Varina was offering herself to him. She had been since last night. And he, greedy bastard that he was, kept on taking. And taking. And taking.
Campbell bucked, his cock began to pulse with the rush of orgasm. He screwed his eyes shut, a hard whimper prying its way through his lips. He felt her mouth around him still, pulling hard as he spilled himself. Her lips remained around him until the last waves subsided. When she pulled away, she swallowed audibly, then peppered soft kisses on his softening penis.
Which naturally had him hard again within seconds.
Varina quirked an eyebrow and grinned at him. “Do you snort Viagra or something?”
Campbell smirked, the hand he had wrapped around her hair falling to cup her cheek. “Do I look like I need Viagra?”
“No, but you wouldn’t if you were already taking it.” She left his cock with a parting kiss, then climbed back up his body. “See, the point was to tire you out.”
“I don’t tire easily.”
“Hence the Viagra addiction.”
He chuckled, steadying his hands on her hips as she paused astride him, her swollen cunt now within view. “Still sore?” he asked, dragging his finger between her labia. “’Cause I don’t wanna hurt you.”
Varina rolled her eyes and guided him to her opening. “Like you could,” she said, and slid down.
This time, the guilt couldn’t be chased away. Not even by the glorious sight of his cock slipping in and out of her pussy, of Varina’s flushed skin, her sweat-plastered hair, or the soft bounce of her breasts.
Because he knew the truth—not only that he could hurt her, and very easily.
But that he would.
Campbell visited the Colosseum that night. The Colosseum as he remembered it from before—before the Seals, before the apocalypse, before Lilith. The intact, exposed hypogeum, the iconic crumbling façade that had been captured on numerous postcards and detailed extensively in too many books to count. There were no demons. No screams. No pain. The fear he felt when he thought of this place was absent as well.
Well, no, that wasn’t right. It was a different kind of fear—one tainted with a hint of foreboding, because he knew the calm wouldn’t last. It tagged alongside something else that felt familiar but still separate from what had been haunting him. Unlike the endless pit of dread, this sensation had a bottom—one that would shatter him when he finally reached it.
Between the two, he wasn’t sure which he preferred.
The air changed without warning, and he knew he was no longer alone. Something was behind him.
Campbell swallowed hard, his pulse thundering between his ears. He drew his hands into fists and forced himself to turn.
The face that met him was his own.
And it was smiling.
“Hello, Superbia.”
Campbell froze, his stomach twisting hard, his palms clammy. “You. I know you.”
The creature wearing his face inclined its head. “Well, I would hope so.” It raised a hand and rubbed along its jaw. “You’ve had enough time to recognize this ugly mug.”
The cold knot in his gut loosened, but only just. He forced a hard swallow and managed a step forward. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Neither are you. The battle is over.”
His heart squeezed. That couldn’t be right. It was here, he knew it was. Soon the sky would turn black and open, and his blood would stain the ground. He would stand on the brink of darkness, stare it down and it would laugh at him. For the world, life, and everything around him was eternal in some form, but he was not. Not the way he’d thought.
“Staying here isn’t going to change anything,” the false-Campbell said. “Staying here is only going to make you hurt.”
At that, the scar at Campbell’s side flared to life, twisting angry streaks of hot pain through his belly. He looked down and saw his shirt was soaked with blood. His heart took off at breakneck speeds. Campbell looked back to his doppelganger for help, but the other Campbell was gone.
Varina was there instead, barefoot and dressed simply in a pair of jeans and a white tee. Her hair hung loosely around her blank face.
“How much do you think I’ll bleed?” she asked, lifting up the hem of her shirt, revealing a wound similar to his. It ruptured with violent bursts of red under his stare. “How much will it hurt when I discover the truth, Superbia?”
And there it was. Campbell saw the bottom of the pit. Saw it now, seconds before he crashed.
He was being crushed.
