Sins of the Damned (Fallen Cities: Elisium Book 2)

by Elena Lawson

  The old woman shakes her, and I can hear her nasally voice shouting. She slaps the girl across her face, and the smallest whimper croaks from her lips.

  Her eyes roll back as I reach her, and the light in her soul splutters, going out like a snuffed wick. The old woman drops the girl with disgust and sneers to another, equally hideous and beady eyed twin to her right. “Dead,” she says. “Useless. I told you we should have bought the elder of the two.”

  It’s then that I recognize them and something inside of me snaps.

  They are the women who bought Artemis.

  This Nephilim girl is just the latest in what is most likely a string of dead innocents forced into slavery in Elisium.

  “Crones!” Comes a throaty bellow, and I see a giant horned demon with scalding red eyes watching the women from afar. His voice booms, cutting through all the others. “Heal your opponent or withdraw.”

  The Old Crone kicks the corpse of the girl and unleashes a feral cry, tossing her hands up. “Withdraw!”

  She would do more than that.

  Distantly, I can hear Kincaid behind me, telling me he would deal with them, but I’m not listening. My skin tingles all over as I draw in energy like pulling water through a sieve.

  I can see their souls. Dirty, vile things. Barely there, but just enough to grip on to as I feel for their edges. A foul taste like rotten fruit coats my tongue and slithers into my belly, making it roil but I do not stop.

  I do not stop when each of the Crones is gripped into stillness from my hold. Nor do I waver even when their eyes bulge and their beady pupils lock on to mine in a mixture of rage and terror. No. I revel in it. I think I may be smiling as the noises of The Freakshow hush and then spur to life anew.

  What these vile women did to this girl, what they did to Artemis—they would never do again. I wasn’t willing to gamble with pulling Artemis’ soul from his body for fear that I may not be able to drop it back inside. That fear doesn’t exist here.

  And I have no intention of putting them back.

  Pain like a battering ram knocking from temple to temple begins inside my skull, speckling my vision with stars. I remove my bracelets and drop them to the ground, finding a brand new rush of delicious power. The ground beneath my feet trembles.

  I push and pull, tearing their souls from their bodies. It’s like trying to pull apart the fabric of the universe. It should be impossible, and yet it comes loose thread by thread, made pliable by the grip of my power.

  They fray apart until their filthy little lights go out and their lifeless corpses drop to the earth.

  I come back to myself, dropping to my knees as I cough up a mixture of soul bile and blood from my throat, spitting it onto the ground.

  The corpses tremble and twitch and the surrounding crowd cry out in surprise.

  “The bracelets,” Kincaid mutters in a dangerous tone and shoves them back on my wrist, making the reanimating corpses of the Nephilim girl and the two Diablim women go still once more.

  He lifts me and my face presses against the warm dark of his chest as he bears me away at inhuman speeds. Out of the fighting pits. Out through the trees. Until The Freakshow is only a muted glow in the distance. Until the voices are indistinguishable from the deadened sound of thudding music and we are alone.

  9

  “Na’vazēm?” His rough voice summons me out from within—out from the place where I was still ensconced in power inside. It’s like a tremble in my fingertips. The aftereffects of the power draw thrummed in my blood like a seductive song, trying to coerce me into using it to the last drop.

  I found my corporeal body and forced my slitted eyes to open fully, rolling my head back to peer up at him.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I jerk my head side to side, clenching my fingers and wiggling my toes just to make sure it’s the truth. My strength returns in spades as I come back into my body from wherever I’d been inside of my own mind, and I sigh against the suddenly heavy feeling in my chest.

  Our eyes meet, and in them I see a likeness.

  “What you did back there, anyone would have done the same. I wish you wouldn’t have drawn so much attention, but do not feel guilt for—”

  “What?”

  Did he think I regretted it?

  Slowly, I see the truth dawn in his eyes, and he looks at me strangely, like perhaps he’s never seen me properly before.

  “They deserved to die,” I tell him, deadpan. “Just like Ford did.”

  I wriggle in his grip, sensing something out of place. Something doesn’t feel right.

