Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset

by Grace McGinty

  Luckily, he hadn’t seen me in this outfit, otherwise I’d still be in my room, probably being held captive or thoroughly fucked against a wall. It was fifty/fifty with Memphis.

  And Blue, well, he was equally as torn. But if the outfit hadn’t won him over, then my absolute stubbornness and his need to control every situation had.

  I was brought back to my present circumstances by Blue tugging on my hand and leading me toward a darkened corner. He pressed me against the wall, lifting one stiletto-tipped leg over his hip until he was pressed so tightly against me all I could feel was the hard ridges of his body beneath his stiff white dress shirt.

  “Here’s how it's going to go, Princess. I don’t like this.” The bulge in his expensive black slacks said otherwise. “I don’t like walking into unknown situations, and I definitely know we are playing out of our league right now. So, here are the rules.You don’t meet anyone's eyes but mine, you don’t speak unless I say you can. We get in and out as quick as we can and blend in as much as humanly possible with you looking like a fucking dirty fantasy.” The last bit was said in an almost pained tone.

  My hair was wrapped in a high bun on top of my head, exposing the slender line of my neck. My face was over half covered in a stick-on latex filigree mask that seemed to accentuate the highness of my cheekbones and the vivid green of my eyes. I was also wearing barely anything, but I kept reminding myself that people wore less clothing on the beach.

  Groaning, Blue stepped away. “Let’s go. I need to get you home. Remember, Princess, eyes on the floor.”

  “But how am I…”

  He held up a hand. “And no speaking. Tug on my hand if you need something, like you want to leave so I can...” He cut himself off and took another deep, shuddering breath. The lust was now rippling from him in waves.

  As he walked off, I frowned, already struggling with these invisible restrictions. But at the same time, there was something freeing about not having to worry about anything past the front of Blue’s shoes. I slid my eyes to the side, my face still downcast, and took in the room. An assortment of spaces occupied the walls. Women, and men, were restrained in various ways. A woman was trussed like one of Valery’s racks of lamb, except the woman was also suspended from the ceiling.

  A man was tied to a Saint Andrews cross, and just a little up from him a woman who was bent over a pommel horse, her hands tied behind her back, being flogged with a mean looking whip. I winced every time the knotted tips hit her flesh, but she didn’t seem to mind the pain. In fact, if her emotions were anything to judge by, she really, really liked it.

  A man stepped between me and Blue, and I had no time to stop, instead plowing into his body. The man’s hands reached out to steady me, but they landed on my ass and he pulled me close. His emotions were a complicated mixture of lust, and sadism, but not in the good way. He wanted to see me hurt, but for his own pleasure, not mine. I made the mistake of looking up into his dishwater brown eyes. They were hungry and lascivious and made me feel gross.

  “Eyes down,” came Blue’s cool voice. Gladly. I dropped my eyes to the floor and prayed the guy would disappear.

  But I didn't need an angel to make my wish come true. I had Blue-Fucking-Halloran.

  “Your hands are on my property. Move them, or I’ll remove them permanently.” His voice was congenial, but there was no mirth in his tone, no hint he was joking.

  The man laughed. Apparently he couldn't read tone the way I could. “She is beautiful, but in need of a little more training, I think. I'd be happy to help you break her in?”

  My body rippled with a shudder.

  “I do not want or need your help. Now take your hands off her before I cut off your cock and stuff it into your obnoxious mouth,” Blue said in a voice pitched so low, no one else could hear it. I broke the rules and looked up again. The stranger looked almost pleasant, but his eyes were dead. The man removed his hands from my skin and backed away.

  “Keep her, man. There's plenty of willing flesh here tonight.”

  I watched the man’s back as he walked across the crowded floor, towards a raised alcove where several men lounged and at least a dozen women sat bolt upright, like ornaments spread across a mantlepiece.

  I was distracted as Blue leaned close. “Okay?”

  I nodded, but didn’t look up. See, I was learning already. Another set of feet entered my field of vision. They wore huge, clunky boots that wrapped right up the man's calves. He had on a pair of tight latex pants.