Campbell’s eyes shot up as a hard, pained gasp burst through his throat. He lurched upright, blinking hard through the surrounding darkness as his racing mind fought through the fog.
Thick, pungent fog as it was. Fog that charged the air, had a texture and a taste.
An energy signature.
Legion.
His vision cleared that moment, and he realized the thing crushing him wasn’t a thing at all.
It was Varina. She had him straddled at the waist, her naked flesh pressing hard against him. A small, odd smile flirted with her lips.
He stared at her for a long second, the echoes of the dream sending horrific tremors through his body. Still the air didn’t clear. The weight remained.
“Wha—what?” Campbell scrubbed a hand down his face. “Var—”
Then he blinked and saw her clearly.
Her eyes were black spheres of ebony, and the smile wasn’t Varina’s at all.
Varina was gone.
22
“Hello, Superbia,” Legion cooed, its thick, watery voice making the room shake.
Campbell felt frozen and on fire at the same time. His brain fought against what he saw, the black pits of her eyes, the cold, bitter amusement chasing each word. His chest exploded and cracked, his throat growing tight as icy panic rooted him to the spot.
“I take it you’re surprised,” Legion continued. “Surely you hadn’t thought I’d gone for good.”
A spark of something warm flared in his gut, and Campbell seized it with gratitude. He closed his hands around Varina’s shoulders. “Fuck you,” he screamed. “Where the fuck is she?”
Legion cocked an eyebrow and tilted its head. “I do wonder about you at times. She’s in here, of course. You needn’t get so dramatic. I only wanted to catch up.” It grinned. “Like I said, Superbia, you’d be foolish to think I’d gone for good. As you know, a good possession takes time and opportunity. I was willing to wait.”
“You miserable fuck,” Campbell spat, the words braver than he felt. Which wasn’t saying much, because at the moment, he figured himself to be as far from brave as possible.
Legion chuckled, the sound low. If Campbell hadn’t known better, he’d have sworn the house itself trembled.
“I could say the same for you,” the demon said, twisting Varina’s lips into a sly grin. “A body is but a vessel, as you know. A person can be defeated, but destroying them altogether is a challenge few can conquer. You’ve done more than I ever could. How else do you think I could wheedle my way back under her skin so easily? Our girl’s defenses are down, down, down. I wouldn’t be here without you.”
Campbell forced himself past the panic. “You have to be a special kind of stupid, you know?” he said instead, desperate to find his way to equal footing. “I’m a small fish. You fuck with me, and Lucifer will spend the next eternity finding creative ways to make you cry uncle.”
“Oh, Daddy dearest? How is he?” Legion snickered. “And please. Lucifer has never frightened me. Never will. He is a weak, sentimental fool. Weaker, even, than you. Lilith nearly destroyed the world exploiting Lucifer’s limitations, and still he let the woman live. Too attached to the past to worry with the here and now, never mind what’s coming. Why else would he have sent you to me?” The demon tsked and shook its head. “Couldn’t see beyond his own weakness to sniff out yours.”
“Big talk for someone who’s survived by hiding inside little girls.”
Legion cackled ag
ain, raising its hands to cup Varina’s breasts. “Oh, I don’t know,” it purred. “Seems you’re partial to this little girl.”
Campbell’s brain went static. He lurched, flipping Varina off his lap and pressing her to the mattress beneath him. He ignored Legion’s haunting laugh and the suggestive glimmer in those black eyes, instead seizing Varina’s wrists and pressing them above her head—away from her body, away from his as well.
“You don’t touch her,” he snapped. “You want this to be personal? Fine, it’s personal. But you don’t fucking touch her.”
“Of course,” Legion agreed cheerily. “That’s your job, isn’t it? At least I am upfront about fucking her, Superbia. You managed to convince her she likes it. You managed to get her to suck demon cock. A true master of the art, you are. Bravo.”