  It takes me a moment to put my finger on it as Kincaid lowers us on the carpet of leaves until I’m seated on his raised knee with my feet back on the ground. It isn’t me who’s out of place. It’s him.

  “Kincaid,” I say in a breath, incredulous as I press my hands to his chest, slipping them beneath the collar of his tunic to rest against his bare flesh.

  He grunts but doesn’t stop me as I shut my eyes, feeling with that other sense. The one still buzzing with unspent power in my bones. “I can feel it…”

  “Feel what, Na’vazēm?”

  “Your soul.”

  It flutters deep within him, and against my eyelids I can see the faintest flick of color. An iridescent blue. When I open my eyes again and meet his, I see that it clings to him on the outside, too. So faint that I’d never see it unless I was searching for it. A flicker of life. His spirit aura.

  His brows draw together. “I don’t have a soul, Na’vazēm,” he says. “Not anymore.”

  I smirk, bringing my hands up to his face to pull his attention back to me. “I can see it,” I promise him. “It’s faint. Barely a whisper. But it’s there.”

  Something in him breaks at my words, and the mask of indifference he wears for all the rest is stripped away. He’s flayed bare to me. His eyes search mine and when they fall briefly to my lips, I can’t stop myself.

  My hands curl around his head and slip into his black hair, brushing against the ribbed surface of his horns as I press my mouth to his. He shudders beneath me, his still part-demon hands clawing into my back in the most exquisite way. On the verge of inflicting pain, but just restrained enough to avoid it.

  His chest rumbles against mine and my nipples pebble, hips arching as his hands slip beneath the hem of my shirt, rough fingertips grazing up the sensitive sides of my ribcage. A moan expands in my throat and he goes berserk.

  The almost sweet kiss turns into something else entirely. His tongue slips into my mouth just as his grip on my waist tightens, lifting and lowering until my back is in the dirt and I’ve forgotten how to breathe. My hips lift to meet him as he settles over me, pressing firmly into the solid steel of his cock.

  Another moan escapes, and he catches my lower lip between his teeth, biting and sucking as he grinds down against my sex.

  The aching flutter in my belly spreads like wildfire, making my thighs clench and my cheeks flare. It’s the most beautiful agony I’ve ever felt, and I want more.

  I want it all.

  I find the swell of his cock with my hand, and he groans into my mouth before moving to trace a line of fevered kisses down my throat. Palming him through his dark denim jeans isn’t enough though. Not by a long shot.

  I begin to undo the button, but he catches my wrists and jerks them up roughly, pinning them above my head with just one of his hands. “No,” he laments, his gaze wicked with a smoldering fire accented by the sharp angle of his smirk. “I want to taste you.”

  He silences me with one last rough kiss before he releases my hands and rocks back, dragging one clawed finger through the front of my tank top, laying me bare. My chest heaves as the cold dances over the peaks of my breast, and I gasp as his mouth closes over one, tongue swirling around the oversensitive nipple in a way that makes me cry out and bury my fists into his hair.

  My cry only spurs him on, and I help him by lifting my hips as he sucks my other nipple into his mouth while his hands wor
k to inch off my jeans. They’re so big on me that it takes no effort, and he has them, and my panties, off in a flash.

  A part of my mind rebels against the fact that my ass is seated firmly against damp dirt, but whatever rationality that remains is entirely silenced as he moves down, his warm breath fanning over my sex.

  I buck to sitting at the intensity of the sensation, but he plants a hand firmly on my belly until I am flush against the earth once more.

  He doesn’t remove it, holding me still while his head lowers, leaving me to fist my hands into the dirt at my sides. Needing something to hold myself together—to keep myself tethered. Afraid to fall apart.

  “Kincaid,” I whimper, his name turning into a gasp on my lips as his mouth closes over me, erasing every sane thought from my mind.

  He laps at my opening, using his expert tongue to bend me to his will, eliciting a long peal of ecstasy from my lungs. When his fingers push into me, adding pressure to the mind-numbing flicking of his tongue, I see stars.