  “You handled that well. You are new here.” It wasn’t a question, and the soft voice made me want to look up.

  Blue made an affirmative noise. “She’s new to the lifestyle. I thought she might enjoy something a little more public.”

  I could see a lanyard around his neck, which seemed a little odd considering the rest of his outfit was criss-crossing straps of leather. The lanyard was splashed with the letters DM, and in smaller writing underneath, Dungeon Monitor.

  I couldn’t help it. I looked up into the kind eyes of a huge, golden skinned man. He wasn’t good looking, or horrendous. He was just an average looking dude, like the kind you’d see in the deli section of a bodega. Or at your kids soccer match. Or doing construction. He smiled down at me, and I dropped my eyes again.

  “Very new. I kind of like them at this stage. Watching them fully immerse themselves in the life. Just know, if you need anything, or are uncomfortable at any time, let one of the DM’s know. We are here to keep everything and everyone happy and having a good time.” He addressed Blue, but I knew the words were for me.

  “Thanks, man,” Blue said, and put his fingers under my chin, lifting my face up so I could meet his eyes. “You broke the rules, Princess. Go to the bar, and come back when you can follow the rules,” he ordered, and I nodded, acting chastised. Hell, maybe I was even feeling a little chastised.

  Blue continued talking to the DM as I made my way through the bodies to the bar. There was a dance floor, and people gyrated around in the imitation of sex. Actually, a few of the couples may actually be having sex.

  I blamed all the excess energy in the room for almost tripping over an Archangel before I felt his angelic signature. I sucked in a breath at the golden haired angel sitting at the bar. He was watching the alcove, his eyes intent.

  He tilted his head in my direction, though he didn’t shift his gaze to me. “Hello, Hope. It is odd to see you here.”

  I blinked, gaping at the Archangel’s blazing aura. How could others not see him? I frantically tried to recall what Uriel looked like, but the man in front of me didn’t seem to match. That left…

  “Michael?”

  The man gave me a beatific smile. “Indeed. Come, sit.” He indicated the seat beside him. I just stared. I looked down at my outfit. I was about to sit next to the Archangel Michael, practically naked, in a BDSM bar. This was so wrong.

  I sat on the very edge of the stool, and Michael finally looked at me. “You are changing things.”

  It wasn’t a question, or an accusation. It was a statement of fact. As if it were an inevitability.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Don’t be. Change is at the very center of nature. Without change, there is only stagnation. Stagnation leads to death.” His eyes switched back to the alcove, and my gaze followed his. I caught a flash of fiery red hair, as the creepy man from before moved away from the low slung couches and towards the women lined up like items at the grocery store. He picked one and led her from the VIP area. She stunk of fear that was acrid even all the way over here. She was being sold. I knew it deep in my soul.

  The hair belonged to the other Archangel in the room tonight. Uriel. He was exactly how the guys described him, right down to the ‘douchebag expression that makes you want to put your fist through his skull’.

  “He’s selling those girls, Michael. Can you not stop it?” I pleaded to the almost omniscient being beside me.

  He shook his head sadly. “I cannot. He is following God's law fo
r the Angels. Finding and punishing wrong doers.”

  I scoffed. “I may have never read the bible, but I’m pretty certain there is no ‘Thou shalt sell the unwilling for profit’ clause.”

  He gave me a sad smile, and shook his head. “No, look closer.” Then he placed a hand on my forehead, and my eyes blurred, like someone had spiked my drink with acid. Only I hadn’t had a drink yet, and there was no way acid made everyone look like a technicolor rainbow. Hell, maybe it did, but the fact I was seeing everyone haloed like a 1970s discotheque was seriously tripping me out. “What the…”

  Michael was looking at me, the sad expression finally leaving his eyes. “You are even more special than I thought. At the time, I wondered. But now I can only think that maybe there is a plan, something greater than those known to me.”

  “Do I even want to know what you are talking about?” I asked, trying not to look at him too hard because his light was making my eyes water. “Am I seeing people's auras right now, because this is seriously giving me a headache.”