In all his years, Campbell didn’t think he’d been in a situation comparable to this one—where he wanted to crush his enemy’s face, and his enemy’s face belonged to someone else. Where the person he wanted most to protect was the shield between him and the thing he had to destroy. Frustration manifested into a hot tight ball—he couldn’t strike her, couldn’t shake her, couldn’t burn the demon out. All he could do was scream.
And bear the brunt of Legion’s laughter.
“You got cozy,” the demon said. “Little Sin playing house. Sorry, little Sin. I don’t think the missus will let you stay once she sees what you really are.”
A thick haze of red filled Campbell’s vision, fury and terror colliding hard. In that moment, he wasn’t sure where to aim either, and the demon seized advantage of his weakness. Legion yanked Varina’s hands free and thrust her palms against Campbell’s chest as though trying to punch through bone, but Campbell went flying instead. He had felt a whip of air before his spine smashed against the dresser opposite the bed, knocking the wind out of his lungs and setting off fireworks behind his eyes.
How long he sat like that, he didn’t know. Every time he tried to lift his head, the air seemed to push him down, as though gravity itself had turned traitor on him. He heard the bed springs whine with Legion’s movements. Felt the shift in the room as Varina’s bare feet touched the floor, but Campbell couldn’t convince himself to move. All he could do was wait.
“What once was seven,” came Legion’s watery voice, “now becomes six. That’s where lies get you.” The boards in the floor creaked under Legion’s heavy steps.
Campbell’s breath hitched again, the tips of Varina’s toes coming into view. Still, he couldn’t lift his head. Couldn’t move at all. Dread pumped into his body, priming him for action, screaming at him to do something—anything—to keep what was coming from coming.
Then the demon knelt before him, bringing Varina’s naked breast into view. Legion funneled its hand across Campbell’s scalp, seizing a fistful of his hair and jerking back Campbell’s head so he had no choice but to meet Legion’s endless black gaze.
“Fear looks good on you, Superbia,” the demon said. “It humbles you, and that makes you more interesting. Not interesting enough to keep alive, sadly, but interesting nonetheless.” Something must have sparked behind Campbell’s eyes, for Legion chuckled again and shook its head. “Oh, now is not the moment. Though it would be fun to kill you like this, I see little reward. For me, at least. Killing you would wound her, but revealing you will destroy her. Wounded things fight back, but destroyed things? The body is as good as mine.”
Legion held his gaze a moment longer, smiling its cruel smile, then used its grip on Campbell’s hair to slam his head against the dresser.
This time, the fireworks he saw were chased by a thick curtain, and the world faded behind a wave of black.
“You see?” Legion whispered.
She’d forgotten how the demon talked to her, how it taunted and teased.
“Sorry to be the one to tell you, dear. But truly, you were asking to be had, weren’t you? You practically begged the man to lie to you.”
Varina looked through eyes she didn’t control at the imposter on the floor. She couldn’t feel at the moment, and for that she was glad. She didn’t want to feel this. She wasn’t sure she wanted to feel anything ever again.
God, she was such an idiot. Such a fucking idiot.
A demon. I fucked a demon.
“Not just any demon, either,” taunted the voice. “One of Lucifer’s own children, this one. Born from the Prince of Darkness himself. Superbia and I go way back, though in the past, he at least had enough respect for my work not to approach one of my toys. You understand, don’t you? Why I had to show you?”
Varina didn’t respond. She just stared at the naked heap on the floor—the man she’d invited into her home. Into her body. The man she’d…
No. Not a man.
An imposter.
A demon.
The first rivet of pain struck then. It radiated from her chest, sending hard throbs down her belly and across her shoulders. She felt it down her back and in her fingers and toes. It was so gradual she didn’t realize that her body was hers again until every inch of skin was an open sore. Until the pressure against her lungs and ribs demanded a deep breath of air, lest she collapse beside the man who had lied his way into her life.
