by Claire Marta
His free hand roughly journeys down my stomach in a parody of a caress. Striking his shoulders, I fight to break his hold. I can’t believe this is happening. Where is Raziel? Gabriel? The sound of ripping fills my ears. The little thong I’d been wearing flutters to the floor a flimsy barrier. Firm fingers cup my mound. Probing, seeking, he dips inside me, making me shudder.
“No.” The whine falls from my lips. I don’t want this. Everything inside me recoils in disbelief and fear. I clutch his wrist, but he’s too strong.
“What’s the matter? Do you have a taste for Raziel now?” Lucifer sneers. “You’ll soon forget about him when you’re choking on my cock.”
“He’ll never forgive you, if you do this,” I tell him, frantic to make him stop.
Leaning in, his warm breath caresses my ear. “Do you really think I would allow his indiscretion to go unpunished? What I plan to do to you, he will have to carry with him forever. His failure to protect you. I know he pledged he would. Such a pity that he won’t.”
Struck speechless, I freeze. Raziel isn’t coming. After everything he promised. All his words and every one of them had been as hollow as his fake heart. Broken parts of me shatter further. Cinders of hope dying before they have time to fully ignite.
Taking a fistful of my hair, the Devil jerks me across the room, and I have no choice but to go with him. Power licks over my skin, as he forces me down onto the large bed. His intent is clear.
“No, please. Please, don’t do this.” Scrambling over the mattress, my escape is blocked by a hand encircling my ankle. Grabbing pillows, I toss them wildly at his head. Lucifer laughs at my efforts, wrenching me to the edge. Using his weight, he pins my thighs wide. Frantically, I claw at any inch of him I can reach, his cheeks, shoulders, and neck. Clamping both my wrists in one hand, he reaches for his belt. The snick of his zipper has me thrashing harder. He’s going to rape me.
Heart racing, a cluster bomb of panic explodes in my brain.
Looming over me, he pauses, head tilted to one side. “I can sense your powers. Are you going to destroy me? The last time you used them, you lost control. Would you risk everyone in this building to try to stop the inevitable? Do you even have the discipline to prevent it?”
“Would you?” I challenge, breasts rising and falling with exertion, still trying to free myself from his hold. “Cassandra is here with Juliana. Are you so arrogant to risk both your daughters’ lives?”
“You care for them,” he counters softly. “You would never harm them. I’ve seen you with the baby. The love you harbor for her. It shines every time you hold her.”
He’s seen through my bluff. All my fake confidence deflates just as quickly as it had come. There’s no way I would hurt a child. The Devil is a devious bastard.
His muscular frame comes down on top of mine, squeezing the tears I’ve been holding at bay from my eyes. Firm ridged flesh presses against my inner thigh. His cock ready to violate me.
Nuzzling my skin, he licks the dampness from my cheek. “Your mere presence threatens my family. I can no longer tolerate that fact.”
“I’ll leave and never return,” I beg, straining away. “Please, just let me go.”
“I have a parting gift for you then.” Hand snaking between our bodies, he presses it below my belly button. Pains erupts through my abdomen. Burning, searing, the fire emanating from his hand blisters my skin. “No fruit will be conceived in this womb. No children to call your own. Let it shrivel and wither with your dreams.”
“No!” The denial is ripped from everything within me. Dread and disbelief choking.
The Devil’s knees shift, spreading me wider as I weep. “I’m going to enjoy your agony. Your tears for what you’ve lost. I wonder how long it will take my flames to consume you. Long enough for me to cum I hope.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Raziel
I’m tethered to Jane.
My soul.
My body.
Whatever magic this is, I don’t think it’s going to stop. I can’t let Lucifer do this. I won’t. Nothing has ever swayed me from my loyalty to him, but that was before Jane. Stool slamming to the floor with my actions, I’m through the bar and at the stairs when the screaming starts. It tears through me like a shard of glass.
Pulsing quickening, I dash up them two at the time. I’m barely aware of Gabriel at my heels. Of Cassandra poking her nose out of a room at the top. The door to the bedroom comes off its hinges when I kick it aside.
