by Liza James
Snake like hands slither around my waist and force their way up my chest while Nathanial stays pinned to my front. “He’s right, you let me find you, sweet Stella. Every move you make, every dream you have, every time your Succubus breaks forth and takes control, it’s your direct signal to me.” Danner’s voice erupts behind my ear and my eyes widen in fear as I try to rip out of his hold. “Nathanial isn’t afraid of Leon because he doesn’t actually care for you. I’m the only one who does, do you see that now? That you could only ever belong to me?”
My heart hammers in my chest while a terrifying whimper leaves my mouth. I’m not turned on, no. It’s nothing like that, my body is screaming and fighting to get away from the man I’ve been hiding from all these months. Nathanial would never hand me over to him, this has to be part of his game. He wouldn’t do this.
My eyes dart up to his as I try to reach for his shoulders and pull myself out of Danner’s grasp. But he doesn’t accept me. His hands literally yank mine off and force them away while his eyes pinch in disgust and he separates himself from us.
“He’s right, Stells. I don’t give a damn about you, never did. I didn’t want to hurt you, honestly. But you gave me no fucking choice. You brought this on yourself, Danner was my only way to escape you.” He brushes his hands down the front of his black dress shirt as if he’s wiping any remnants of my touch from his flesh. Removing me, throwing me away. Then he fixes the sleeves and re-cuffs them after they’d been disheveled during our entanglement.
Danner’s fingers slip further up my stomach until they’re brushing against my breasts, groping me in ways I don’t fucking want. “No, no, no. You don’t believe that. I know you don’t,” I say quickly as I try to shove at Danner’s exploring hands.
“I do, Stella. I do. I have other… priorities. Things I have to take care of that don’t involve you.” His hand stretches to the side as he crooks a finger and calls someone from the woods.
I’m held firmly in place by Danner, whose voice is ghosting through my ears as he whispers deranged and filthy things. Oddly enough though, my Succubus is in no way attracted to what’s happening. She isn’t turned on, even though I’m familiar with Danner’s touch and voice. Even in my dreams, she perks up to the memories of his experience.
But right now? She’s angry. I’m fuming in both my Demonic and Angelic portions, betrayal and hatred seething through me while I’m being touched and condemned without my fucking permission.
Tears burst forth from my eyes when I see who emerges from the woods, and I don’t fucking understand how Luna could have possibly found her way out here. But she doesn’t look like she’s awake. It’s as if she’s sleep walking, completely lifeless while her form slowly steps towards Nathanial.
“What? Luna, wake the fuck up,” I shout, a new force of energy suddenly bursting through me while I try to pull out of Danner’s roaming hands. But he laughs, and so does Nathanial when she steps right up to him. Nathanial drops his hands to her shoulders, lightly tracing his fingers over her skin and around the back of her neck until he can gather her hair in one long cord. He slowly, deliberately, wraps the long length around his fist in a way that has my chest tightening in both jealousy and rage.
Where the fuck is Elijah? There’s no way in Hell he would ever let Luna leave the house alone. And he would know where she was, he’d feel it. Their bond is too strong, their union too tangible for him to ever let her leave without his knowledge. It simply isn’t possible.
And that fact right there, that’s what suddenly piques my interest and reminds me of something I heard earlier tonight.
“It isn’t real. None of it is,” Amelia’s soft voice floods my mind. A subtle reminder that I didn’t understand when she said it. She walked away without explanation, her anxious demeanor and unsteady hands had me focused on her mindset rather than her words.
I shut my eyes just as I see him yank her head back and one of his arms wrap tightly around her waist. “This isn’t real, it isn’t fucking real,” I say, but I think I’ve remembered too late because the flood of tears that spill from my eyes is uncontrollable. I can’t stop it now and my heart is racing so frantically in my chest that I’m having a hard time breathing.
