That’s the job of a murder’s leader. Sense the Center and kill her in order to protect the murder.
A leader who can’t do that is a failure.
I heave out a deep, shuddering breath as my power amps up and vengeance makes my heart pound. I tell myself it’s no good to dwell on the past. I need to stay focused on the present.
When Van comes home and has a dreamy, dopey smile on his face as he passes through the kitchen…I know he’s worn her down.
That means it’s time.
I have to show Katrina what Hell is. I have to scare her so badly and scar her so deeply, that she’ll run away screaming and never come back again.
I wait until midnight, until I’m certain that each of those fuckers is asleep. Then I shed my human skin, embrace my demonic form, let my horns rise from my forehead, and feel the night air whispering over them. I unfurl my wings, the sharp claws at the tips stretching.
I stalk towards the front door. But a voice stops me.
“Where ya going? Huh? Huh? Huh? Can I come? Are you going for a walk?” Jason leaps over the couch, his vapid eyes bright and excited.
Luckily, because he was changed by demon magic, Jason can understand demonic sign language. I lift my hands and say, No, you can’t come. But I have something very special for you. You get to sleep in my bed.
“Oh, your bed. Oh, that’s fun. Your bed is soft. Do you have brains in there?”
Not in there, but if you do a good job and hide under the covers and stay very quiet, then I’ll bring you back a brain, I tell the zombie-dog man.
His tongue pops out of his mouth as he nods in frantic acceptance of my terms. “K. Got it. Hide. Sleep. Quiet.” He skips down the hallway to my bedroom, then turns back and holds a finger to his lips before he tiptoes inside.
Ugh. Crisis averted. I don’t want Jason telling any of the others where I’ve gone. They’re going to be pissed.
I heave a deep breath and slip outside, reminding myself that someone in the group has to make hard choices. I just wish it didn’t have to be me.
I fly through the starry night sky, enjoying the crisp feel of the wind biting at my nose. When I near the hotel, I start to glide. I had originally planned to land on Katrina’s balcony and knock softly until I woke her. But when I descend, I see that she’s already outside on the tiny deck, leaning against the railing, fingering a charm bracelet as she smiles dreamily down at a dumpster in the parking lot.
It’s not the view that has made her that happy.
Fuck.
Sometimes, it sucks to be the bad guy. The logical one. It sucks so much that I stepped down from my position as the murder’s leader and let Raz take over that shit.
But he’s just as moody and moany as the rest of them. He’s been sleeping all hours of the day like he’s sunk into a damned depression with Katrina gone.
So it’s up to me. I swallow hard and bat my wings in the air, slowing so I can hover just in front of her.
Her eyes widen, and she takes a step back. But not in horror like she should. In invitation. “Kastros,” her tone is soft and warm. “I wondered when you’d come.”
Her lips curl into a small smile, and part of me just wants to grab her, kiss her, tuck her under my arms, and let my hands sign how precious she is to me.
I don’t answer her greeting. I can’t. I hate what I’m about to do so much that I can’t even look her in the eye. I just swoop down and grab her around the waist and then clutch her to me as I flap my wings hard, shooting us like a rocket up into the sky.
“Whaaaaaa!” she screeches. Her hand starts to beat against my shoulder. “We can’t leave! Adam’s in there! Alone.”
I don’t respond, don’t acknowledge her panic, though it rips me apart to ignore her. Instead, I stretch out my right hand, spread my fingers wide, and pull aside the veil that separates the human world from the divine one.
I flap my wings as I clutch my screaming mate to my chest and take her through the veil into an entirely different reality.
I set Katrina down on the edge of the Cloud Desert, a vast wasteland of white where no one ever treads—except for shit monsters.
Whenever Heaven and Hell are locking horns, Lucillania likes to send shit monsters over to fuck up God’s gardens. In return, he likes to have rows and rows of orderly cloud cabbages pop up in Hell, lining the streets and making the entire place smell like a giant fart.