  Michael nodded and then gestured toward the raised alcove where Uriel was holding court. The colors varied, some even in shades I’d struggle to describe. I watched a man with a violet aura walk up to Uriel, shaking his hand. The pale blue of his aura suddenly turned red at his hand and partially up his arm. Then he walked over to another official looking man, who’s aura was a horrifying shade of sewer brown and the same red, except it had spread from his hand until it encapsulated almost all his body, eating away at his natural poop brown aura. The red all but oozed around him. The pale blue aura guy gave him some cash in the guise of a handshake, then walked over to the line of mannequins, I mean women, lined up on the couch. He picked one and her aura flashed an alarming grey color. The color of fear.

  I watched for a little while longer, and saw the pattern repeated. Except it wasn’t all men. Or singles. No matter what the color of their aura initially, as soon as they touched Uriel with the purpose of buying a woman, their auras changed irrevocably.

  “He’s marking them.”

  Michael nodded. “They know that the women are being sold, but they do not care. He is marking evil-doers. The mark eats at them, turning them to God. But it doesn't stop at loving thy neighbor. Mostly people marked by Uriel become zealots. Extremists.”

  I wanted to yell and scream at the injustice of it. I wanted to make Michael do something. But I was meant to be keeping a low profile.

  He is the reason these women are even here to be sold! How can he be doing God’s purpose if he is the root of all this suffering? I shouted in his mind. He winced.

  “You can mindspeak? That's interesting. Anything else?”

  I thought of Rella, of all her warnings about the good guys not necessarily being good just because they came from heaven. Uriel proved that. But Michael, with that tragic look on his face, well, I didn’t think he was a bad one. I wouldn’t tell him I could read angels though. That would be bad.

  “I’m empathic, and sometimes a little telepathic.”

  He raised his eyebrows, and smiled. “You are very special. I told Acerezeal that she did the right thing, but I didn’t realize how intrinsic you would be.”

  Angels talked in riddles, and Archangels were officially the worst. What I did know was that Michael could put a stop to this, right now. He was the Hand of God, he could squash this shit in a heartbeat. I reigned in my anger.

  “You could fix this. Why don’t you just go over there and send him back to whatever hole he crawled out of?”

  Michael threw back his head and laughed. The sound turned heads and made my heart sing. “That ‘hole’ as you so aptly called it, is Heaven. And I haven’t been told that he needs to be reigned in. The Hand of God I may be, but I am just the Hand. I can’t operate without instruction, and I just have to trust he has stilled me for a reason.”

  I stood, my eyes drifting to the ground in case he saw the fury and disgust in them. I heard him chuckling beneath his breath. “You have no awe for me at all, do you, Child of Acerezeal? Perhaps you will do what I cannot.”

  And with that, he was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I felt sick. Perhaps I’ll do what he can’t? Was he telling me to bring down Uriel for him? He was the fucking flaming sword or something. I could no more bring down Uriel than I could bring down Luc. I walked back to where I left Blue, who was still chatting to the Dungeon Monitor, almost companionably. I wondered if the DM was gay, because he seemed enthralled by Blue.

  “Have you been suitably punished, Princess?” he murmured just loud enough to be heard above the music.

  I nodded in what I assumed was a docile manner, looking up just enough so I could see the DM’s lanyard. I stiffened. His aura was green. Which wasn’t such a bad thing, it seemed like a ‘good’ color. No, my problem was that I was still seeing auras. Holy shit. Michael didn’t take it back. My panicked gaze shot to Blue’s face. He was pink. I mean, his aura was pink. I blinked, stunned by the warm color. Deep down, I worried that he would be the sludgy brown of the man in the alcove with Uriel.

  The DM laughed. “She’s a stubborn one, but they are the best. I like spirit myself. No one is fun when they are broken, you know? Maybe she’s a brat.” He smiled at me. Dammit, I was meeting people’s eyes again. I looked back down, but I had a feeling it was too late. Blue gave a choked laugh, but the DM just continued. “We have a cross available if you want to do a scene? Perhaps she will learn better with a stronger punishment?” The question was inherent in the man’s tone. He wasn’t presuming that was what I wanted. He was leaving it up to us. Consent, it’s key.

