a very un-demure squeeze. “We wouldn’t miss your big day for the world, Luke. I’m looking forward to kicking some angelic ass!”
“It will be… disturbing to face off against my former students,” Eiko said, her robe drawn tightly around her. “But I feel no such compunction about the Fae. The Unseelie will feel the bite of my steel before the battle is done!”
Of all my harem, only Raquelle noticed the problem. It would be her, of course.
“Uhhh,” the redheaded angel muttered, leaning around the group to stare down Lilith. “Where the fuck’s our backup? Aren’t we supposed to have, like, an entire army of demons going into battle with us—”
Raquelle trailed off. Because suddenly, we did.
As Lilith’s smile widened, the demoness slowly spread her hands like someone trying to open an automatic door whose sensor was broken. Far behind her, in the sky overlooking the crumbling castle, a portal much larger than any I’d ever seen was beginning to open. Demonic figures poured through, some running, some flying, some crawling on all fours like great, lumbering beasts.
“Then his band of demons joined in,” I said, starting to laugh. “And it sounded something like this…”
It was everybody. Every fucking student at the Infernal Academy.
Lilith had managed to round up the entire student body to follow us into battle. I recognized dozens of faces as the full brunt of the force spilled from the portal, each of which broke into a laugh of recognition as they saw me standing at the head of a Fae army.
There was Xora the rusalka, riding a spiny-backed, insectoid demon like a surfboard. Christina’s frequent sparring partner Bryan charged near the front of the pack, while their mutual sparring partner Aztomund flew overhead, the rays of early morning sunlight sparkling on his shiny beetle armor.
Even the parking attendants had been swayed by Lilith’s fervor. The valets of Hell had stolen—or, rather, ‘borrowed’—vehicles from the student parking deck, tricked them out with weapons and were now riding them into battle like one of the raider gangs out of Mad Max.
Later on, I’d learn that Karl, the demon I’d beaten in the dormitories after he’d tried to kidnap Maddie, had joined the fight as well after recently regrowing his body. Apparently, his personal hatred toward me wasn’t enough to cancel out his sense of self-preservation at having his little on-campus kingdom wiped out by Queen Titania.
Either that, or he was hoping to save on tuition.
I didn’t see him then, however, and have no idea how I would have reacted if I’d spotted him. Maddie’s abduction was too fresh a wound for me to easily forgive.
“As I promised you,” Lilith said as the army of demons assembled. “The cavalry has arrived.”
Tears spilled down the faces of the soldiers in Siobhan’s army. Looking back on it, I don’t think any of them believed until that moment that I could really come through with my promise. They’d thought we’d be fighting alone against Titania, facing down a combined army of Angels and Unseelie Fae.
But instead of being hopelessly outnumbered, we now had a fighting chance.
Xora, Bryan, and Aztomund all reached the platform where my harem and I stood. They looked impressed by the number of women surrounding me—Aztomund even gave me a little high five as he took his place on the dais.
“Luke Bell,” Xora purred, playing with a lock of her long, silver hair. “By the Devil himself, you have done well, haven’t you?”
The rusalka was halfway between her ordinary form and her transformed, demonic one. Her shapely body retained most of its attractive appearance, while the fangs in her mouth were sharp as knives and long as fingers. I didn’t regret not adding her to my harem, exactly—but I wasn’t clamoring to beg for her to join me, either.
“Something like that,” I said, gesturing at all the women surrounding me. “I’m a lucky son of a bitch, for sure.”
“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Xora said, cocking her head to the side. “Who would have thought that the day I gave you your tour of the Infernal Academy, you’d end up owning the place?”
Christina and Mareth raised their hands. “We did,” they chorused, naughty grins on both of their faces.
As Xora rolled her eyes, I stepped past her to where Lilith stood giving orders to her troops. The Headmistress looked to have thought all of this through beforehand, organizing the Infernal Academy’s student body quickly and efficiently into a fighting force of tanks, mages and shock troopers. I felt like a general on the eve of his most decisive battle.
Lilith tensed up as I reached her. “We’re almost ready to move,” she said quickly, the ghost of a smile flickering across her inhumanly beautiful face. “Final preparations are being made as we speak.”
That was good, of course. But I had something different on my mind. “You didn’t tell them,” I said, dropping my voice and grinning as I leaned forward. “None of these demons know about you and me, do they?”
From the way her face paled, I knew I’d hit right on the money. Lilith looked as if she’d swallowed something bitter, her haughtiness waging war with her desire to serve me.
“I didn’t feel it was necessary information,” the Headmistress purred, trying her best to make it sound like it was my idea to conceal Lilith’s new line of work. “We can make an announcement once the battle is won. Maybe even have a ceremony—”
“Hey, Luke!” That was Aztomund, who stood with Christina and Mareth before a table that had just been assembled, covered in weapons. The beetle-backed demon had chosen a massive warhammer from the demonic items on display, and was trying to get Christina and Mareth to pick something, too. “Come get something cool! They’ve opened up the Wrath Markets to everyone who wants to fight—you don’t have to save up any more!”