Yes. That’s the world I live in, the one my mate knows nothing about. Heaven and Hell are two giant immature kingdoms locked in a war that pits order against chaos, logic against love, rules against self-determination.
Katrina’s mouth drops open in shock as she peers around. And I don’t blame her. Hell isn’t a beautiful place. In front of us, there’s a glass storm. Droplets of burning glass form in the clouds and rise, burning people as they float upward to the sky, only to fall again, the sharp shards cutting on their way down. Getting caught in a glass storm in Hell is one of the most traumatic experiences for souls who end up here. It takes them by surprise to realize their surroundings don’t follow any logical rules, just as they didn’t in life.
I spread my wings to shelter Katrina from the storm, which is ending, the glass tumbling down around us. I want to scare her. I want her to see the truth of things.
But I don’t actually want her to get hurt. Not again. She’s been through enough.
Katrina bends down and picks up a shard that’s landed on the clouds. She raises the tiny piece of glass in her hand and studies it. “Fascinating.”
Fascinating? No! Fucking hell. This place is not fascinating; it’s terrifying. I sweep her up into my arms and fly on until I find a tornado of blood ripping through the clouds, splattering and staining them.
“They’re such a pretty pink, like cotton candy,” Katrina says from the cradle of my arms as she stares at the mutilated clouds.
What is wrong with her? Hell is chaotic. There are no rules. The logic and censorship of her world is gone. It should terrify her. Humans cling to rules the way they cling to hope. Irrationality scares them. Insanity scares them.
If natural chaos won’t disturb her, I know what I have to do. I have to show her demonic chaos itself. I was hoping to avoid that. I was hoping I could spare her innocent sensibilities. But I can’t. Clearly, she’s not thinking properly.
I pull her closer to me as I shake my head and take to the sky again. This time, I go farther into Hell, past the windmills that churn up sadness and despair, blowing it across the veil and letting it drift through the sky to land on humans as they walk the streets.
I pass the golden Lake of Good Intentions, where sloth demons steal away people’s grand plans and drop them into the deep water so they lie like buried treasure along the bottom, never to come to fruition.
I fly over Death Hill, which looks like a scene from a war movie. Except here on the hill, there aren’t any armies. Every person fights for themselves and for no greater cause. This hill is where murderous souls go after death. They commit their evil acts again and again for all eternity. Swords flash, guns shoot, blood puddles at the feet of the fighters, staining their boots as they battle. Bones protrude from their skin, but they keep on fighting, driven mad by the chaos of retaliation. Unlike on Earth, here in Hell, these killers can’t die. They butcher one another forever, their souls in a battle for that which can never be satisfied—revenge.
I grew up next to that hill, taught to spur those dark monsters on since I was just a demonling. I was trained to tease out the vengeance in every human heart and allow that need for retribution to spread through their system and color every thought a murky, bloody red.
Katrina does curl her body into mine and shield her face a bit when she sees the violence below. I debate taking her down there, but I feel like it’s a bit too much. I just want to scare her, not scar her forever. She’s too sweet and innocent to deal with the things I’ve seen. I need a different kind of chaos to intimidate her. And I think I know just the thing
…
I wheel through Hell until we get to the orgy pits. This is where the lust demons are born, where most of them live until they join a murder. This was Van’s home. This is where every debauchery humans can think of occurs (and some they can’t think of because they don’t have horns).
The pits feed a stream that flows through this reality and secretly waters the garden with all of the living planets. I think God feigns ignorance about it, because it has helped him create life on so many planets.
But the pits are nothing but a writhing mass of sucking and fucking so intense that poor Katrina will run screaming and never come back. There are whips, chains, scat play, blood play; there are even those who fuck the souls of the dead.
I land near one of the pits, which is a literal dip in the clouds lit by reddish sunlight. It’s the closest thing to the human’s version of Hell that I can think of. Inside the pit, someone screams. It’s in delight, but it doesn’t sound like it. And Katrina does not need to know that.