  “Hmm, I think you might be right. What do you think, Princess? Do you need to be punished more thoroughly?” Blue’s voice had dropped low, and I could feel his lust. Now, I could see his lust as it tinged his aura. This was so fucked up.

  But despite my new ‘ability,' I wanted what Blue was offering. Just once. I just wanted to know how it felt once. So I nodded.

  The DM saw my movement, and I knew he’d been waiting for my consent before he led us across the room. I looked up toward the alcove, but Uriel and his blindingly white aura was gone.

  “The rules aren't revolutionary, they are the same for most dungeons. Consent only, we insist on safe words. Green, Yellow, Red. No sex on the equipment. There are rooms in the back for that.”

  Blue made some sound of assent, and I stood before a huge X that had leather buckles on all points. I gaped. I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to my abduction, the restraints that tied my wrists and the way I was suspended to the ceiling. I sucked in a deep, shuddering breath as my heart hammered in my chest. I could do this. I was badass. This was another step in regaining control of my life, by trusting enough to give it up. I could do this.

  Blue leaned in close, his hand possessive but gentle on my hip. “Are you okay? We don’t have to do this. We can go home right now, no matter what we came for.”

  I didn’t tell him I’d already gotten all the information I came for, and then some. I was intrigued, and more than a little aroused by all the pheromones and emotions that were pouring through the room. My anger, the weight of Michael’s words, made me desperate to lose control just for a moment. To just be free. To feel something for myself.

  “I’m good. Let’s do this,” I whispered back, and gave him a crooked smile. Heat flared in his eyes, and I wondered not for the first time tonight, if he’d done this before. Was this Blue’s thing, or was he just caught up in the moment?

  He pressed a kiss to my lips, a soft, tender touch. “Turn around and face the cross, Princess.”

  Doing what I was told, I put my hands up toward the restraints and spread my legs. My skirt rolled up my thighs a little, and I could feel the air cooling the wetness of my lace thong. Blue restrained me with gentle hands, his fingers stroking across my flesh as he moved from my left wrist to my right, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Then he moved both hands down my sides and dropped to his knees behind
me. Running his hand down my left thigh to my ankle, I sucked in a breath. Then the he moved over to my right, securing it and tracing his fingers up the back of my knee before curling around my thigh to brush my center. I moaned. Loud. He hooked his fingers under the bottom of my skirt and pulled it up, baring my ass to the entire room. I tried not to feel embarrassed. There was just the two of us in this moment.

  He stepped away and I looked over my shoulder at him. He was standing a few feet away, staring at me as if I was the most beautiful piece of artwork he’d ever seen. He picked up something that looked like a multi-headed whip with a smooth black handle, the tiny metal studs that tipped each leather strand shining under the soft lights. Holy shit.

  Blue tucked it under his arm and stepped close again. “Eyes forward, Princess.” He ran his hand down my spine until he reached my ass. Cupping my cheek in his hand, he gave it a rough squeeze and then pulled his hand back and spanked it. Hard. I sucked in a breath, but didn’t let out a peep. Heat flooded my body and I felt like I was on fire. He pulled his hand back and smacked the other cheek, rubbing it soothingly afterwards. This time, I couldn’t help it. I moaned long and loud, and I could feel the wetness drip down my thigh. I wanted to rub my thighs together to get some kind of relief, but I was trapped. And I loved it.

  The handle of the flogger moved across my ass, dipping down to tease my thighs, so close to where I needed it. Then he pulled it away, but it wasn't long before I felt the studded flogger across the back of my thighs. He wasn’t landing it hard; it was more like a kiss of leather. Except the kiss was all teeth. Holy fuck.

  I didn’t realize I’d sworn out loud until I heard Blue’s dark chuckle. He pulled back and laid the flogger on the other side. He wasn’t doing it hard, just enough to sting, all the blood rushing to the area. He knelt behind me and licked the tender skin. Then he blew a soft gust of breath across the raised flesh. I dropped my head forward and shuddered. Down there, on his knees behind me, I knew that while he was in control, he was worshiping me as well. Like I was some kind of deity, just like he once accused me of being.