Hell is a Harem: Book 4

by Kim Faulks

  But there was no fighting the drug…no fighting her. The muscles of my throat moved as I swallowed. Only then did she release her hold. Dark eyes glinted like they’d never glinted before. “You want to give her everything?” she whispered and took a step backwards.

  My body trembled, shaking the shackles around my wrists as warmth filled me. My cock twitched, hardening as the first wave of need swept through me.

  I groaned under the weight of it…under the animalistic hunger to rut. My ass tightened as I slowly thrust. But there was nothing to ease me…nothing to stroke the flame inside.

  “Give me the key,” she murmured, unable to take her eyes off my cock as I thrust into the air once more.

  Unseelie flesh sizzled as it met iron cuffs. But the pain was nothing, melting into the background as another savage wave of yearning crashed against my shores.

  “Leave him,” she murmured.

  Through the sheen of tears, I saw the movement as Boroch placed the metal key in her grasp. I was where she wanted me now. Where she’d wanted me all along.

  Lorn filled my mind. She’s worth it, whispered a voice inside my mind as the echo of heavy footsteps resounded and the Queen’s guards left the room.

  “Let’s see how your little friend likes you now,” Mab murmured, and took a step closer.

  But instead of taking my body…instead of using me against my will, she knelt and placed the key on the floor.

  A savage snarl seemed to come from nowhere, sounding bestial. “I’m going to kill you,” I promised as the wave of desire hit me like a tsunami.

  A scream ripped free as I pumped my hips into the air, desperately searching for release.

  Laugher slipped in…

  Cruel, sadistic laughter.

  Mab, he’s delightful…

  “I hate you,” I whimpered, even when the door closed to the dark room, and the torchlight against the wall went out. “I fucking hate you…I hate you…I hate you…”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Titus

  “Titus, throw something at it,” Rival snarled as the beast came through the trees.

  He looked to me once more as if to say, well?

  I scanned the ground, there was nothing more than leaves and fallen trees that would weigh a ton. No way I could heave one of those into the air. “What the fuck am I supposed to throw?”

  All I saw was white tusks and beady black eyes as the creature thundered through the last clump of trees toward us.

  “The Archangel,” answered the Hellhound. “He can fly.”

  “Fuck you,” Gabriel replied.

  “You won’t, you’ve changed,” Rival smirked, eased backwards onto the balls of his feet, and lunged.

  He met the beast head-on in three massive strides. Bones crunched and fur flew through the air. But there wasn’t blood. There was only a massive, muscled Hellhound, as Rival lowered his head and took the impact through his shoulders.

  The brutal thud made me wince. Fangs and fur went flying too fast for me to track, until Rival hit the ground and then rolled. A guttural snarl echoed from the Hound. He turned his head, the flames of Hell burning red in his eyes as he looked from me to Gabriel…and let out a bark.

  “Come on,” Gabriel yelled. “He’s telling us to run!”

  I jerked my gaze toward him. “You can understand Hellhound?”

  “I can understand imbecile, and the two are pretty close together,” the Archangel answered with a huff, and took off through the trees.

  “Ouch,” I took one last look at the Hound and followed Gabriel.

  The guy was a flash of white through an already glaring world. I winced, searched the faded light that was a shadow in the Seelie world for any more nasty surprises, and followed as best I could.

  Guttural growls filled the air behind me, anyone would hear them for miles. Bring the entire fucking realm on our asses. Because we killed one of them…my steps faltered with the thought. No, that wasn’t exactly true. I killed one of them.

  “This way,” Gabriel motioned as he glanced over his shoulder.

  But the savage thrashing through the trees behind me made me slow. “I can’t leave the pain in the ass.”

  The white blur slowed, and then stopped. Gabriel sucked in a hard breath and then turned, lifting his gaze to the sounds behind us.

  “If we can hear them, then so can they,” I motioned with my head toward the Seelie town. “We have to go back, watch our brother’s back.”

