Dark Kings

by Sadie Moss

  One of my legs hitches around his waist as a shocked cry falls from my lips, all my muscles tensing and contracting.

  “Fuckin’ hell,” he grits out.

  His movements slow, the thrusts of his hips becoming harder and jerkier. Then his whole body shudders against me as a low groan rumbles in his chest. His grip on my butt is so tight I’m sure I’ll be able to see the marks of his fingers later, and he keeps me pressed tightly to him as the last of the tremors pass from my body to his and back again.

  As the orgasm fades from my system, I blink stupidly.

  Holy crap. What just happened?

  I just…

  Did he just…?

  Holy crap.

  Ford finally yanks himself back, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand as he breathes heavily. There’s a dark spot at the front of his pants, the fabric tented over his still semi-hard length, and the sight of it makes my belly do a little flip-flop.

  He came. In his pants.

  I don’t think he meant to. I don’t think he meant to do any of that. It’s like he couldn’t help himself, like the attraction crackling between us was too much for him to bear.

  The thought makes my heart race, a fresh jolt of arousal shooting through me.

  I’m panting; my whole body feels like a limp noodle, and if it weren’t for the wall behind me holding me up, I’d be a puddle on the floor. That orgasm was hard, fast, and wild, and it feels like I’m still riding it. I had no idea my body was even capable of sensations like that. I didn’t know that roughness could feel good.

  We stare at each other for a moment, both of us breathing hard. I have no idea what to do.

  “Get ready,” Ford says, his voice rough like it’s been scraped out from the bottom of a barrel.

  Then he leaves without another word.

  For a couple minutes, I don’t even try to move. I just rest my head against the wall and stare up at the ceiling, drawing in deep lungfuls of air.

  Finally, I press away from the wall and walk back over to the mirror on wobbly legs. Oh, man. I’m an absolute mess. My hair’s a total bird’s nest, my lipstick is smeared all over my face, and my dress is twisted on my body.

  I can’t believe I did that. That we did that.

  The worst part is that I’m kind of turned on all over again, looking at myself like this. I look completely wrecked. I look like I’ve just had a dirty tryst up against the wall in a back-alley bar.

  I look the opposite of an angel.

  And a part of me kind of likes it.

  Pull yourself together, Trin, I tell myself sternly. You’re a warrior. You’re a badass bitch.

  I’m aware that my language has definitely gotten a lot more coarse since I started spending time with the sins, but there’s something powerful and fortifying about curse words.

  And right now, I need all the fortification I can get.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Trinity

  I fix up my hair and makeup and make sure that I’m all done up in my dress, even if I’m still not sure that I look all that good in it. But whether I can pull this look off or not is a moot point now, because we’ve got to go.

  “Angel, we don’t have all day,” Beckett calls a while later from the living room. “I know time moves differently up Above, but sometime this millennium would be ideal.”

  I slip my high heels on—oh, sheesh, I am not used to doing that, please don’t let me fall over—and walk out to join the four men. “Okay, okay. I’m ready.”

  Beckett is standing near the window wearing a tuxedo. All of them are in tuxedos, actually, although I notice some subtle differences in each one, such as in the lining. Beckett’s lining is green, Ford’s is red, Remington’s is pink, and Phoenix’s is blue. They all look far too handsome for their own good—or, rather, for mine. I need to stop being so attracted to all of them and focus.

  I’m busy trying to calm myself, so it takes me a moment to realize that all the men are staring at me.

  Ford’s jaw is tight, although he doesn’t have the same surprised expression on his face as the others—which makes sense, seeing as how he already saw me in my bedroom. He’s the reason I took so long getting ready, since I basically had to do it all over again after he wrecked my hair and makeup.

  But the other three? They look…

  Oh, for goodness’ sake, it doesn’t matter how they’re looking at me! Why should I care if they’re gazing at me as if they’ve never seen anything quite like me before? As if I’ve knocked them into stunned silence?

