by Claire Marta
Badden steps closer but not enough for me to reach him. He’s not stupid. Tipping his head to the side dreadlocks cascading down his shoulders, there’s nothing in his gaze but emptiness.
Giving me a wink, he brings the weapon up to his lips. “Business is business, Raziel. The price was right, and your time is up. You should have forgotten the Fae whore. You let a woman break you into something worthless and dickless.”
I barely feel the second arrow. Sliding into darkness, reality drops away into nothingness.
Voices echo along the corridor from the great hall. Scampering toward the noise, my bare feet are warmed by the heated marble floor beneath. The pain of my mother’s loss is a heavy weight inside my heart. Months now and it’s just as fresh as the day I lost her. Lucifer has no love for humans. They’re a means to an end. Souls to reap, a world to dominate and corrupt. Through training and discipline, he’s been feeding my hate for them after they took my only family from me. Life at his side is harsh and unforgiving. The demon generals who advise him despise my presence. My angelic blood condemns me in their eyes. I’m an outcast. A pariah. Not worth their time. Nothing but a pest for them to pick on and mistreat. Only the Devil shows a spark of interest in me. His darkness giving me shelter and a home no matter how depraved and immoral it can be.
Entering the great hall, I find six men standing before my master. Garbed in fierce chainmail, it gleams, shiny and well cared for in the light of the fire burning in the large hearth. Wings grace their shoulders. Feathers pure white, their beauty dazzling. Soldiers.
“Who’s the boy?” the leader asks. Head tilted in my direction, his golden hair borders a handsome face settled in a grave expression.
Lucifer spares me the barest of glances. “A new pet.”
The stranger lifts a thick blonde eyebrow, his stare shrewd as he surveys me. “Innocence doesn’t belong with you. This is no place for a child.”
“Do not presume to think you can come into my home and dictate rules to me, Gabriel. I am King here. My laws are absolute. Your words mean nothing to me or my people, and Raziel gave himself freely into my hands.”
“Is this true?”
I nod, knowing better than to mention the deal I made with the Devil. It’s then I notice none of his generals are in attendance. We’re alone with these angels. I remain where I am, pressing my spine against the cold stone wall, watching them closely with curiosity and hatred.
Gabriel continues to observe me with a thoughtful look while his men dismiss me as quickly as the demons I live with. They all think I’m weak. Feeble and scrawny. They all underestimate me. I’m already learning the tricks I need to survive. Deceitful and devious just as my role model.
“Cease Fire would be neutral,” The archangel tells the master of Hell. “A place both sides can come together under a flag of truce.”
Turning his back on his guests, Lucifer stalks up to take his place on his throne with an air of impatience. “And the point of this would be?”
“So, we can work together to come to an understanding. This war we’ve been caught in has been raging since the conception of time. Don’t you find it fucking tedious?”
“I will never forgive or forget what was done to me, Gabriel. I was forsaken and left to rot. Betrayed.” Rage throbs from every word laced with an underlying pain eons old yet fresh as the day it was caused.
Gabriel shifts fractionally under the penetrating gaze of the Devil, his only sign of unease. “My offer still stands. Cease Fire will be created, whether you agree or not. It will forge a bridge between Heaven and Hell. It’s time we solve our disagreements with words not blood.”
The Devil laughs mirthlessly. “Nothing will come of it. Your venture will be empty and pointless as is your courteous politeness every time you come to my court.”
“Only time can tell us that and neither of us have the ability to predict the future,” the archangel points out sternly.
Color drains around me, the scene shifting through memories of my past.
A dream.
Like the pages of a book, my life is being flicked through in my unconscious state.
The child in my arms weeps the tears of her misery, dampening the front of my shirt. Rocking her gently, I sooth my hand down Cassandra’s spine. She’s so small and helpless. Locked in visions she can’t control.
“How is she?” Concern colors Lucifer’s question. The bedroom we’re in is decorated in shades of pink. Every toy or game a little child could wish for fills the toy boxes next to the fairy princess bed. He’s made sure she won’t want for anything.