  The Archangel headed toward me, closing the distance with long strides. “We have no guide, no way of knowing which way to go…no way of knowing what’s out there. How the hell are we going to get through to the Unseelie realm and find her?”

  A twig snapped to our right, as the deep growl of a call to arms filled the air at our backs. I turned, glancing back the way we came, as Gabriel stared deeper into the forest toward the crack of the stick.

  “Ah, Titus,” the Archangel called.

  I jerked my gaze toward him, and then followed his gaze to a small bank of shrubs. Green leaves shimmered with the Seelie glare, parting as a something shimmering stepped free.

  At first my mind couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing. The bright light was just a blur, until I caught the distinction. This was even denser, almost silver. Branches bowed outwards as the shimmering object pushed through. “What is it?”

  “Can’t you see it?” Gabriel murmured, his lips curling with a smile. He turned toward me, eyes wide with a look of astonishment. “We’ve just found our way out of here.”

  A savage grunt came from the direction of Rival and the beast, and the sickening thumps of fists on flesh followed. Still I was gripped by whatever the Archangel was seeing.

  “It’s a stag,” Gabriel murmured. “A silver stag.”

  I wasn’t getting the connection. “Wonderful. Just…hold that thought for a minute.”

  I drove my boots into the ground and lunged toward the thrashing through the trees. The snarls and snorts of the beast were matched by the grunts of Rival.

  He lifted his head as I stepped through the thicket and then sucked in a hard, jagged breath. He looked a damn mess. As he shifted back into his human form, his clothes were dirty and torn and blood was smeared across his cheek and his knuckles. The beast opposite him was breathing just as hard, one curled tusk smeared with blood and a wild look in its beady eyes. “You two look like you’re having fun.”

  “Damn thing’s a fucking tank. Thought you two were long gone,” the Hellhound gasped. “Why’d you come back?”

  “Because I missed you, there I said it,” I lifted both hands, curled my fingers into an arch and lengthened my thumbs until I made a heart. “You complete me.”

  “Fucking smart ass,” Rival huffed.

  “No, really, Gabriel thinks he’s found a way out of here,” I winced as the beast snorted and pawed at the ground.

  “Really?” Rival straightened and swiped the hair from his eyes.

  I took a step closer, and then another, as I lifted my hand. Power raced through my veins unlike anything I’d ever felt before. The death of the Seelie weighed me down, cutting through the smart remarks and the jokes.

  The guy died after drinking my blood. That alone chilled me to the goddamn core. But there was something else, something that’d been nagging at the back of my mind since I woke from the coma. A sense of…more.

  “Easy now,” I murmured and took a step closer.

  The cut on my hand was still fresh, the blood barely crusted in the wound. I reached through the air, letting the beast sniff and stare.

  It was big. Too big to defend myself if it charged. Coarse whiskers stuck out from its snout, it looked more like a feral pig than anything else. Wide nostrils flared, drawing in the scent of my blood.

  It lifted its head and pawed the ground, until it let out a snort and then shook its head.

  “It doesn’t like you,” Rival gasped. He took a step closer. “Take one step toward it.”

  I hesi
tated, any closer and I could almost touch the damn thing.

  “Trust me,” Rival growled.

  I risked a glance, cutting him a look.

  “Trust me,” he repeated.

  I did what he said, taking a slow step forward, and watched the beast step backwards in turn. It shook its head again as the call cut through the trees. The Seelie army was coming, crashing through the bushes.

  The pig-like creature gave a squeal, turned tail, and took off in the direction of the Seelie guards. Screams tore through the air, shouts of surprise and terror as Rival lowered his voice and snarled. “Follow me.”

  We left behind the battle of beast and man and eased away, finding our way back to where I’d left Gabriel moments before.

  But he was gone.

  I searched the area, finding the crushed bush where the silver light had stepped from, and then turned to Rival. “He was just here,” I kept my voice low.

  “We can follow him,” he reached up and tapped the area above his heart.