“That’s nice,” I said, nodding at my girls to go and pick out weapons. “But I’ve got everything I need right here.”
I gestured to my pitchfork, then pulled it free. A pillar of flame rose into the sky, provoking appreciative cheers from the student body.
“Holy shit, that’s awesome!” Aztomund said, nudging Bryan to get him to see. “How the hell did you get your hands on Lucifer’s pitchfork?”
“He gave it to him,” Bryan hissed. “Duh.”
I shook my head. “Lilith was holding onto it for safekeeping. It’s mine now… just like her.”
I said it loud enough for everyone around us to hear. It took a moment for the words to sink in—and in that moment, Lilith put her face in her hands and growled with sheer frustration. All for the better, I supposed, because she wouldn’t have liked the looks of shock and awe on the faces of her former students one bit.
“Oh fuck,” Xora said, all the color draining from her face until it was as silvery as her hair. “You bound Lucifer’s ex-wife to you!? Luke, that bitch is crazier than a bag of snakes—”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing. “I’ve got her under control,” I said, slipping my arm around the demoness’s waist. “Besides, I’m pretty sure Lucifer and I have an understanding. You let me worry about that.”
The revelation passed quickly through t
he crowd. Suddenly everyone was whispering, and it didn’t take a fucking rocket scientist to notice the way they were pointing at me and Lilith. I couldn’t tell if they thought I was the luckiest man in Hell, a crazy bastard, or both.
This moment calls for a speech, I thought, looking Lilith up and down. Let them know I’m in control—and that I plan to win.
“Step up here with me,” I said, gentler than even I’d expected. Lilith’s eyes snapped open, surprise filling her face as I gestured for her to join me at the podium. “Let’s get this show on the road. I’m gonna need you up here with me, Lilith. Not to mention by my side on the battlefield.”
“I… Of course,” she said, some of the reluctance dropping off her face.
There was a perfectly nice, giving demon inside of Lilith somewhere—she’d tried her best to kill it over the years, but I was bringing it back piece by piece. Once we had some peacetime to hang out a little more, I was looking forward to seeing the real her.
I stepped up to the podium as a hush fell over the crowd. They hung on my every word, ready to hear the promises the future Lord of Hell would make to them. This was my moment. Would I reach out and take it, or fail and let Queen Titania rule the Realms?
Amplifying my voice with magic, I cleared my throat. Lilith stood up straighter next to me, looking every bit the Queen of Hell she’d once been. On my arm she looked both regal and terrifying, gorgeous and filled with barely concealed horror. I don’t think I’d ever loved her more than I did in that moment.
“It’s good to see you all again,” I said, swallowing down my worries. I’d never been the best at public speaking, but here I was literally preaching to the choir—my choir. “I’ve never been the most obedient student of the Infernal Academy, but I guess that’s what it’s all about, right? We’re all here because of the original act of disobedience: Lucifer’s.”
The crowd was nodding along. These people were primed and ready to go to war—they just needed me to light the fuse.
“Back on Earth, I thought I was free,” I said, real emotion entering my voice. “But I was blind. I had no idea what true freedom was until I met the original insurrectionist—the original revolutionary. Lucifer teaches that disobedience doesn’t make a person bad—it makes them a person! Queen Titania wants to take that right away from you. She wants to conquer all of the Realms and bring them under her thumb. She wants you to obey. Will you?”
“No!” the crowd chorused, lifting their weapons.
“Are we obedient?” I asked.
“No!”
“What are we?”
“Disobedient!”
“You’re damned right,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. “Or maybe you’re just damned. But either way—you’re damned with me!”
My last trick happened right at the end of the speech.
Godfrey, who’d I’d spoken with briefly before wading into the fray, came hovering over the crowd, the windows of his battle tank open. Heavy metal spilled from the hovercraft’s advanced speakers, amplified by magic until every single demonic soldier could feel it humming in their blood.
“We march!” I growled, pointing to the north. Flames exploded along my pitchfork, showing the way. “To victory! To the death of Queen Titania! To the triumph of Hell!”
As demons sprang forward, flying and walking and crawling on their way to battle, Lilith sidled up next to me.
“That was an inspiring speech,” Lucifer’s ex-wife whispered. “I wish you’d saved that little revelation about my new position until after the battle, however—”
She’d picked the wrong time to complain.
All keyed up from the speech, I felt bold—which meant I had no problem reaching down and giving Lilith’s ass a hard, hearty spank. Right in front of the demons and Fae who hadn’t yet cleared out of the camp.
“If you’re going to get along with the rest of us, Lilith,” I said, noting both the offense and the arousal in the demoness’s eyes, “you’re going to need to learn a few things first.”
I looked over my army. My people. My kingdom.
“I do what I want,” I said, the hand that had spanked her now openly groping the Headmistress’s ass in front of everyone. If she wasn’t clearly loving it, she might have been embarrassed. “And you and the rest of my girls get the privilege of being along for the ride.”
Lilith looked like she wanted to be pissed off but was too turned on to feel anything else. “So it’s a privilege, is it?”