“Where is she?” I demand, examining every inch of the room. Jane’s absence is glaring. It’s as if all the oxygen has been sucked up into space.
Zipping up his fly, the Devil gestures at the scorched mattress with his other hand. “She was a fighter. Shame it couldn’t have lasted longer, but still it was something to savor.”
It’s then the sickening scent of burning reaches my nose. “What did you do to Jane?”
Dawning understanding brings with it horror I don’t want to acknowledge.
Adjusting the lapels of his suit, he checks his appearance arrogantly in the mirror hanging from the wall. “I fucked her, and then I vaporized her. It was obvious from your reaction downstairs I couldn’t trust you to do it yourself if I’d ordered you to.”
“You what?” His words are a sucker punch straight to my solar plexus.
“I couldn’t have her falling into the wrong hands and used against me. Powers like that have the potential to turn the tide of wars and ignite rebellions.”
Lucifer doesn’t need to use a knife or any other torture device he possesses to inflict mortal damage. His words have a far more powerful effect. I vowed to protect her. That promise now lays in ashes at my feet.
I have him against the cream-colored wall, my hand around his throat before I can think. He murdered Jane. Took her from me out of control and malice.
Eyes seeping red, he stares into my face with such intensity I feel his powers swarming over my skin causing me to recoil.
“What’s the matter, Raziel? Did you get attached to that happy little rainbow?” he taunts cruelly. “You’ll soon find another female to distract you.”
“You son of a bitch. You didn’t have to kill her.” My mind still burns with his words. Everything is in shreds. The pain is unimaginable.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Raziel
The naked whore moans, grinding herself down on my lap as she rides me. Lifting the bottle to my lips, the whisky scorches a path down my throat. It does little to console me. No matter how much I try to lose myself in drink and sex, they don’t make me forget. Gives no reprieve.
I can still hear Tink’s screams. They’re a constant loop within my head. Piercing, sharp, gouging deep into the organ that pumps blood around my chest. I don’t call it a heart. Monsters don’t have them. I sure as shit don’t deserve one. Never have.
Remorse. Guilt. Nothing has touched me until her. Now they’re eating me alive. Taking me apart piece by fucking piece. My cock wilts at the thought. The whore makes a sound of distress in her pretty throat.
Shoving her off me, I rise impatiently from the chair. “We’re done.”
“But you haven’t cum yet.”
“I don’t bloody care.” Grabbing a fistful of notes from the pocket of my jeans, I let them scatter carelessly on the floor. Forgetting me, she goes after them eagerly, her attention on the money.
In one thought, I flash to my room at the fortress. Taking a long swig of my whisky, I swallow another gulp, staring blindly at the large empty bed.
I can’t function. What I was no longer exists.
Jane changed me, and I know there’s no going back.
Purpose has always driven me, but it’s been extinguished in one cruel careless act.
My fairy is gone.
It’s ironic that Lucifer killed her. All these centuries and he’s controlled me like his puppet. Shaped my life. Fashioned me into what he wanted.
Figuring out my feelings the day I lost her br
ought my world crashing down.
I finally fall in love only to lose it.
I’m cursed. Those I love die, and I’m unable to stop it.
Seeking escape hasn’t helped the sensation of being agonizingly incomplete.
I wish I were numb. It would be better than what I’m feeling in the cold accusing light of each day and the nightmares of my evenings. Every room in the fortress is haunted by Jane’s presence. The phantom scent of baking permeates the kitchen, turns my stomach making it impossible for me to enter. My bedroom is the worst. It’s as if she’s woven into the fabric of my space.
It takes me a moment to register I’m not alone.
Cassandra stands nervously, watching me in the center of the room. Ebony hair cascading down her slim shoulders, she curls her bare toes against the marble floor.
“What Cass?”
The girl has been like my shadow since we got back. A pale, watchful ghost.
Shrugging out of her white robe, she allows it to pool at her feet in a silky puddle, exposing her young nubile body to my stare.