  The scar. I lifted my hand and felt that buzz, like a deep pull in the center of my being. The sensation made my heart race. So different from anything else I’d experienced before.

  Aeon’s blood.

  The words filled me as Rival followed the unseen trail through the brush and out the other side. I followed, letting the Hellhound lead the way deeper into the forest, and as the Seelie world grew darker, I felt the change in the air.

  It was subtle at first, just a breath against my skin, one that grew cooler the more we pushed into the shadows.

  I heaved myself over mammoth toppled trees and scurried under overhanging branches, leaving the sounds of the Seelie army behind.

  “He’s close,” Rival murmured.

  I turned inward to that tug of familiar inside me. “Can you sense him?”

  “No,” the Hellhound growled. “I can see the pale fucker.”

  He lifted his hand and pointed into the distance. He stuck out like a flashlight in the dark, and so did the massive goddamn stag next to him. “Jesus, what the hell is that?”

  “That,” Rival sucked in a breath and barged through a clump of waist-high thorny brush, “is what they call a goddamn sign.”

  Gabriel turned his head toward us as he stood next to the glowing apparition. “See, I told you. He’s our way out of here.”

  I shook my head and shoved back the sweat-stained hair from my eyes. I still had no idea what they were talking about. All I saw was a ghost.

  Gabriel bent and whispered into the stag’s ear before the pale apparition turned and took a step deeper into the shadows. Gabriel followed, and then Rival, like it was just…expected.

  “Um, is someone going to tell me what the hell is going on? Why are we following some ghost into the forest?”

  “Dude, it’s not just any ghost,” Rival threw over his shoulder. “It’s the ghost. You know,” he jerked his gaze skyward and then pointed. “The big dude upstairs.”

  I stopped dead, staring as the pale stag jumped over something I couldn’t see and then continued, while the other two followed.

  He means God.

  All I heard was the heavy thud inside my ear.

  God…actual God…and he’s here with us.

  My mouth was arid. I tried to work up enough moisture to swallow and ended up gulping a hard bubble of air. It hurt sliding down my throat and the pain woke me, enough to move.

  I lengthened my stride, unable to take my eyes off the animal as it moved without making a sound. Not an animal…God.

  My mind raced, thinking about all the sins I’d made in my lifetime and stopped counting when I reached ten years old. To be in the presence of the hand of God was beyond anything I could comprehend.

  So I didn’t.

  I saw the thing for what it was, a way to get to Lorn. My knees stopped shaking and my will found some strength. I took a step forward, and then another, my strides lengthened, my body moved freer than it had in a long time.

  It moved with purpose.

  Rival glanced over his shoulder as I came up behind him. “Took you long enough.”

  Questions crammed my head as I glanced from the Hound to the stag. How…why…were only the first two that screamed the loudest. I wanted to fall on my knees in front of the damn thing…Hell, I wanted to contemplate my entire existence.

  I could only imagine how something like this might affect a damn Hellhound. He stayed as far from the apparition as he could without falling behind, leaving Gabriel to walk alongside the…miracle.

  We walked for what felt like hours, until the trees started to thin and the Seelie light flooded the shadows once more. The stag stilled at the base of a mammoth tree, as silver leaves shimmered above it, casting rays of sunlight against its body.

  Gabriel lifted his hand, motioning for us to stop. He glanced over his shoulder, and walked two fingers through the air. People. I stepped closer, keeping my eye on the stag and the area in front of the trees.

  Their voices slipped through the gaps in the trees. I followed their movement as they went about their daily life.

  “I think we’re at the gate,” Gabriel leaned close and whispered into my ear.

  There was a gate…just like that…a gate that separated the Unseelie from the Seelie realm. What, did we just pay a goddamn toll and walk through? I glanced at the thin tree three steps in front of me and then moved forward.

  “Titus,” the Archangel hissed behind me.