“Oh, it’s real, sweet Stella. Feel my hands on your skin, hear the words I’m saying in your ear, the soft brush of my breath against your flesh. You know it is. Now open your fucking eyes and watch what happens when you give yourself to someone else. You belong to me, my sweet girl. No one else can have you,” Danner’s toxic words work through my mind and fill my head with fear. He can’t be right. This has to be what Amelia was referring to. It can’t be fucking real.
But I hear Luna’s breaths pick up speed and a pained whimper slip from her lips. “Let her fucking go, Nathanial. I’m not fucking around,” I shout, trying to force every ounce of steady strength into my voice and through the sobs taking over my lungs.
“Never, but if you look at what I’m doing, maybe you can say your goodbyes before it’s too late. I’m giving you that opportunity, Stella. I’m giving you a gift in the midst of this chaos.” I heave with terror and grief at my inability to fight this and save my sister. I need to do this for her. She’s been through too much already, she’s finally happy.
God, she’s so fucking happy.
I’m helpless, losing myself to this nightmare as it unfolds in front of me. I’m too fucking scared to open my eyes and see what he’s doing to her and I know I’m a coward.
I’m a fucking coward.
I’m weak.
I should have never agreed to come here tonight.
I struggle to tell myself it isn’t real because fuck, it feels real. Everything Danner is saying is right, I gave myself to Nathanial and now I’m being punished. I’ve ruined the lives of people I love because I didn’t give myself to Danner when he told me to. This could actually be his fucking punishment to me. Maybe he’s somehow used his talent to force Nathanial into hurting Luna.
But he can’t force his words. Those are all on him. At this point though? I fucking deserve it. I should have handed myself over when I had the fucking chance. I could have saved her, saved Luna and Elijah from this mess. My chest constricts with pain as my breaths burn through my lungs.
I’m a wreck now, sobbing uncontrollably while I force my eyes to stay closed and listen to sounds of my sister crying in front of me. I hear struggling, and I don’t know what he’s doing, but when Luna starts saying my name, I have to look. I have to see her face and meet her eyes while we both struggle against men who we trusted at one point in our lives.
“Stella,” she says again through heavy tears. I watch as Nathanial keeps his hold around her waist. But she’s facing me, while his hand lifts and a single knife coasts up the side of her arm and across her chest. The tip of the blade drags across the thin material of her pale night gown. It threatens to slice it open, but just as I’m thankful it doesn’t, it continues its path up toward her throat. Suddenly, Nathanial releases his hold on her waist and reaches for her hair once again, gripping it tightly and pulling her head back against his chest.
He exposes the long column of her soft neck, giving him easy access to the one thing I’m dreading he may do.
“No, wait. Nathanial, what are you doing?” I plead, tears spilling down my cheeks and soaking the dress I’m wearing.
“Stella, help. Please help me,” she begs, reaching a hand forward and struggling to grasp hold of me. I do the same, trying, forcing my way out of Danner’s hard grip but I can’t fucking reach her.
“I want to Luna, God. I want to,” I say as my throat constricts in painful cries. I can’t breathe, I can’t inhale any sort of breath while I watch my sister in Nathanial’s arms. The one man that gave me hope, the one person I trusted through everything. Even in his denials, even in his rejections, I trusted him. I needed him.
“I’m doing what I have to do, because you didn’t listen. You didn’t go to Danner when he called for you, and now we’re al
l paying the fucking price for it. Why couldn’t you just listen? You never obey, Stella. And actions have consequences.” Nathanial’s brutal voice cuts through my mind and severs me into countless pieces.
Destroying me. Reminding me. Ruining me.
“I’m sorry, okay? I’m so sorry. I’ll go, I promise. Just leave Luna alone. I’ll go with Danner,” I beg him just as my fingertips brush against Luna’s. But it’s hot, and my skin is slick with tension and a fear that consumes me. So, when I try to hold her, try to bring her to me, my fingers slip, and more cries escape her lips.
“It’s all your fault,” she whispers, her words poisoning me in a way only my own flesh and blood ever could. “I was finally happy, Stella. I love Elijah, I was finally happy.”