  I don’t care what their opinion of me is. And I still feel ridiculous in this dress. So there.

  “Can we go?” I ask when the quiet stretches on and it looks like none of the men are going to stop staring at me with unreadable expressions on their faces.

  Beckett seems to snap out of it first. He glares down at the floor, obviously irritated that I’ve affected him at all.

  “Yes. Of course. We should head out.” He then glares at the other three, like it’s their fault we’re not moving.

  “Shall we?” Remington steps forward, offering me his arm.

  It’s such a gentlemanly, chivalrous gesture—so different from the dirty things he did to me earlier today. Somehow, the contrast between those two sides of him warms my chest, and despite the nerves buzzing inside me, I slip my arm through his.

  We take the elevator down to the garage, and as we drive to our destination, my nervousness grows until my hands are actually shaking.

  I’m not ready for this. Not at all. I have no idea what’s in store for me, and I really don’t know if I’m up for it.

  We roll up to what looks like a perfectly normal, perfectly boring nursery—the type for plants, not the type for babies. I’m not sure why a plant store, of all things, is where these people felt the need to hide their casino entrance, but once we get inside, I realize why.

  Horses do need grass to graze on and space to run around, after all.

  “Oh my goodness,” I whisper as we step inside the large greenhouse and a pegasus comes trotting toward us.

  The creature looks like a large, well-groomed horse—except unlike regular horses, this one has magnificent, beautiful wings. As I stare in awe, I catch sight of several other pegasi behind him walking around the greenhouse, which seems to be bigger on the inside than on the outside. There’s a sleek black one with feathers that gleam like a midnight sky, a dappled one with wings that look like a speckled eggshell, and a pure white one with wings similar to mine.

  They’re gorgeous. I’ve never seen anything like them.

  A small pang of sadness twists my stomach at the thought.

  I’ve been living on Earth for thirty years, but it seems like there’s so much I’ve missed out on down here. So much I haven’t seen or done.

  Beckett speaks to some man who appears to be in charge, although I don’t think he’s a human man—or at least, not entirely human. There’s something about him that seems off, something about the way he moves. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s like he’s imitating human movements, rather than actually doing them because it’s natural for him. Sort of like the bug-alien living in Vincent D’Onofrio’s body in Men in Black.

  “We’ll each need to take one,” Remington explains quietly to me. “The casino is up in the clouds, kept aloft by magic and… something to do with magnets. I’m not sure how it works. But it’s a combination of science and magic.”

  I glance over at him, wide-eyed. I could just fly up to this casino, if it’s really up in the air like that. My wings would definitely carry me. But they’ve got to have some kind of security in place to prevent people from entering the casino in a non-sanctioned way, and using my wings would out me as an angel immediately. The main point of our mission is to slip in undercover, after all.

  Beckett strides back to us. “All right, we’ve got passage. Let’s all try to behave ourselves while we’re there, shall we?” He looks pointedly at Ford, but then, to my surprise, h
is gaze shifts to Remington—who, if you ask me, is the best behaved out of all of them.

  Remington gets an adorably sheepish look on his face and shrugs. “Gamblers are gluttons,” he explains.

  Ah, that makes sense.

  A pegasus is brought to each of us, and I’m given the beautiful black one. I stroke her neck, feeling the warmth of her and the softness of her hide. “You’re beautiful,” I coo softly. “You like having wings? It’s pretty great, right?”

  She huffs a soft whinny, and I smile, petting her nose.

  When I turn to climb up onto her, I find the four men looking at me. I can’t read their expressions, but I feel warmth flutter in my stomach all the same.

  Remington looks like he might move forward to help me—I’ve never been on a horse before, and the prospect of climbing onto one in a dress is rather daunting—but to my surprise, Beckett steps forward instead. “Here.”