“Absolutely!” I laughed. “Lilith, I’ve got the most amazing life in the universe. I don’t need you—I don’t need any of these women. I can get anything in that army with a pair of tits and pussy just by snapping my fingers. You remember that, the next time you want to mouth off.”
With that, I left the Headmistress of the Infernal Academy utterly speechless. I brandished my big, flaming pitchfork, feeling a surge of power in my veins.
“Come on,” I said, grinning to soothe away Lilith’s hurt feelings. “Let’s go save the world.”
Chapter 22
It wasn’t a good day to die. But Queen Titania didn’t look terribly choosy.
The sound of an epic guitar solo roared over the battlefield as I arrived. I had Godfrey’s speakers cranked all the way to eleven as the hovercraft soared to the front of my army, the heavy battle tank touching down a few feet over the ground.
“Here we go,” Maddie whispered from the passenger seat. She looked intimated, sure, but also ready. I took a moment to check the rearview and look over the disposition of the rest of my harem. Godfrey was now big enough to fit the whole group—with a few extra seats for Xora, Bryan, Aztomund and Desdemona the valet.
It was maybe the first time in my life my girls didn’t look like they were thinking about tearing each other’s clothes off. The weapons they’d looted from the now open Pride Market lay in their hands, each as black as midnight and as vicious as a charging panther. The army would do its job to hold back the main force of Queen Titania’s troops, to be sure—but I had no illusions about where the battle would really be fought.
It would be up to me and mine to take out the heavy hitters on Titania’s side—the Angels in charge of the Celestial Academy, the Unseelie Fae, and the Queen herself. The air was electric with expectation as the universal grudge match rapidly approached.
To my surprise, I found a welcoming party waiting for us. Queen Titania hadn’t dared to show her face at the front, but Judyth Dominia stood a handful of yards beyond where Godfrey had touched down, surrounded by a group of hyper-powerful Angels and Fae. In sharp contrast to the Headmistress I’d seen behind bars in the Castle of Days, Judyth looked smug and in control—as if she’d already seen in the stars that today was to be her victory day.
I knew it wasn’t. Eiko hadn’t been able to see a damned thing about this battle. Which meant I’d have to make my own luck.
“Luke Bell,” Judyth said, cupping her hand around her mouth. “I carry a message from Queen Titania. An offer of truce.”
I glanced at Maddie, then back at Lilith. The Headmistress of the Infernal Academy sat between Mareth and Christina, looking happy and content for the first time in her long, long life.
“It’s a trap, of course,” Lilith said, rolling her eyes. “But we might as well see what she wants.”
Within moments, all of us were outside of Godfrey. The hovercraft kept its guns trained on the front line of Judyth’s heavy hitters, but I had no illusions that a simple rail gun would be enough to take any of them out. These creatures were powerful, the stuff of myths and legends.
More than a few of them looked taken aback when I pulled out my pitchfork, though. They hadn’t seen that coming.
“Demon!” one of Judyth’s cronies hissed. She silenced the disobedient heavy with a wave of her hand—but when Maddie and Raquelle stepped forward, the hissing and booing became a chorus. These angels did not like seeing members of their own tribe on the opposite side.
An angel stepped forward f
rom the pack, looking close to weeping.
With a start, I realized it was the man Maddie and I had met at the Pearly Gates—the one who oversaw the entrance to the Celestial Academy. It had been so long that I couldn’t remember his name.
“Madeleine,” the angel said, something like real grief in his voice. He didn’t look like he wanted to be here—he would, because that was his duty, but his heart wasn’t in it. “And Raquelle. Raquelle, what in the name of Heaven have you done to your beautiful wings?”
The red-headed angel looked down at her black and white feathers, frowning as if she were seeing them for the first time. “What, this? I made them beautiful, Myles. That’s what you and your friends refuse to see.”
Myles, I thought, the word blossoming in my brain. Myles Featherfinger. One of the stewards of the Celestial Academy.
Myles shook his head, holding back tears with a visible effort. “I hate to see the way you two have wasted yourselves, shackling your futures to a monster like him!” The angel pointed with a quavering finger at me, staring me down as if I was the Lord of Hell himself.
Not yet, pal, I thought, twirling my pitchfork with a knowing smirk.
“And you,” Myles said, his lips twisting with distaste. “I had such high hopes for you, Madeleine! You’ll never get your halo working on the side of demons, dear girl. Turn back now, while you still can—”
Maddie cut him off with a snarl. I don’t think I’d ever seen my angelic girlfriend more pissed off than she was at that moment. Maddie was normally such an easy-going girl, but something about Myles’s judgement raised her hackles in a way no one else had ever been able to match.
“Honestly?” Maddie leaned forward with an insolent air. “Fuck your halo, then!”
Angels gasped up and down the front line. “Such disrespect!” someone shouted. The troops nearest Judyth adjusted their own headgear, as if the jibe had made them keenly aware of the glowing haloes they themselves wore.
“I belong to Luke,” Maddie said, stepping forward and rising to her full height. “When I was a waitress in some shitty diner back on Earth, it was Luke who gave me an opportunity to be something greater. When demons tried to eat me in the Infernal Academy, Luke stepped in and fought them off. Not any of you!”