“I don’t know how to help her. They seem to be getting worse.”
Crouching, the King of Hell regards the six-year-old, cradled in my arms, intently. Green eyes crinkling at the corners, he gently strokes her hair. “We’re her family now, Raziel. She is the last of her bloodline and without anyone to nurture her powers. Raising her the same way I raised you is not an option. Cassandra is fragile. Her abilities complex. I want you to be a big brother to her. Make her feel at home here in Hell. Become what she needs.”
I stopped caring about anyone but myself long ago. Now he’s asking me to care for this child? It’s not something I’m sure I can do. Things died inside me when I accepted my place at his side. My heart turned as cold as the ashes of my mother.
Tiny fingers find my arm, squeezing tightly. “Raz?”
“I’m here, baby doll,” I coo as big blue orbs open to connect with mine.
“It hurts. All the voices in my head….too many.”
Taking her small hand, I lay it carefully on her chest. “You feel that. Your heartbeat. That’s you.” I press her cold skin, warming it with my own. “Whenever you feel like it’s becoming too much, you remember that. Whatever you see, whatever you experience, this will bring you home.”
Her bottom lip trembles. “Please don’t ever leave me. Promise you’ll stay.”
“Hey, I’m not going anywhere,” I assure her with a half-smile, an odd warmth spreading through my chest.
Darkness roils around me. Enveloped in nothingness, the deafening silence stretches as I float suspended. I’m so cold. It soaks through me to encompass my very soul.
I wake abruptly to a sense of being frozen. Shivering, huge convulsive shudders roll through my naked limbs. Any other movement proves useless. I recognize the heavy, constricting metal of chains. Used them enough times on prisoners to distinguish the feel and texture. A hand clamps around my chin. Jaw pried open, liquid is forced into my parched mouth. Turning my head sharply, I choke as it slides down my throat.
“So you’re awake at last.”
“Let me up,” I growl at the feminine voice. Disorientation confuses me as the memories of so long-ago ebb away.
The sting of nails along my abs brings with it alertness. “You are in no position to demand anything, Nephilim. Here, you are nothing but a slave.”
My shoulders ache from where they’re fastened, keeping me suspended inches from the floor. The surrounding room is hewed from rock. Whether its natural or artificial, I can’t tell. Sitting in heavy metal brackets, flaming torches provide the light to the windowless space.
A prison cell.
Three females stand, watching me with gloating expressions on their beautiful faces. They're similar enough in features to be related. Red fiery hair hangs in thick rivers down to their petite waists. Tall and willowy, long skirts swirl at their bare feet. Bare breasts bountiful, the rounded globes are unrestricted by clothing.
“What did you just give me?” I mutter, the rancid taste still present when I swallow.
With an effortless saunter, one of them draws closer. Her breath is sickly sweet when she leans in, the tips of her nipples brushing my chest when she rubs sensually against me.
“A simple potion to make sure you stay hard. We’re going to have fun with this fine cock of yours.” Her confident fingers close around my shaft.
Everything inside me recoils at the touch. “If
you even attempt to take pleasure from me, I’ll slice off your tits and feed them to you for breakfast.”
That earns me a knife to the gut. White, hot agony sears my stomach. Somehow, I managed to bite back a scream.
“We’ll use your entrails to predict the future.”
Sucking moisture into my mouth, I spit at my captor. “Fuck you.”
Wiping it from her cheek with her thumb, the woman examines it before licking it clean, her pupils dilating in pleasure. “We’re going to be entertained, breaking this one, sisters. He has such spirit.”
She slits me open again and again. Over and over until it’s one long hellish blur. Jaw locked, I keep the sound of my agony to a minimum. This isn’t the first time I’ve been tortured this way. Lucifer himself spent years breaking me. Hardening me. Building what I am into his perfect soldier.
Eyes the soft color of lavender bore into my own. Cold. Conscienceless. Filled with hate. “A lesser male would be begging now for the pain to end.”