  He lifts me up and helps me swing a leg over so that I’m properly seated. The high slit in the dress accommodates the movement, but it reveals a large swath of my thigh in the process. Beckett’s gaze drops to my leg, and his grip tightens on my waist for a moment. Then he quickly retracts his hands and strides over to his own pegasus.

  The not-quite-human caretaker makes an odd, insect-like clicking noise with his mouth, and the pegasi politely trot out through the back of the large greenhouse, the reins and halters glowing, and with a mighty flap of their wings, they launch themselves into the sky.

  I’m not sure, but I think the halters and reins have something to do with keeping them invisible as we swoop and circle upward. It’s exhilarating—almost but not quite like when I’m flying myself—and I whoop a little, a wide grin spreading over my face. I really don’t love anything as much as I love flying.

  As we get higher, the casino comes into view. I inhale sharply. It looks like those old ideas of what people thought a fairytale palace or Mount Olympus would look like. Shining and gorgeous, emerging from the clouds.

  It’s all part of a marketing trick, of course. I’m sure the proprietors want people to be enticed and curious so that they’ll come inside and gamble all their money away. But for a moment, I can’t help but marvel at it.

  The pegasi fly up and land on the solid ground of what seems to be a combination of horse stables and a massive driveway entrance for visitors, and I’m startled by how it all looks and feels just like a normal street, like we’re still on the ground instead of hundreds of feet up in the air. I can’t see any guard rails, and my stomach flips over.

  I have wings—I’ll be fine. But what about someone else? Has anyone ever stumbled over the edge and plummeted to their death?

  Phoenix seems to notice my distress. He rolls his eyes. “Oh, c’mon, sugar, these guys thought of everything. There’s a force field around this whole thing. If you try to just walk off the edge, you bounce back. It’s all good.”

  He gives me a lazy grin, then saunters off. Well. I guess that was his attempt to be comforting?

  Ford’s nose is wrinkled as he gets down off his pegasus. He looks so angry and imposing all the time that seeing him on a winged horse is hilarious. Not that I’d ever tell him that. I think the worst insult you could possibly give the personification of Wrath is that he looks silly.

  “All right,” Beckett says, adjusting his cuffs even though he doesn’t have a thread out of place. “Everyone ready? Let’s go.”

  We follow him to the entrance, where a doorman with white gloves opens the door for us. It’s only once I pass him that I realize he has goat legs instead of human legs—he’s a satyr.

  Before I can say anything, I’m swept inside by the men around me, and suddenly I’ve got a lot more to think about than a satyr as a doorman.

  This is… incredible.

  In the most literal sense of the word. I’m having trouble believing that this is actually all real and in front of my eyes.

  The whole room is glittering, and it looks like everything’s coated in gold. I can feel my mouth falling open as I stare around me. Everyone is dressed to the nines, and I’m sure this is fancier than any casino you’d find in Las Vegas. Besides, the casinos in Vegas don’t have strange creatures roaming around their floors.

  Just like at the fighting pit where we picked up Ford, there are creatures of all kinds everywhere.

  Satyrs like the doorman seem to be functioning as both waiters and guests. There are no vampires—or none that I can see anyway, except maybe one woman who’s wearing all black and red and has every inch of herself covered from the harsh, sparkling lights, including a lace veil hanging down over her face. But I can’t tell for sure.

  Unlike the fighting pit, nobody here is angry, violent, or thirsting for blood. They remind me of the people at Remington’s restaurant, actually. Everyone’s here because they want one thing.

  They want to indulge.

  To be fulfilled.

  My companions seem to feel right at home here, looking around, each of their eyes flaring as they take in the power of the people giving into the sins of sloth, greed, gluttony, and wrath.

  But I don’t feel at home at all. I feel like I’ve stepped into somewhere new and exotic; terrifying but strangely exciting too.

  The men are right, I realize.