  He fucks me with his fingers, harder and more rapidly with each passing minute, matching the tempo of his tongue as I try and fail to stifle my cries. My body writhes beneath the hard press of his hand on my belly, hips moving in time with the thrusts of his fingers, riding the wave of ecstasy threatening to spill over my head. Swallow me whole.

  “That’s it, Na’vazēm,” he rasps, and the single second his mouth is gone is way too long. I clutch his hair with my greedy fingers and draw him back down, wrapping my legs tightly around his shoulders. He growls as he takes me into his mouth again, this time with wild abandon until I feel a quickening begin in my core and my breath hitches.

  Kincaid senses the nearness of it because he redoubles his efforts, prodding me to the edge of oblivion. I hasten over it a moment later, splintering into everything and nothing as my climax takes me. The feeling unlike anything I ever imagined. All clenching and raw and almost unbearable in its intensity.

  Dark spots crowd in at the edges of my eyes as I slacken, my limbs tingling and numb as I draw into myself, breathless and gasping. Kincaid leans over me, looping his fingers around the back of my neck to hold my head up.

  He kisses me, and I taste myself on his lips before he presses his forehead against mine and shuts his lust-filled eyes. “Mea Na’vazēm.”

  “Yes,” I agree. “Yours.”

  10

  The distinct silhouette of a man stands on the darkened stoop when Kincaid pulls up at the house.

  Immediately, my senses switch to high alert, and I find myself reaching out from within, trying to discern the shape and feel of the intruder’s spirit. He’s too far away though, and Kincaid lays a hand on mine, making me start.

  “He’s one of mine,” he explains before stepping out of the car, making the whole thing jar and shake with the absence of his weight.

  “Darius.” Kincaid nods in greeting. “What is it?”

  I straighten Kincaid’s jacket over my torn shirt, fastening the two bronze clasps to hold it shut. It does little to cover the swell of my breasts or the slender pane of my stomach, but at least my nipples are covered. It would have to do.

  It wasn’t as if anyone here would judge me. Most of the Diablim women I’d seen were half naked even on a chilly day in Elisium.

  “We found Zak,” the Diablim man called Darius tells Kincaid, eyeing me warily as I approach. He has eyes that are all black from edge to edge, and a strange bird-like quality to his features that’s somehow both bewitching and unnerving.

  “Good.”

  Darius looks between Kincaid and me, and I get the sense he’s waiting for me to leave. I move away, but Kincaid pulls me back, keeping me rooted to his side.

  Taking his master’s cue, Darius continues. “Would you like to deal with him yourself, my lord, or would you have us deal with him for you?”

  “I’ll deal with it, but it will have to wait. I have other matters to attend to.”

  “Anything I can assist with?”

  Kincaid’s lips purse as he considers. “There’s a house in Infernum I need to locate. Reach out to our contacts there and have them find it. A blue house with a rose garden in front. It would be somewhere on the outskirts of the city. Tell them not to get too close if they find it. The one inhabiting it will know I’m coming if she senses something amiss.”

  Darius’ eyes narrow, but he doesn’t ask any further questions. “I’ll have the intel for you within seventy-two hours.”

  “You have forty-eight.”

  Darius departs, and Kincaid and I go inside.

  “How many Diablim do you have under your command?”

  “Taking her to The Freakshow, Kincaid?” a familiar voice demands, and I whirl to find Tori storming toward us from the kitchen with Artemis on her heels. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Tori,” Kincaid grits out. “Always a pleasure.”

  “S-Sorry,” Artemis stutters. “She just kinda barged in.”

  Kincaid’s eyes spark with annoyance. “She has a tendency to do that.”

  Tori rolls her violet eyes at him and comes to embrace me, but stops just shy of wrapping her arms around me, assessing me like a hawk instead. She raises a brow as she pulls a stray leaf from my hair and takes in what I’m wearing. Then her lips part and she gapes at Kincaid.

  I can feel the evidence of what Kincaid and I did out in the woods written in bold print all over my body. I wriggle under Tori’s gaze as she reads it all, looking a little sick after a minute.

  “You okay, love?”