“I know,” I cry. “I know, I know you are. I’m so sorry.” I can’t stop this. God do I want to end this. I don’t even know where Danner’s hands are on my body anymore, I hardly feel his hard cock brushing along my ass, I didn’t even know he had lifted the hem of dress up and was trying to move behind me. I’m too focused on Luna, on how I can possibly stop this.
“Say goodbye, Stella,” he says as he dips the tip of the knife through the thin skin at her throat. She cries out and I watch as a thin stream of blood slips down and across her flesh. Tattooing her in a reminder that I’m the one who did this. That her death is my fault.
“No, no! Wait, please. Wait, Nathanial, don’t.” I can’t even form full sentences. I hardly have enough strength to speak, let alone stand, and my knees collapse below me. I crash to the ground as Danner’s hands suddenly loosen around my waist. Nathanial’s hand slowly moves to the left, that thin trail of blood falling in line behind the tip of his knife just as he’s about to slit my sister’s throat.
“No!” I scream as it tears from me in an explosion of pain and excruciating terror. But in that same instant everything disappears.
Nathanial. Luna. Danner. All of it.
Suddenly the knife is gone and any trace of footprints that prove anyone was ever here has vanished.
I struggle to sit up on my hands and look around, gasping and trying to catch my own breath as I try to make sense of what just happened.
It isn’t real.
The thought tunnels through my mind again and I slowly climb my way back to my feet, my chest heaving and gripping with the pain of how hard I was crying. A migraine splits through my head just as a burst of fire erupts in front of me.
I stumble back, shielding my eyes from the heat and light in the midst of this darkness.
This must be the door, the fucking portal to the Underworld. And that must have been the game I had to play. That was Lucifer’s trick, his manipulative mind game he finds so entertaining.
A new kind of rage boils low in my stomach and spirals through my limbs in refined energy. My Succubus reaches up and pulls at my mind, a mental slap to get it together, and I straighten my goddamn spine.
I step forward, braving the scorching flames as if they mean nothing to me. Because they don’t. I just lived through my worst nightmare. Nothing can touch me now.
Motherfucker. I’m coming for you, Lucifer. And I’m ready to join you in Hell.
I’m headed into the woods alone, hell bent on finding Stella the second I possibly fucking can. I don’t give a fuck what limitations or “rules” Lucifer placed over his disturbing games. He can shove it if he thinks I’m leaving her alone.
I tried my hardest to hide how I felt about her when he spoke through Esme’s body. I tried to seem indifferent, like I didn’t give two shits about her. Hell, I shoved her away and touched her unlike I’ve ever done before.
Without compassion. Without promise. Without trust.
Even when we fight, we connect. Even when I’m hurting her, I’m protecting her. When I’m being cruel, or I’m lying to her face, there’s a part of me that shows her something else. I can’t lie through every ounce of my being, because not every part of me is my own. Part of me is hers. Part of me belongs to her. And that part is the side she’s so attuned to. That’s the place she seeks when she wants my truth, and I’m fucked at hiding it from her.
Every second of every day, I want to consume her. Devour every flawed part of her. Control every thought she has, every move she makes, until she submits and accepts that she belongs only to me.
But, tonight was different. I was in a different place, a different mindset. I hadn’t seen Lucifer since we made our deal, and suddenly, it was far more important to me to keep her irrelevant to him than to make sure she felt like I was there to keep her safe.
Now though, I’m racing through the woods in hopes of catching up to her. Maybe explain what happened before her mind is whirled into whatever game he has planned. She left a while ago, and after I continued playing along with Lucifer, he told me it was time I entered my own personal Hell.
My eyes scan through the crowded trees, searching for a flash of her bright red hair, hopefully illuminated by the moonshine. I don’t see anything yet, so I slow my breaths and focus my hearing, intending to catch any traces of foot falls or heavy breaths that could lead me in her direction.
But there’s nothing, and my mind is distracted by the sounds that drift through the night. Broken branches, fleeting birds, the chirping of grasshoppers fill my ears and drown out my other senses. My heart rate picks up as I try to force the other sounds back, focus on the threaded connection I have to my Fated.