  I’ve lived here for thirty years, and there’s still so little I know about this world.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Trinity

  “Fan out,” Beckett murmurs quietly to his brothers. “We need to cover as much ground as possible. This’ll go much better if we find the mark quickly.”

  The others nod, even Phoenix, who I’m sure is still resentful of having to do any work at all.

  Okay. That means it’s time for me to slip into my role as a cocktail waitress.

  So, full disclosure: I’ve never drunk alcohol before. I’ve just never really seen the appeal, I guess. Why would I bother? It tastes nasty, and I never needed to get drunk to have fun, or feel different, or escape my life. Besides, people get drunk together, for fun, and I never had anyone to do that with. So, really, what was the point?

  But even though I’ve never had alcohol, I’ve seen plenty of movies and television that included a lot of booze. I even bought a book once called Tequila Mockingbird that had all these cocktail recipes that were puns on book titles, just because I’m a sucker for puns. And I’ve seen a lot of films that take place in casinos. Every single Ocean’s Eleven movie, Casino Royale, the works.

  I neatly grab a tray that’s sitting on the edge of the bar and balance it in one hand, moving through the casino. I move my hips, swaying them from side to side as I walk, and adopt a sophisticated-but-bored expression. I’ve seen it on the face of every cocktail waitress in every fancy establishment in James Bond films.

  Posing as a waitress was a smart choice. Most people don’t even look at me, or at least not my face, as I take empty glasses and distribute drinks. It makes me invisible, in a way. I can see everyone, observe them, but nobody pays attention to me or what I’m doing.

  I kind of wish one of the men was with me, but then I scold myself for such a thought. I don’t need—okay, so I do need them, that’s a fact, but that doesn’t mean I need one of them with me at all times. I don’t need a babysitter. I can handle this myself.

  Besides, I shouldn’t be getting too attached to any of these men. I shouldn’t get used to having them around me. I’m supposed to be redeeming them. That’s it.

  “Hey, sweetheart.” One of the patrons at the roulette table smiles up at me. He’s older, and looks mostly human, but his eyes are yellow and slit like a snake’s. “Get me another gin and tonic, wouldja?” He squeezes my ass.

  My mouth falls open in shock. Since arriving on Earth, I’ve had some moments where a coworker would leer at me a little or say something creepy. And I’ve been catcalled, a lot more than I would’ve thought when I first fell. But no one’s ever been this blatant before.

  Before I can say or do anything—not that
I’m even sure what I would say or do—another hand shoots out to wrap around the man’s wrist.

  “Hey, buddy. I’m sure you don’t wanna do that. Groping an innocent woman who’s just tryin’ to do her job? All the trouble it would cause—would it really be worth it? The managers yelling at you… the other patrons judging you… what if she fights back and breaks your hand or something? Why not just pay for a hooker later tonight instead? Far less work, and isn’t that why you’re here? No work, just relaxing?”

  I stare, my eyes feeling like they’re going to fall out of my head as I watch Phoenix’s eyes glow blue. The personification of Sloth, making someone else be lazy and feeding off of it.

  The man nods, as if in a daze, and his hand slides away from me back onto the table.

  “Come on, sweetheart, let’s get the fuck away from this lech,” Phoenix murmurs, putting his hand lightly against the small of my back and guiding me away.

  “I could’ve handled that,” I say, my mouth forming the words automatically.

  What I really want to do is ask him why he went out of his way to help me. That seems to go directly against his philosophy of doing as little work as possible. The slothful thing to do, the lazy thing, would’ve been to just hang out, eat some popcorn, and watch.

  “Yeah, I’m sure you could’ve, but then there might’ve been some kind of crazy fucking scene, and the last thing we want is to draw attention.” Phoenix pauses, staring into my face. “You okay?”

  I nod. I’m fine. It wasn’t fun, of course. I feel a little bit dirty where the old man touched me, slimy, and a part of me wants to go back and punch him in the face. But mostly, I’m busy being shocked that Phoenix has gone out of his way for me.