Eyes snapping up to the ceiling, shock momentarily halts me in place. “What are you doing?” I ask hoarsely. I can’t believe the seventeen-year-old I raised is now standing completely naked in front of me. Has she gone crazy? What the hell is wrong with her? Nudity hasn’t fazed me in the past, but it’s different with her.
“I want to cheer you up.”
“Put your clothes back on,” I growl. Clenching the bottle in my hand tighter, I focus on the feel of the cool glass and not the image of Cassandra’s tiny tits that’s branded into my brain. This is not what I need. Fuck, she’s a child.
“Don’t you like me?” Her voice quivers with vulnerable emotion. “You call me your baby doll.”
A nickname I gave her when she was little. I should have seen this coming, but I never considered she saw me more than an older brother substitute. She’s been the younger sister I never had. I was the one who was there to fix her scraped knees and wipe away the tears when she was small. The one to hold her when her visions became too much, paralyzing her in misery. Treated her like a princess and spoiling her rotten. We had each other. Both orphans. I taught her how to spell. To read. We’d hang out together late at night eating pizza.
“Not in that way. Christ you’re just a kid. Pity sex isn’t going to improve my mood, and you should know better than to offer yourself up so easily to a man. I thought I taught you better than this.” Out of my peripheral vision, I see her move closer. A delicate hand plants itself on my chest, its heat scorching me through the material of my top.
“I’m not a child. I’m almost eighteen,” she reminds me softly.
She’s going to argue about this? This is not happening. Whatever fucked up idea she has in her head, I’m not going to comply. True I’m a monster, but I’m not a child molester. That at least isn’t a sin that stains my contaminated soul.
“You’re still not a woman,” I argue curtly. “And I’m not interested or even tempted in popping your cherry. You should give it to someone special.” I falter on the last sentence, memories of Jane surrendering her innocence to me so sweetly almost crippling.
Cassandra’s palm rubs over my pec, settling right above my beating heart. “Then make me one.”
“No! Fuck no.” I leap clear as if her words have just scolded me. “Get dressed now and get the fuck out of my room.”
“I want you, Raz.” She persists, her voice now edged with an odd desperation.
Anger leaps up so fast I have no way to contain it. Gaze locking onto her youthful appearance, I let her see the starkness of my own. “You want me to fuck you hard, Cass? Because I’m not gentle. I don’t know how to be anymore. That’s gone. Over. Destroyed. It wouldn’t bring you any pleasure. I would rip away your virginity and enjoy your tears. You want to feel like a whore? It won’t be what you want, and once it’s done, I can guarantee you’ll regret it.”
The color leaches from her cheeks at my words. Eyes rounding, they become large haunted orbs that sparkle with unushered tears. “I need it to be you, Raz. I love you and know you won’t hurt me like he will.”
Taking a menacing step, I make her jump. “Get out, Cassandra. I won’t ask nicely again. I’ll just toss you naked out on your rear.” What do I need to do to get it into her thick head? If it takes harshness, then so be it.
She sobs. Slim body trembling, she doesn’t hide the tears sliding down her cheeks. Hastily scrambling for her robe, she pulls it up and fastens the belt. “See the echoes of things to come.”
Patience snaps. “I’m not in the mood for your riddles.”
“Don’t you feel it? A ripple in the dark. Writhing, breathing, ancient.”
“OUT. NOW!”
My bellow booms after her as she throws the door open and scurries from my room, barely avoiding the two forms outside.
Watching her pass, Badden observes her with a look of unconcealed lust.
“I’ve repeatedly summoned you to the throne room.” Lucifer prowls into my space, the Reaper accompanying him. He doesn’t seem bothered about Cassandra’s distress. In fact, he ignores her presence all together.
“Been busy.” Turning my back on them, I take a long gulp from my bottle. It’s still not enough to get me drunk. What I need is the kind of alcohol that can completely wipe my memory. Fry my brain. Not that it exists. After the binge I’ve been on lately, it would have kicked in by now.
“Playing with whores and getting drunk? We have far more important matters to attend to.”