She was so stupid. So fucking stupid. In all her years, that was the one crime Varina had never committed. She’d never been the fool. If she got hurt, it wasn’t for lack of awareness. Pain was something she controlled. She’d learned the hard way what happened when someone else had that power.
She’d given Campbell permission to break her.
Varina swallowed hard and wiped at her eyes. No crying. Not now. Crying would come later.
Now demanded action.
Varina hurried across the hall to her room—the room she had happily abandoned the night before to bury herself in Campbell’s arms. She found her duffle and began tearing through it, hardly recognizing the things inside as belonging to her. She forwent underwear and socks, slid into cargo pants and a tank, then pulled her hair into a messy ponytail.
She needed her knives, her tools. She needed the things she used to cut down the demons that got too close.
She needed to throw herself out of the freaking window.
Goddamned idiot.
Her weapons were scattered and, in the heat of the moment, unfamiliar. Images she had toyed with just days earlier—of dragging a blade against Campbell’s flesh to protect herself—surfaced like pieces of a forgotten nightmare.
Who had she been? How had Campbell convinced her to become someone else? How had she let herself believe it?
Even now, the blades of her knives felt large and awkward in her hands.
It was wrong. Everything felt so wrong.
A moan sounded from across the hall. Campbell was stirring. Varina’s heart jumped into her throat and she forced herself to move.
When she strapped her feet into her combat boots, something inside her calmed.
He was a demon. She knew what to do with demons.
Another moan tore through the air, and her heart twisted.
She just didn’t know what to do with this one.
Hopefully, it would come back to her.
23
As a child, Varina had endured by pushing herself to the back. Not feeling meant not hurting. Not hurting meant not showing vulnerability.
She needed to do it again.
Somehow, Varina managed careful, measured steps across the hall. She found Campbell approaching consciousness, his weight braced on one arm, his free hand cupping the back of his head.
Her heart aching for a demon.
Varina swallowed hard and shoved it down. She distracted herself by imagining cartoon birdies dancing around the demon’s head.
“Varina?” he called, his voice weak. “What…”
Then Campbell looked up, his lying eyes connecting with hers.
And she knew he knew.
“Get up,” Varina said. “Superbia, is it?”
The look on his face
was one she knew she would carry with her for the rest of her life. No matter where the next few minutes took her, she would never be able to put the pain that flared behind his gaze aside, nor the panic that had his mouth tightening, his breaths coming hard and fast. The thing that might have been mistaken for sorrow by a dumber person.
But she was through being dumb.
Campbell’s throat worked. He started to pull himself to his feet.
“Slow,” she warned, raising the blade in her right hand more as an afterthought. “Move fast and I’ll reopen that scar of yours.”
Campbell raised his hands and drew to his feet. He didn’t look away from her face.
Which was unnerving as fuck.
Varina blinked. “Get dressed.”
He exhaled and edged a step forward. “Va—”
She moved back just as fast, raising the blade higher. “Don’t. Don’t you dare come near me. Just get dressed. Now.”
The silence that settled between them was the thickest in her memory. He looked at her with those pained eyes, the wheels clearly turning behind them. She wondered if he knew how she knew, if he would try to wrestle the knife from her. If she looked remotely threatening to him at all, given how he’d dismantled her piece by piece.
Then he was clothed—completely without having moved an inch. His flesh covered by a black T-shirt and jeans right there in front of her. Out of thin fucking air. He maintained eye contact the entire time.
Varina stared. She felt her lower lip quivering and couldn’t manage to stop it. She didn’t realize her feet had carried her farther back until her ass hit the wall.
“Oh god,” she said, her voice hoarse. Shit, she was going to lose it. “Oh god.”
“I know.”
“You know? You know?” She raised the blade, her hand trembling. “Just a question here, Superbia, what was the fucking end game? You get me to fall for your bullshit, sure, but where from there? It’s not like I have anything left to take.”
Deliverance from Sin: A Demonic Paranormal Romance (Sinners & Saints Book 5) Page 22