  But there was no stopping, not after all we’d been through…and not when Lorn was on the other side. I lifted my hand, motioning for him to quieten.

  The fae people were not what I expected. They were quiet people, much like us if we’d lived in a realm where magic was everywhere and electronic devices were considered vile fucking things.

  A flare of warmth spread through my chest at the thought. If I thought about it long enough, I might just fucking warm to the idea. God knows I hated the goddamn things, hate that my life was on display at the touch of a fucking button.

  A woman’s voice drifted to me. She was singing, and happy…actually fucking happy. I couldn’t remember the last time I heard someone sing out of sheer joy.

  “Excuse me,” I murmured and stepped out of the trees.

  She flinched at the sound of my voice and lifted her gaze from the clay pot at her feet. Her eyes widened and the song froze on her lips. She glanced behind me to the tree line before she answered. “Happy day to you.”

  “Happy day indeed, and to you,” I kept my hands by my side, the cut on my palm out of view.

  Still, her head tilted slightly and her chest moved that little bit deeper. I glanced at the pot, filled with flowers of different colours. “I’m sorry to disturb your work, that song you were singing was so beautiful.”

  There was the flash of a smile, before it was gone again. “It’s a hymn for the potion.”

  I glanced behind her to the basket of empty glass vials underneath a bright red and green tent that stretched high above her. I’d been across the Supernatural line long enough to know when to keep my hands to myself. Any potion weaver was to be respected, and even feared a little.

  But the gate was calling me…more so, what lay on the other side. “You make potions to sell?”

  A bright blush crept into her cheeks as she nodded, and then dropped her hand back to the clay pot. I glanced at the others in the distance, and there was a clear divide between them and her. Like a circle around her place of work…I saw the rolled hand-made mattress and pile of blankets next to the wooden legs of the tent frame. This wasn’t just where she worked, this was also where she lived.

  The people around her either hated her, or feared her, or both. I knew people like that, and it wasn’t just women. They sold drugs, they sold themselves. They made it through one more fucking day in a hostile world, and when they couldn’t bear the thought of one more day, they just focused on getting through the next hour.

  I admired people like that, not because of wh
at they did to get there, but that will to hold onto the hope that the next hour, or the next day, would bring them ease.

  “You sell them to the other side?”

  The flush in her cheeks bloomed, and there was a flash of defiance in her eyes before I continued. “A woman has to make a living somehow. No one should make you feel bad for surviving the best way you can.”

  She flinched at the words and jerked her gaze to meet mine. “You really are not from this realm, are you?”

  I glanced down to my white collared shirt and pressed trousers and opened my hands for inspection. “Do I stand out that bad?”

  She wrenched her hand high, covering her mouth to stifle a laugh, and nodded. “Yes, yes you do.”

  She was a woman of trade, and yet we came here with nothing to bargain with…apart from my fucking blood. I took a slow step forward, and lowered my voice. “May I ask you a question?”

  She gave a nod and then focused on the flowers in the pot, reaching over to grab a bottle from the ground.

  “What kind of blood would kill a Seelie?”

  Her hand stilled and she jerked her gaze high. “If we consumed Unseelie blood, it would make us very sick but it wouldn’t kill us, and human blood has no effect on our bodies, so something much more powerful than we can digest. Why do you ask?”

  Because I was crammed with questions, questions that nagged and ached. Questions that wouldn’t leave me alone. “And if someone were to barter for a way across the gate into the Unseelie realm for some of that blood, how much would it take?”

  She never lifted her gaze, only glanced to the others working away in the distance. A man glanced toward us, and focused on me. His gaze narrowed, his eyes glistened with a look of surprise before she answered. “For yourself?”

  “And two others, no questions asked for the two others.”

  She nodded. A bargainer and a trade, that’s all this was. “And how do I know that this blood even exists?”

  “Because you smelled it on me the moment I stepped through those trees.”

  Her lips curled with a smile. There was a nod of her head. “And so I did, looks like you weren’t as daft as you look.”