Lucifer’s amusement irks me. He seems to enjoy watching me unravel. Feeds off it. A front row spectator at the train wreck my life has become. “I’m reprioritizing, and the fucks I give about you no longer exist.”
I wonder if he’s told Mavi how he fucked Jane before he murdered her? No. He wouldn’t be breathing if he had. She’d have carved out his heart for such an act. Perhaps I should tell her.
“I have a mission for you.”
I don’t reply.
Footsteps circling, me the Devil treads into my line of vision. Head cocked to one side, he regards me steadily, calculation swirling in the depths of his emerald green eyes. If my silence disturbs him, he doesn’t show it. Not even the hatred I don’t bother to hide in my gaze stirs his emotions.
“Badden knows where to go,” he continues.
Of course, he does. The King of Hell’s new favorite. Kissing arse is a talent the Reaper seems to have developed in his exile. I’ve lost the taste for what the Devil wants out of me. He’s a persistent bastard. I’ll give him that.
“Who do I have to slaughter this time?” I ask, resignation thickening my tone.
“According to my spies, Rosella’s hiding place has been discovered. You will bring her here personally so I can torture her for the motives behind her betrayal. I need to know if this is the random actions of a spurned ex-mistress or something far more complex at work.”
That captures my interest. If it wasn’t for the demoness, Jane would have never been snatched. All the events leading up to her death wouldn’t have occurred. If I can’t make the Devil pay, Rosella will with an ounce of flesh. I’ll slice it from her body myself.
“Why don’t you go do it yourself?” I taunt, not ready just to bow so willingly to his wishes. Wanting to defy him.
Finally, his façade cracks, crumbling to the truth that lurks beneath. Flesh reddening, the beast skulking just out of sight, takes forms. Grotesque, monstrous, his features twist as he pins me with a thunderous look of intimidations. “Watch your tongue, Raziel. I may over look your rudeness once or twice, but there will be a time when you will reap what you sow.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Raziel
Stepping through the portal, it takes a moment for the sense of disorientation to fade. I prefer my own means of teleportation, but as I’ve never been to this particular plain of existence before, I don’t have the knowledge to find it. A valley lays before us swaddled in a
veil of mist. Gliding, drifting, it shrouds every inch of the landscape, obscuring it from view. A place neither Heaven or Hell rule over. Stark, wild, dimensions in between. There aren’t many but enough for outlaws and fugitives to disappear. It makes it harder to track them.
“How the fuck are we supposed to find her in this?” I gripe, raking a hand through the length of my shaggy hair.
Badden doesn’t respond. The fact he’s with me is just another kick in the balls. I’m not trusted to bring the traitorous bitch back alive. As Demon’s don’t have souls, his presence means he’s just babysitting me to make sure I comply to the Devil’s commands. I’m not a fucking child who needs his hand held.
“Why don’t you sod off back to the fortress,” I tell him, tongue swiping my bottom lip with the need for more beer. “I’ll be a good boy and bring Rosella home when I find her.”
Not until I’ve tortured her long and slow. Taken my time to make her beg and scream. Extract every secret and vengeful idea out of her horned little head. Then I’ll make her watch as I dice up her new boyfriend. Cut him into chunks and feed her the pieces. She stole my rainbow, and in return, I’ll take hers.
A sharp jab of pain radiates through my neck. Flinching, my hand flies up to find the end of a dart. Wooziness makes me stagger. Legs giving out, I hit the ground sideways. It’s then I see Badden. Pipe in his hold, he’s loading another dart.
“What the hell?” My tongue feels heavy, and it’s an effort to roll the words from my mouth. “You sold me out me out, you son of a bitch.”
What’s his plan? To dose me then decapitate me? Filthy Reaper playing dirty. I should never have turned my back on him. I’m a fucking idiot for growing complacent. Thinking that after all these centuries I had earned my worth to the King of Hell. I’ve been his shield. Confidant. Advisor. His warrior but I guess that counts for nothing. Rebellion is always crushed. I’ve become a threat to Lucifer’s throne. One step wrong and I’m to be put down like an animal.