She needs to see the tangle of bodies, the blood and the chains.
I watch her as she watches the pit. Her blue eyes grow wide, and her breathing grows shallow.
Good. Yes. She’s afraid. Finally.
But when her eyes turn back to mine, I can see her nipples are pebbled and the look in her eyes…that’s not fear. I was wrong.
Katrina’s turned on.
Shit.
I take a step back. Then I leap forward and gather her into my arms, flying back across Hell and through the veil at the speed of light, because there’s no damn way I’m letting any of the fuckers in the pit touch her.
She’s mine.
The demonic chaos within me claims her selfishly, and I lean down and kiss her as I fly with her in my arms. I give her a soft kiss, but she quickly takes control, demanding more, and I have to pull away with a gasp.
I want to do more; I want to do everything. I want to touch those hard nipples, flick the tips, engulf those gorgeous breasts in my hands and then slide down to her heat, which I know will already be slick with want after what she witnessed.
I resist those urges. I can’t. I fly down to her hotel and set her feet gently on her balcony, hovering in front of her.
We’re back at the same moment you left, I sign to Katrina, so she won’t be worried about Adam. Going through the veil pauses time here.
Thank you, she signs.
For what? I sign in return, wondering how things went so horribly wrong. But I should have known. It’s Hell. It likes to fuck with everyone’s plans.
Thank you for showing me your world. It was so special. She gives me a soft smile.
And my heart melts—along with all my good intentions to protect her.
Raz
This is fucking bullshit! Katrina won’t even look at me in class. I’ve tried at least five times to get her into my office, but she refuses to do more than step into the doorway.
I don’t know if she could tell my plan. The second she stepped inside, I was going to lock the door, pull the blinds, and shove her up against the wall, digging my hands underneath those tiny gym shorts and teasing her until she came on my fingers. Then I’d smack her ass and send her off to class with wet panties.
But whenever I call her over, she keeps those gorgeous blue eyes plastered to the floor, murmuring “Yes, sir” in a way that gets me so damn hard, I can hardly think straight. She does the same thing this morning, when she tiptoes into class, like I won’t notice her.
Not notice her? She’s like a fucking beacon. The first time I saw her in person, I had to distract myself with the goddamned mail, because I couldn’t let the guys know this was our Center and I was afraid that looking directly at her would give it away. I was afraid that my eyes would soften and I’d give into the temptation to trace her cheek softly and tempt her into a soft, delicious kiss.
I hadn’t wanted them to know. I hadn’t wanted them to turn on her. Hurt her.
Today is somehow worse than yesterday. Maybe because I searched for her last night too and couldn’t find her anywhere. She looks twice as good as normal today. I can see the hint of a red bra peeking through her white gym shirt, and I want to groan in appreciation. I wonder if her panties match.
I stand in front of her class as they line up on either side of the basketball court, trying not to drag my eyes too obviously over her slim white thighs, checking her hips for panty lines and simultaneously scolding my dick and telling him to stand down.
I forget the directions for dodgeball. The whole damn class is staring at me, and I forget what the hell the rules are, standing there blankly with a ball in my hands as all these awkward teenagers stand around waiting.
I pop the ball when that idiot, William Washington, sidles up to my girl, my Center, and slings an arm around her shoulders.
The only reason he lives is because Katrina ducks out from under his arm and fakes a stomach cramp. She runs off to the girls’ locker room.
Yesss. She’s alone. Finally.
I end up just blowing the whistle and saying, “You know the rules. Play!”
I leave the idiots to their throwing, walk into my office, and immediately out into the gym foyer through a second door on the side of my desk. I glance around, heart beating quickly, to make sure there’s no one watching. Then I shove open the door to the girls’ locker room.
The locker room here is dull and cement-colored, but smells less than the guys’. The communal showers are tiled in a pale peach instead of a dull green, but otherwise, they’re nearly identical. I round a corner to the changing area that’s filled with wooden benches and lined with lockers.