I pause my steps, taking a deep breath in and then exhaling out slowly. I close my eyes and in my mind, I only see my Fated. I see the enticing swell of her hips as she dances. Those seductive dips in her waist that are perfectly shaped for my hands alone. The way her skin flames and blushes when I’m around her. Her blue eyes are an oasis, simply waiting and watching as she so carefully processes everything that happens near her. They draw me in, seduce me all on their own and leave me aching to feel her milky skin pressed tightly against my body.
“Shit, Stells. There you are.” I freeze and open my eyes, listening to a voice that sounds oddly like my own. But it’s not me speaking, it’s not me who has supposedly found Stella because I still don’t fucking see her.
She answers, asking how I found her, and I reply as if it’s truly me.
Fuck no. Come on Stella, you can see through this.
I try to call out her name, see if she can hear me over the pretender who is in front of her. But there’s no response, just the continued hushed conversation between them, as if I’m only barely out of reach.
My heart thunders in my chest as I silently listen, straining to hear everything he’s saying to her. I start walking through the forest, in whichever direction I believe will bring me closer to her. Suddenly, their conversation turns toxic and my stomach twists at the things false me is saying.
“Stella!” I shout again, urging her to hear me. Focus on us, on our connection, know that isn’t fucking me.
But how can I be surprised that she’s possibly believing him? I’ve been cruel to her leading up to now. Even only a little while ago, I was shoving her away and treating her like she meant nothing. Lucifer’s fucking game, my actions played right into his palm. It was the perfect set up really.
I’m still walking, still shouting through the empty atmosphere when I hear Danner’s voice join the nightmare. Everything in me speeds up, my mind, my feet, my breaths. Everything begins sprinting in need to find her. I can’t let her go through this alone, or believe I really feel that way towards her. As if I’d ever let Danner get his fucking hands on her.
My only grain of mercy is that I know it isn’t truly Danner, it’s part of Lucifer’s game. Because there is no way that he would know where she is, or that we left to come to the woods tonight. She’s not asleep, he has no real access to her.
Doesn’t stop the damage from cresting though and it doesn’t stop the smoke screen of what I think is playing out before her from reaching the darkest, most dangerous parts of her mind.
I’m struggling to fucking f
ind her, struggling to maintain a calm position as I hear the toxic bullshit I’m spouting out. I’m destroying her, and Danner is playing right into it, magnifying her greatest fears and showing me exactly what she’s afraid will happen.
“Fucking hell, Stella! It isn’t me,” I say loudly, as it bounces around and into the black voided forest. Where the fuck is she?
Her cries become painful and they begin breaching my mind in a way that’s internally ripping me apart. I can’t focus on the thread of what we have while I listen to her beg and cry and plead with someone who is supposed to be me.
One thought crosses my mind, a fragile idea that roots itself as the only hope I can manage to hold on to. Maybe, if I bleed, my blood will call to hers. Maybe, if I open myself up to the possibility of bonding, without actually enforcing it, it will at least draw me closer to her.
I halt my movements and quickly pull out the knife I had hidden in the back of my slacks. Just in case it was necessary, just in case I needed to protect my fucking Fated from something like this.
I quickly flip my left arm so that the soft skin underneath is exposed, and slowly drag the tip of my blade through my own flesh. It’s a shallow wound, a clean cut, one I’ll easily be able to stitch up myself later if necessary. I clench my fist and then release in intervals, working the blood up so that it spills out and over my wrist.
I close my eyes again, trying to block out the destructively painful cries as Stella gradually unravels and try to focus on finding her again. I have to fucking find her.
“Tsk tsk, Nate-y. Now that just simply isn’t allowed,” Esme’s voice with the clear distinction of Lucifer fills my ears and I snap my eyes open.
She stands directly in front of me, her hands resting loosely at her sides when her head tilts just slightly, cocking one way as a bitter smile spreads her lips wide.