  “I’m fine,” I reply, voice cracking with embarrassment.

  “You seem different.”

  Could be that I’ve been touched by a man—a demon man—in that way for the first time in my life. Could also be the fact that I just killed two Diablim.

  Maybe both.

  Maybe neither.

  I probably just need a bath.

  “Why are you here, Tori?” Kincaid grouses, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “Did you not say I was welcome to be here?” she asks with a challenge in her eyes and a note of impatience in her tone. I want to be her when I grow up.

  For whatever insane reason, she isn’t afraid of Kincaid like everyone else in this devil’s playground. She just doesn’t give a flying fuck about his status or what it should demand from a constituent like herself.

  “You’re testing my patience,” Kincaid warns, and she snickers at him.

  I clasp my hand tightly into Kincaid’s, getting seriously worried he’ll reduce her to a pile of blood and ash at our feet if she keeps going. Kincaid meets my worried gaze with an amused one, and I settle, knowing somehow from that look alone that he has no malintent toward her. No matter how insufferable she can be.

  “I came to warn you,” she says. “And to check on Paige, but I can see you’re taking very good care of her.”

  I wish I could disappear.

  “Get to the point, Tor.”

  “There’s talk among the Nephilim. They’re getting curious, Kincaid. Too curious.”

  “We know.”

  “There’s something else; Carver isn’t in his hole.”

  Both Kincaid and Artemis visibly blanche, and I try not to do the same, making a mental note to make Kincaid explain to me exactly who this Carver is and what he wants with me.

  “I didn’t believe it myself, so I went to check. Carver hasn’t left his hole in a decade, but he wasn’t there. He can’t leave Elisium so… he has to be in the city.”

  “I should have dealt with him at the start,” Kincaid mutters to himself, searching the marble tile at his feet as though an answer is hidden in the reflection.

  “Probably.” Tori shrugs. “Just thought you should know.”

  “I’ve had my men watching his lair for the last few days. Worthless ingrates. If you ever want a job that pays better than selling knickknacks—”

  “I happen to like selling my knickknacks, thank you very much.”

  Kincaid’s lips
lift in the ghost of a smile, and for the first time, I wonder if they have ever had a relationship. It would explain why Tori is so at ease with him, and why he doesn’t cut her down for speaking to him the way she does.

  I’m surprised at the way the thought affects me. Worries me.

  I consider Tori in a new light. An admittedly greener one.

  She’s beautiful. The most beautiful being I’ve encountered in Elisium aside from Kincaid and maybe Dantalion and that angel who’d been at the Midnight court. A vein twitches in my temple and Tori cocks her head at me, reminding me to keep my emotions from my face.

  “If he gives you a hard time, you know where to find me. You’re welcome on my couch anytime.”

  “Thanks, Tori,” I say with an impish grin, jealousy melting into guilt when she embraces me, leaving a light kiss on my right cheek.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything else,” she calls with a wave of her hand as she leaves. “Take care of our girl, Kincaid. I’ll be holding you personally responsible if anything happens to her.”

  I snack on one of the bagels Tori brought, not bothering to toast or butter it first, finding I’m absolutely ravenous.

  Artemis excuses himself to go back to bed once Tori left, and even though I think it may help him sleep at night to know the Old Crones were dead, I can’t bring myself to tell him. Not because I regret it, but because I worry he might judge me for not having an ounce of remorse.

  Aren’t you supposed to feel something when you take a life, even if it’s for the greater good? Shouldn’t I feel ill? Racked by guilt. Feel like my hands would always be stained a vivid blood red? That’s how it is in the movies. That’s how it is in the books.

  Instead, I feel a sick sort of satisfaction. A satisfaction that led to almost losing my virginity on a dirty patch of forest to a demon.

  I take another monster-sized bite of the bagel and sigh.

  “What are you thinking about?” I ask Kincaid, needing a distraction from my own thoughts. He’s been quiet since Tori left, sitting stoically at the table with a glass of amber liquid that he hasn’t touched in his hands. Instead, he swirls the liquid, watching it shimmer against the beveled edges of the glass.