“You think you can break me?” My laugh is as bitterly vacant as I feel. “I was trained by Lucifer himself. You think that was a Sunday picnic? Nothing you do will ever make me beg.”
Long clawed fingers stroke cruelly across my cheek. “We’ll see about that.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jane
Moving slowly down the corridor, I make my way to the cells. I’ve been summoned by my guardians. No doubt it’s another unpleasant task. Lately, there’s been a lot of them. Punishment at my failure since Arianna sensed my distress and used her magic to snatch me home before Lucifer could violate me. They have no idea he cursed my body. That he’s condemned me never to bear children.
Sorrow steals my breath, tightening around my heart. My purpose lays in ashes. I’m never going to hold a baby of my own. Feel it kick within my womb. Watch my stomach grow round and ripe. Steps faltering, I brace a hand on the wall to prevent myself from falling as my legs go weak. Lucifer’s cruelness taunts me. Anything else I think I could have beared. I’m home among the women who raised me, yet I have never felt so alone. It’s eating me alive. Drowning me until I can barely function. Placing a hand over my chest, I rub absently over my heart, which feels as though it’s in a vice of constant pain.
Darkness over shadows the light I once held. It’s been absence for weeks. All I’ve yearned for is someone to hold me. Arms around me as my silent tears fall. In my room at night, they come agonizingly slow. The soft muffled hum of my own tormented voice my only company.
“Tink?”
The sound of Raziel’s voice has me missing a step as I enter the room.
Gaze snapping to the source, I find him dangling from thick chains from the ceiling. His beautiful muscled body is marred with bleeding cuts and lacerations. Beneath the messy fall of his hair, I see the glint of brown, wide eyes. He’s staring at me as if he’s can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. I can’t trust my own. What is he doing here? The question hovers on my tongue, but I swallow it down. I can’t show any attachment. If my guardians learn of what’s in my heart, they’d cut his out in punishment.
Arianna watches me closely, and I know she’s dissecting every emotion that dances over my face. In a swish of skirts, she moves steadily toward me, the whip in her hand outstretched. “You will be the one to torture him next.”
Attention bouncing to her expression I can barely breathe past the uncomfortable lump in my throat. They want me to hurt him? Beat him?
“Break him,” she continues, pressing the firm leather into my palm when I make no move to take it. “Make him bleed. Rip his resistance apart.”
Taina and Calista pace, their restless energy buzzing through the cell. Wild animals scenting blood and ready to pounce.
Slowly I circle around him. Raziel’s back is raw from the lashes he’s endured from the whipping; red bleeding welts are raised over his skin in angry violent stripes. If I don’t do this, it will only be worse for him. They are mistresses of torture.
“Prove yourself to us Jane,” Taina’s coaxing is seducing. “He’s nothing but a pitiful male. They all think they can rule us. Make us their slaves. Mold us into pretty puppets to fuck and tease.”
Fingers caress my hair. “You keep so much buried inside. Now is your chance to set it free. Embrace your heritage. Show us the true strength of your hate.” Calista’s cold lips brush my cheek in a chaste kiss. I prevent myself from flinching at the repulsive imitation of love. They don’t know what that is. They’re heartless. I’ve always known that. They have never been noble, understanding, or kind. They hide their true nature like snakes covered with leaves. Deadly, coldblooded. They don’t care what I think as long as I obey. That has always been the rule.
Wetting my dry lips, I shake out the length of the whip. I know first-hand the hurt it can bestow. Felt its strokes whenever I’ve displeased them.
With a flick of my wrist, I bring it across the prisoner’s left shoulder. Licking over the living canvas already decorated in torment, it leaves its mark littered among the rest.
Feminine laughter erupts from my guardians.
I despise them for making me do this.
It welds with the other volatile emotions consuming me.
Reclining on a stone table, they watch me inflict pain on Raziel. Hands between their pale legs, they stroke and rub themselves in growing excitement. Sick and twisted, they take pleasure from each lash of the whip against his bleeding back.