My mate is sitting on a wooden bench, head reclined against a row of grey lockers, her pink curls tumbling over her shoulders. Her eyes are closed, the lashes softly splayed out over her delicate pink cheeks.
My heart stumbles at the sight of her, skipping a beat. She’s so damn beautiful.
I’m in front of her before the door to the locker room slams shut.
I kneel in front of those soft knees of hers, my hands curling over her ankles at the same moment that the door smacks into the frame.
Those doe eyes fly open, and she panics, pulling back from me. But I close my hands over those delicate ankles.
Part of my mind immediately imagines spreading those ankles apart so I can see those creamy thighs spread wide in front of me, just like…
I shut that part of me down.
Katrina’s precious.
Instead, I stroke the inside of her ankles gently. “You’ve been hiding from me.” I can’t keep the hurt and fury out of my voice, though I try. My words come out gruff, and immediately I worry that I’ve scared her.
But Katrina’s full of surprises. She swallows hard, but then leans forward closer to me. I can smell the scent of her kiwi shampoo.
“Yes. I’ve been hiding.”
My fingers tighten around her ankles, and despite all my resolve, I shove them apart, moving her feet aside so I can lean up into her and remind her who she belongs to—and exactly why she shouldn’t be running.
Her breath catches, and those delicious breasts press together as she places her hands on the bench at her sides. “I want to do the right thing.”
I lean closer and run my nose down the side of her neck, relishing the way her breathing completely stops and her entire body tenses in anticipation. I gently glide back up until my teeth can nip at her earlobe. “I’m gonna tell you now, the right thing doesn’t exist.”
I let my hands come down on those hips of hers, pressing them slightly as my lips trace her pulse, which pounds erratically. Fuck yes.
“The right thing is to keep you safe.”
“Safety is an illusion. Just like right and wrong,” I say as I pepper kisses along that pulse and marvel at how it can go even faster than before. Her quick, shallow breaths press those breasts against my chest, and even with her bra on, I can feel her pebbled nipples.
I want to dive underneath her shirt. I wan
t to rip down that bra and suck those tits right here in the high school girls’ locker room.
But Katrina deserves better than that.
I pull back from her neck slowly, watching her facial expression drift from ecstasy to confusion and finally settle on disappointment. Good. She wanted what I wanted.
I let my thumbs trace little circles on her hips, getting close to her inner thighs but never quite reaching them, just teasing her. I wait until her eyes reach mine, and I see them pleading without words for what she really wants from me. More.
That’s right, princess, I think. Tell me what you are actually thinking. I let my thumbs glide down the baby soft skin of her inner thighs and then latch on to her spread knees.
Patience isn’t my forte. But when it comes to her…when it comes to her admitting she wants me, us, I’ll wait.
Her lips part with a little huff that makes me picture her orgasm face, and my dick, which was already rock hard, thickens even further. She doesn’t break immediately, so I move my hands around her knees to the sensitive skin just behind them. I let the pads of my fingers trace lightly underneath her bent knees, and a naughty grin comes over me when I hear her gasp in surprise.
Oh, yes, my little princess, there are so many things about this beautiful body I can teach you. Just ask me. Tell me what you want.
I let my fingers start to trace in small circles, hoping she’ll make the connection and think about my rough fingers gently circling her clit like sharks, churning the water before going in for the kill.
To my surprise, her hands fly up to my shoulders and she starts to pant.
Damn. This must be more of an erogenous zone for Katrina than I thought. And I’m the first man to find it, because her eyes clearly show how shocked she is. I keep circling slowly until her breathing is so choppy, I can tell she’s almost there.
Then, I stop.
I lean back, pulling away from her and standing up until I loom over her in the dim locker room. “Come with me to the dance,” I order.
“But…but…you’re a teacher.” Her words come out in a confused, lust-filled haze.
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 149