He’s doesn’t say a word. Head bowed, his long hair hides his features. Muscles tight, he jerks, accepting each time the leather hits his flesh. Crimson runs in rivulets, dripping onto the stone floor beneath him. Another strike and his outstretched arms flex and tense in their chains.
He promised to protect me.
Whispered sweet nothings in my ear.
I want to hear him scream.
Cry out in anguish.
Feel the agony that I’ve felt for the last few weeks. Leave pieces of my soul embedded, jagged and sharp, inside his cruel heart. The bitter irony is that I’ve come to realize I’m just as trapped as he is. I might not be bound physically, but I’m still a prisoner. Blinded to my position all these years by duty and obligation thrust on me from an early age.
Servitude or death.
I now know the truth of my destiny. There is no escape.
Unleashing my frustration, I bring the bite of the whip down harder, leaving him a bloody mess of open and ripped flesh. My rage at his lie. His Master’s curse. Impotent fury, I’m not strong enough to fight this. Again, and again I deliver the lashing, blinded to anything but the heaving emotions clashing with no control.
It’s not until my arm aches, losing tension, my blows morph into weak little tap that sanity returns. My anger abates, leaving me empty and cold. Hand shaking, tears sting my eyes.
“Why have you stopped?” Arianna tone is heavy with disapproval. Skirts up around her waist, her pink glistening pussy is on display. Directly aimed at the prisoner, she taunts him with the pleasure she derives from his suffering.
Letting the handle of the whip slip from my chilled fingers, it hits the darkly stained floor with a thud. Bile rises in my throat at the sight of the destruction I’ve wreaked on Raziel. The agony he must be feeling.
“I can’t…I’m sorry.” Fleeing on feeble legs, I dash from the room.
I’m half way down the corridor when a cruel grasp swings me roughly into the wall. Crying out as my shoulder strikes the stone, I find Arianna looming over me.
“You’re pathetic.” Her sneer is laced with venom. “You’ll take his seed until it yields a result, or the punishment will be something far worse than this snivelling male will suffer at our hands.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Raziel
Eyelashes sweeping up, I wake to an eager mouth wrapped around my cock.
Jane.
Focused on her task, she hollows her cheeks, taking my shaft down to the back of her throat. I can’t contain my groan. It�
��s sweet torture.
Flexing my arms, I test my restraints. The chains hold. Whatever I’ve been forced to drink over and over continues to sap my strength. There’s no escape. It’s hard to think with Tink deep throating me into oblivion. She has natural talents. One I wish I could savor rather than feel nothing but frustration.
I love her.
It’s fucking razor deep in my heart, and it hurts like fuck that she won’t even look at me. Whether it’s by choice, or if she’s been ordered by those bitches who tortured me, I don’t know.
My dick doesn’t seem to mind all her attention. Every time she comes near, it’s as hard as steel and ready for her pleasure. There’s no resisting her. I’m addicted to everything she does. Her hot cunt has become both my heaven and my hell. My solace and a punishment.
Time has bled into one long moment of ecstasy and absence. When she’s not around me, it’s more than I can bare. She’s a dangerous fucking female with a beautiful face. A perfect set of curves that are designed to drive me insane with her cruel intentions.
Thrusting up, I fuck her face. It’s what she wants, and I can’t resist. I’m under her enchantment. Tink gags so prettily but doesn’t let up on ministrations to bring me to the brink.
Balls drawing up, I know she’s sensed my closeness.
Releasing my dick with a little pop, she crawls up onto the table to straddle my muscled hips. Kneeling open and spread either side of mine, I greedily admire her glistening pussy lips. It’s become the center of my universe. Something my dazed brain has no problem worshiping.
Grasping the base of my rock-hard shaft, she lines it up, her heat ripping a hiss from mouth.
Head thrown back, lips trembling she eases herself down, her wetness coating my length as she takes me in inch by torturous inch.
Eyes rolling back in my head, I still the urge to thrust up. If she wants it, then she’ll have to work for it even if I want to fuck her until she’s raw. Sinking down until she’s taken all of me, her palms spread wide on my abs.
